One of the things film critics do for a living is to pay close attention to how people behave, and how that behavior is presented through visual media. This applies not only to actors playing characters, but to people who play themselves, in fictional or nonfictional settings, on and off the screen. It should come as no surprise to learn that some of our best movie critics have backgrounds in psychology.
When Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sex with that woman," it now seems impossible to believe that he fooled anyone at that particular moment. But if any movie critic misread Clinton's voice and body language, that critic should have been impeached. As opaque as the clumsy verbal gymnastics of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin may often be, behind the contortions it's hard to avoid seeing the painful truth, which is simply that they don't know what their own words mean, and even when they know what they've been told to say they don't know how to communicate it. As actors, they're thoroughly unconvincing: You can see the wheels turning inside their heads -- only the gears aren't even engaged. There's a lot of whirring and spinning, but nothing happens. That can be excruciating to watch, but it's also the stuff of modern comedy. Christopher Guest, Ricky Gervais, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert and the whole Judd Apatow crew come to mind.
Patrick Goldstein, writing in the Los Angeles Times, argues that film critics like Roger Ebert, sophisticated in their knowledge of media presentation and human behavior, make more insightful political pundits than the usual beltway-bubble spin-docs employed by television, radio, print and online outlets. In a piece called "From film critic to political pundit," Goldstein writes:
To me, film critics, like TV and theater critics, are especially well equipped to analyze today's politics, which is why Frank Rich made such a seamless transition from theater to media and political commentator. In fact, in some ways film critics are probably better equipped to assess the political theater of today's presidential campaigns, since our campaigns are -- as has surely been obvious for some time -- far more about theater and image creation than politics.
Goldstein's point seems perfectly evident to me (see my July post, "The Selling of the President 2008"). Just last week, Roger Ebert took notice of John McCain's dismissive behavior in the first presidential debate and wrote a piece he called "Guess who's not coming to dinner," which he addressed to McCain:
During the debate, Jim Lehrer repeatedly called upon both candidates to speak directly to each other. Obama looked at you. He addressed you as "John," which as a fellow senator is his privilege. His body language was open. You stared straight ahead, or at Lehrer, or into space. Your jaw was clinched. You had a tight little smile, or a grimace, or a little shake of your head.
I had to do two things at once while watching the debate. I had to listen to what was being said. And I had to process your rigid and contemptuous behavior. If you were at a wedding and the father of the groom refused to look at or speak to the bride, how would that make you feel? Especially if you were the father of the bride?
Goldstein continues:
As far back as the Kennedy-Nixon debates, and certainly since the era of Ronald Reagan's media mastermind Michael Deaver and campaign operative Lee Atwater, political campaigns have revolved around the dark art of media manipulation, in particular in their use of campaign-commercial image-making to engage our emotions and fears instead of our ideas or intellect. Filmmakers have known this for years, which is why so many gifted directors, including Oliver Stone ("JFK," "Nixon," "Talk Radio" and the upcoming "W"), Warren Beatty ("Reds," "Bulworth" and as an actor-writer-producer on "Shampoo") and Ron Howard ("EDtv" and the upcoming "Frost/Nixon") have eagerly dissected the messy intersection of media and politics.
If filmmakers have found fertile ground doing it, why shouldn't critics explore it too? Ebert's assessment of Palin as an "American Idol"-style aspirant was also right on the mark. He shrewdly saw her as a wish-fulfillment fantasy, understanding how powerfully her seemingly down-home, small-town vibe connected with the average American voter -- who, having largely declined to pay any attention to much real political reporting, doesn't know any more about politics than "Idol" viewers know about music.
Please note that Goldstein wrote the above days before the latest, gaspingly funny of Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin:
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Let me catch my breath. Speaking as a critic and aficionado of comedy, I would like to opine that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler won't have to do a thing to that script to make a hilarious sketch on the next "SNL."Again, that's not a political statement; it's just a critical observation of the comedy of human behavior.
Great piece Jim. Goldstein is right on, and Ebert, of course, is brilliant. I wonder if this country could actually handle the "other" kind of politics we imply when we critique the politics we have - that is, real debate, substantive articulations of positions, multiple issues and perspectives, and more than only one party with two factions. Regardless, it mystifies me why McCain has more than ten points in the polls. I'm stumped.
And I've been to Alaska. It's a beautiful place. I lived and worked there for a summer. It certainly is a microcosm, maybe not exactly of America, but of something.
Okay fine Jim. So what do you think of Ms. Sarah in these clips?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYaJkWUBP3s
(Please note the above was assembled by The Huffington Post, rather than just some amateur conservative blog.)
Also, would you be willing to make a guess that the above about film critics and pundits is true in reverse? Do you think George Will would make a good film critic? Maureen Dowd? David Brooks, Paul Krugman, David Frum? Michael Medved perhaps? (Oops, never mind about that last one...) ;-)
While I agree Fey is certainly talented, she's hardly much more than a TV-friendly face credited with the work of much funnier women on SNL - her "head writer" status only made her responsible for some of the worst years of SNL ever in the history of the show. Remember when the show was (and still is) at it's worst? It was on her watch, fellas. I don't even want to get into "30 Rock".
Sarah Palin is too easy a target to mock, and the Tina Fey "impersonation" is so spot-on, right now it's the easiest job in the world for her. There's no challenge. There's no inspiration. There's only derision and sarcasm with no terrible, hard answers for the future. That's not comedy. That's a full-on tragedy playing itself out.
qdpsteve: Great Palin clips. Thanks for that. I'd heard Alaskans say she was at her very best in state and local debates -- and there you go. Surely, these must show her at her best. Expectations should be high for her. (It makes me sick when I hear people say about GW Bush or Palin that they can and do "win" by keeping expectations as low as possible and then meeting or even exceeding them. That's the standard we set for choosing a president or vice president?)
I admit it's hard for me to take people seriously when, for example, they pronounce the word "deciding" as if it were "des-eye-deen," but Palin's better than many candidates at pumping out the info here. If you look in her eyes, especially in the first clip, she seems to lapse into auto-pilot a bit -- though she seems no more pre-programmed than most politicians when they're churning out prepared debate material. Anyway, this makes me look forward to the VP debate even more. She should be on her game. (And by that I don't mean moose.)
As for those pundits you mentioned as possible film critics: I don't think so. Dowd misread George W. Bush so badly during the 2000 campaign that I've never trusted her again. I find Brooks infuriatingly dunderheaded -- given to making the same simplistic categorical statements again and again (there's always This Thing, That Thing, and then the New Thing David Brooks Has Named). Krugman was perceptive enough to get Bush and Iraq and the current economic disaster right from the start -- I would like to talk to him about movies. Frum boasts that he came up with the phrase "axis of evil." Enough said. Medved... well, I think he peaked with "The Golden Turkey Awards," co-written with his brother Harry back in 1980. Although they were dead wrong about "Plan 9 From Outer Space."
I'm voting Ebert/Emerson in 2012!
Re: Palin's (one-time?) debate skills (as evidenced in qdpsteve's link above):
Yeowza.
So apparently Governor Palin has either been 1) abducted by aliens and replaced with an inept automaton, 2) encouraged to act as goofily, cutely uninformed as possible to appeal to the "good ol', down home, she's-just-like-the-rest-of-us" crowd (i.e., "Aw, isn't she cute, mixing up her words and not knowing what the hell to say in the face of specific queries regarding significant political issues"), or 3) (and this is probably the most likely ... and the most tragic) so heavily groomed, PR-ed and ideologically "airbrushed" to fit into the modern, media-managed presidential campaign setting that she's completely lost touch with her own voice, ideas and core values. She can no longer express her own political views because she no longer knows what they are.
Freaky.
We'll see if this reading holds up come debate time, of course, but all of a sudden I'm much more interested in / curious about the heretofore "written-off-as-a-punchline" event. I even begin to wonder (following the logic of #2, above) if the McCain/Palin PR crew -- in cooperation with the Ms. K.C. interview team -- didn't intentionally manufacture these abysmal showings by Palin in order to set up for / deliver an unexpected knock-out punch at the VP debate...? Is this getting too insidiously conspiratorial / paranoid?
And hey, did I miss something or did Goldstein just refer to Ron Howard as a "gifted director"?
OK, Alaska may be a microcosm of America. But most Americans (including Alaskans) who read newspapers are able to come up with the name of at least one of them. This woman can't even do that.
I would say I agree if you're only talking about the theatrical/superficial aspects of the candidates as they appear before the cameras. Reading their body language in terms of how they're trying to come across, but not what they're actually thinking, or whether there's truth to what they're saying. I think it's somewhat deceiving to suggest that you as a critic can decipher the true motivations or knowledge of the candidate in regards to their stage presence. It's kind of like saying you know the real motivations of an actor just by deciphering those of their onscreen characters. I'm sure a lot of critics think they do, but most of them would probably be wrong.
Judging by the contents of this blog, if all political pundits were movie critics it would mean that America had become a one party state, and shrill, wasteful socialist dogma ruled the land. God, you'd think this place was the Huffington Post sometimes for all the one-sided, far left invective thrown about with nary a voice to check your arrogance.
Jim, you get paid (very nicely at that) to pretend the real world doesn't exist for two hours. Why should Americans invest their futures in what you think? Movie critics (like Roger E. in that pitiful blog he wrote after the Presidential debate) see a successful troop surge in Iraq and rush to promote a plan of failure instead. Movie critics overwhelmingly pick a man who lists "community organizer" with a straight face on his job resume over a war vet with a 22-year Senate voting history of supporting strong Defense policies and run the former against the latter for COMMANDER IN CHIEF! Movie critics blindly follow a man whose reheated bleats of "change" and "future" are defined by economic notions proven false in the 60's; a reheated, inflated tray of "Great Society" pork tossed in the face of the American voters who still pride individualism and hard work over collectivist central control, bloated welfare budgets and income redistribution.
Movie critics support a man who not only believes that a universal healthcare system is a feasibly idea in a tough economic climate but that it is somehow "moral" to take from the paychecks of those of us who work for a living to pay for his socialist safety net (boondoggle). Movie critics back Obama even when he doesn't understand that it is deeply disturbing and wrongheaded in a capitalist nation for a politician to promote using the federal tax as a hammer in some bullcrap notion of class warfare. Taxes are there to maintain a standing army and build roads, NOT to crush the innovation and technological advances the profit motive gives America's labor forces*****.
Yet given all we know about Barack Obama, Jim and Rog and nearly EVERY OTHER major professional film critic can still support his laughable bid to occupy the highest office in a land he doesn't understand (with a cast of characters from his wife to his reverend that show blatant contempt for the country he'd lead). Just Be grateful you get paid to review movies and let the guys who actually give a damn about America lead her.
***** Why work harder to get a better station in life for yourself or your family when the FedGov decides to make the "heartless rich" the bad guys and take all your newfoundnd riches away again? (BOO! HISS! They make more money than me, and therefore are evil and must be punished. Give me their money instead, MORE TAXES!)
I remember a funny Pfeiffer cartoon about Ronald Reagan...it was a person lamenting that, even though all politicians are expected to say anything to get elected, she felt let down by Reagan because, once elected, he did exactly what he said he was going to do...
JE: Funny, though. Reagan always said he thought government was too big. And yet he increased the size of the federal government, increased spending, increased the budget deficits, and increased the national debt more than any modern president. Oh, and increased the country's tax load by 65 percent! Still, I don't think Reagan said things he didn't believe. He just didn't act in accordance with what he said.
I notice he hasn't reviewed American Carol.
Gee, I thought members of the media were supposed to non-biased.
JE: Where did you get that idea? Don't you watch Fox or MSNBC? The makers of "American Carol" didn't press screen their movie in advance of its opening yesterday. Some critics refrain from reviewing movies they haven't been allowed to see -- at least until after they've seen them. I expect the reviews to begin showing up shortly after Sarah Palin's next (first?) press conference. Right now there are only eight on rottentomatoes -- almost all from web outlets. Me, I'm sick in bed and will be sleeping most of the weekend.
"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made."
Jean Giraudoux (1882 - 1944)
So, were we all impressed with Biden's sincerity when he talked about Katie's Restaurant, where he "spends a lot of time"? (But which has been closed for many years?) He used the words "my neighborhood" three times. Have you seen his neighborhood?!
And were we impressed with his vast knowledge of Constitutional law and foreign affairs? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,433314,00.html
Movie critics are no less gullible than any other rubes.