All the Presidents Men

All the Presidents Men

In one scary poll last week American voters picked a gun-toting, Kazak-kicking grump with a female VP as their ultimate President. The good news is that James Marshall is only make-believe. As far as we know the actor who played him, Harrison Ford, has no plans to stand for the job in real life, and there isn’t even any prospect of a sequel (“Air Force One Two”, anyone?).

In this poll, the runner up was America’s first black President, Morgan Freeman, who tried and failed to avert disaster in Deep Impact by asking a joint US-Soviet space mission to plant nukes on an incoming comet. 6.6 billion dead – hardly the most inspiring precedent for President Obama.

Other African American Presidents include Dennis Haysbert in the TV series 24 – who seemed to operate an open door policy for nuclear terrorists – and Chris Rock in Head Of State, who looked lost most of the time.

He didn’t make it to the top job and he wasn’t really black, but a more sympathetic proto-Obama candidate was Senator Jay Billingsworth Bulworth (Warren Beatty) in Bulworth. Sick of his own compromised campaign clichés, Bulworth takes out a contract on his own life, and dedicates his last three days on earth to telling the voters some unpalatable home truths: that the black constituency needs to unite behind someone who really cares about them, for instance; someone who will redistribute the wealth, take on the insurance companies to bring in universal health care, and isn’t afraid of the word “socialism”. Oh, and he advocates “procreative racial deconstruction” too (preferably with Halle Berry).

With the notable exception of Peter Sellers’ President Merkin Muffley in Dr Strangelove, Hollywood Presidents were treated with more reverence in the past: they were played with quiet dignity and authority by men like Henry Fonda, who served three terms over four decades. He was Young Mr Lincoln for John Ford in 1939, an unnamed Commander-in-Chief in the 1962 Cold War drama Fail Safe, and did a better job with the asteroid crisis than Morgan Freeman in 1979’s Meteor (though not before New York was obliterated).

It was Richard Nixon, more than any filmmaker, who undermined the respect that used to be accrue to his office, not only because he was judged complicit in dirty tricks (see All the President’s Men and the wave of conspiracy thrillers that came out in the mid 70s) but because the Watergate case brought his Oval Office audio tapes into public scrutiny. No one would have imagined Hank Fonda getting drunk on the job and cursing like a reactionary Seth Rogen, but that’s how “expletive deleted” Dick carried on for posterity.

Tricky Dick is back on the big screen next year with Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon; Frank Langella doing the honours as the disgraced President, and Michael Sheen sucking it up as David Frost. But Langella will have his work cut out to eclipse Anthony Hopkins’ performance in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, probably the most rounded and complex celluloid portrait of any President, real or imaginary.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a movie President you might actually want to vote for (and not just because he can kick terrorist butt), then it would probably come down to Bruce Greenwood as John Kennedy in Thirteen Days, or one of those engaging, can-do Clinton-era surrogates: John Travolta in Primary Colors, Bill Pullman in Independence Day; Kevin Kline in Dave; Jeff Bridges in The Contender; Michael Douglas in The American President, Martin Sheen in The West Wing.

These heroic Presidents seem to have fallen out of favour over the last eight years, whether in reaction to the cold realities of 9/11 and the war in Iraq, the “stolen” election of 2000, or simply because a Republican was back in the White House.

Right now George W. Bush wouldn’t have a prayer with the US electorate. His approval ratings are about 22 percent. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t translated into box office gold for Oliver Stone’s biopic W. (which opens here this week). Even the prospect of Bush getting Stoned – which the marketing has played up – isn’t attracting too many moviegoers in the US; you get the impression they’d rather forget the whole thing and move on.

Moviemakers likely feel the same way. Whatever else an Obama Presidency comes to represent, it’s likely to inspire more White House dramas than Bush has – and I’m guessing there will be plenty of work for Will Smith in particular, an actor who has kicked around a few political aspirations himself, and who seems ready made to take on the top job – if only on the screen.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com