Would President Reagan Have Knelt Before Zod?

Following a several month long hiatus, I have decided to resurrect this blog for three reasons.

1) It is a useful means of procrastination.

2) To plug the possibly short-lived Three Weeks in America, the musings of my sister as she ambles round the States.

3) Because the presidency looks like it will be getting some attention in the near future, and I may as well Be Part of History as well.


So anyway, we all get much of our understanding of the presidency from its on-screen representations. Clips such as the one below inform us about how the office works, how it reaches decisions and acts upon them, as well as inform American identity with dramatic representations of important historical moments:




So this raises a few questions. How would Senators Obama and McCain act in such a situation, and do we want a president who would, in the end, kneel before Zod? Personally, I am surprised this wasn't raised in any of the debates - it's an important foreign policy issue. Reagan talked often about the potential of an extra-terrestrial threat, though this was in the context of how it might unite the interests and identity of the US, the USSR and the world in general. He never specifically addressed how he might act, as far as I know, in the face of an invasion by rogue Kryptonians (he did watch Superman II, though, at Camp David on 16th June, 1981). I suspect it may have been much like in the film: try to fob the alien off with Mike Deaver, then submit with an air of noble defiance. Pretty much the best you could hope for in that situation. Maybe Reagan, though, would never have allowed Superman to wander off and give up his powers in the first place.

I have a feeling that this might be Obama's course of action as well, while McCain would try something more reckless and angry, maverick if you will (is he even able to kneel?). But then what have you got? One dead president - and the choice between millennia of Kryptonian tyranny or President Palin. You decide.

Roger Johnson on the State of the Union

Who is this odd-looking person writing for the New Statesman?

Oliver Stone and History.

In the past two days I have submitted myself to two lengthy, ambitious films by Oliver Stone, each dealing with formative and critical events of recent American history: yesterday, World Trade Centre (2006); this afternoon, Nixon (1995). Beyond sharing an author and seeking to truthfully depict the important past, however, they are hugely dissimilar movies.

WTC portrays an event in extreme close up through the experiences of a handful of characters: two policemen trapped beneath the rubble, their families, and their rescuers. It is confined physically by the large portion of scenes which take place within the collapsed trap of the towers, or the smoke-shrouded, hulking rubble above. It is confined thematically by its limited focus. We get little sense of the broad political impact and intent of the attack, much less its consequences in the years to follow. We do not get a complete impression of the immediate response in New York, nor do we even see the attacks themselves (as if we really need to); the main characters are buried by the first tower with only the barest knowledge of what is going on. The film discards a broad scope in favour of an intensified portrayal of the responses and experiences of a few individuals. In this, it is something of a failure, particularly in comparison to the incredible United 93. It feels hackneyed and dull, rather than harrowing and inspiring.

Nixon has a much more expansive narrative, being both a biography and a portrait of an era. It is certainly not either hackneyed or dull, but is rich, deep, involving and completely mad. It may even have earned a position amongst my favourite films, but that might just be because it has the brilliant Bob Hoskins camping it up as J. Edgar Hoover. History is a central theme to the story, and not just in that it recollects events and people which reverberate in American memory (and will always do so). History is a deep concern of Hopkin's caricature of Nixon, his own impact on it, and what he can learn from it.

As he descends into the consuming mire of power, he seeks solace from his peers. In the corporeal world, these are Mao and Brezhnev. On meeting, the former urges Nixon - suddenly uncomfortable - to recognise what he is: " You're too modest, Nixon. You're as evil as I am. We are the new emperors....Why are you so interested in peace? The real war is in us. History is a symptom of our disease." Later, Brezhnev laments the tragedy of a great man felled by petty circumstance. When he recognises his fate, it is not how he will be remembered by his own people that initially concerns him, but how he will figure in the memories of his two contemporary equals in power as they continue their reigns and he drifts, small and criminalised, into obscurity. Nixon also turns to the only others who can match him - his predecessors, the former presidents whose ghostly portraits coldly observe his apparent mania. It is Lincoln who haunts Nixon the most (though neither can he escape the spectre of Kennedy). In the president who fought a bloody civil war, ruled over a divided America, and wielded an unprecedented imperial power, Nixon seems to find a kindred spirit, perhaps imagining that he too will one day be carved reverentially in marble, at last loved by his people. Nixon is epic, dramatic, illusionary history, shot with with an hallucinatory style that weaves together the emblematic images of the sixties and Nixon's own memories, and evokes a paranoia that may belong to author, or subject or both. Stone presents a dark, apocalyptic tale of America's past - cautionary, revolted and delightful.

Nixon's burden is to represent a divided, darkened, and savage America - not politically, but as a reflecting symbol. WTC also serves to represent America through symbolic characters and historic events, but here Stone exonerates his country. The theme is bravery, and hope. Nic Cage tells us that in 9/11 we remember not the evil that is possible in man, but the good that arises in response to it. America is not about plotting in gloomy White House offices, or the heady weirdness of international politics, but, if the first few pre-attack scenes are anything to go by, local democracy, baseball, country music and the daily work of ordinary citizens. Post attack, America is about recovery, family and community. There is also an interesting religious aspect to it - the ex-marine who finds our trapped heroes is told by God to go to New York and help; he ignores the organised rescue effort and goes on alone into the night, as if with the vague knowledge of the part he is destined to play. As he approaches, one of the trapped men sees a momentary image of Christ within the flames above. God, we feel, is protecting and inspiring America in it's time of crisis. Not so in Nixon, where religion, like everything else, comes across as distorted and weird. In one great despairing moment, Nixon pleads and harangues Lincoln's portrait in the Oval Office: "What is it about death, Abe? Who's helping us, is it God, or is it death?" At the end, the president bleakly describes himself as America's blood sacrifice to its Gods of war.

Stone can certainly make some strange movies. Perhaps more on this, when I finally get around to watching The Day Reagan Was Shot, produced by Stone, starring Richard Dreyfuss as Al Haig.

The Reagans (2003)

"This film is a dramatic interpretation of events based on public sources. Some scenes and characters are presented as composites"

So I was warned as I settled down to watch this three hour film of the story of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, their family and their White House (originally conceived as a miniseries for CBS). Pedant that I am, I was pleased to spot a historical inaccuracy in the very first minutes, where Michael Deaver comes to warn the couple of Senator Tower's conclusions in his investigation into the Iran-Contra affair, distracting Ronald from a western on the television. Deaver had in fact resigned from Reagan's staff two years previously, and was, or would soon be, facing his own investigation into his practices as a Washington lobbyist. Such factual deviations litter the film, but don't truly ruin it, and I won't insist on boringly listing everything it gets wrong - fun as it may be.

It was questions of interpretation, rather than detail, which caused the controversy. CBS decided to pull the series from its primetime autumn schedule, broadcasting it instead later in the year on its smaller cable channel Showtime, following angry preemptive reactions from conservatives, accusing bias and distortion. Though I haven't yet done anything near a full survey of the criticisms, they seem to fall into two categories. First, that James Brolin's Reagan speaks words which are unverifiable, untrue and ill-reflecting, in particular a comment about God and AIDS which was excised from the final cut (though similar to a comment Edmund Morris ascribes to his subject in his biography, Dutch; Dutch, of course, met it's own criticism). Secondly, that the characters of Ronald and Nancy are portrayed derogatively - Ronald as doddering, shallow-minded and not in control; Nancy as manipulative and astrology-obsessed. Also, the pair of them as distant and neglectful parents. However, in broad-stroke, these are characteristics which are apparent in all but the most simpering, hagiographic literature on the Reagans. Also, though the film is a drama, and dramatises these attributes in a pretty clunky manner, it takes pains to nuance its subjects with more positive, admirable qualities - love, compassion, ambition, principle, wit, and so on. Again, qualities that seep through into all but the most simplistic anti-Reagan hatchet jobs.

I suspect that the conservative reaction to the film was more rooted in an instinctive horror at an attempt to represent the Prophet, particularly a representation smeared with the fingerprints of the dastards of the 'liberal media', and motivated by the film's handling of Reagan's political achievements, which are the framework of his current iconic status. At least, his partisan iconic status. Essentially, they are breezed through and overlooked. His principles and ideology are reduced to a few already familiar soundbites, and events broken down to simple, signifying scenes. My favourite is one set in 1986, where George Schulz (a cipher of a character) rushes into the Oval Office waving a piece of paper: "Mr. President! You've ended the Cold War". US-Soviet relations are not mentioned for the rest of the film, replaced by the apparently more dramatically interesting internal machinations of Iran-Contra.

There's much more to be said about this, and about the manner in which it constructs Reagan's life and American history in general, but I sense this is getting too long, and will sign off with my own critical response. Not very good, really - though it is possible my own familiarity with the story added to the sense that it was simply covering events one-by-one. Judy Davis gave the best performance, but that still felt a little Dynasty (not that I've ever seen Dynasty). I was, however struck, not for the first time, by the filmic potential of Reagan's life. In general, it has great dramatic and visual possibilities, and a better script and actor could get alot of mileage out of Reagan's character (Brolin really just gives a passable impression of the President - as well as a good one of Reagan doing Carter). There is also great comic potential in Reagan's administration, which was enjoyably but tantilisingly explored here. Psychotic Al Haig, ever-mumbling Bill Casey, creepy and sly Don Regan, and the apparently inseparable troika of Deaver, Baker and Meese popping up in doorways and muttering their schemes ("You're always looking at each other" yells a justifiably paranoid Haig) - all this raised a chuckle and should definitely be made into a sitcom.

Someone should have a proper go at filming Reagan. Maybe Scorcese, when he's finished doing Edmund Morris's Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, should make a film of Morris's semi-fictional Dutch? That would be very post-modern, bound to piss everybody off.