After you vote, take a break from red and blue maps to enjoy some of the portrayals of real US Presidents on screen.
Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for Lincoln. I’ve already written about some of the many other movie versions of Lincoln’s life. “Wilson” stars Oscar nominee Alexander Knox in a dignified tribute to the 29th President. Gary Sinese gave a powerful performance in the HBO movie, Truman. Rough Riders has Tom Berenger as Theodore Roosevelt, leading Cuban rebels against Spain.
Perhaps the most fanciful portrayal of a real US President is “The Remarkable Andrew,” with William Holden as an honorable accountant who discovers a discrepancy in the town books and is visited by the ghost of his favorite President, Andrew Jackson (Brian Donlevy), who provides guidance and support.
President Kennedy’s WWII experience was the subject of PT 109, starring Cliff Robertson. He was also the subject of 13 Days, about the Cuban missile crisis. Oliver Stone has directed movies about Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins (who also played a memorably cagy John Quincy Adams in “Amistad”), and George W. Bush, played by Josh Brolin. President Nixon has been portrayed in a number of other films, from the acclaimed Frost/Nixon to the humorous but touching Elvis and Nixon and the wild satire Dick. And of course he is the subject of the Oscar-winning Best Picture All the President’s Men, though he is only glimpsed in archival footage.
The Butler is based on the true story of a man who worked in the White House for eight Presidents, and we see everyone from Eisenhower to Reagan portrayed in the film. Of course Reagan himself was an actor before he went into politics. His best films include “King’s Row” (his own favorite), “Hellcats of the Navy” (co-starring with Nancy Reagan), and, yes, “Bedtime for Bonzo.”
There are some great President movies made for television: Gary Sinese gave a superb performance in Truman and Bryan Cranston was outstanding in the role he originated on Broadway, Lyndon Johnson in All the Way.
Slate’s Heather Schwedel notes that Rachel McAdams has now appeared in four movies where her job is to sweetly (well, one of them not so sweetly) stand by as the man in her life travels through time, while she herself is stuck like the rest of us, moving forward a minute at a time.
Maybe if McAdams herself could go back in time, she’d rethink her agreement to appear in “The Hot Chick.” But I side with Schwedel in hoping that somehow, some day, she will get to do some time travel herself.
PS The movies are “About Time,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Midnight in Paris,” and “Doctor Strange”
Interview: Gotham Chopra on the Audience Network Series “The Religion of Sports”
Posted on November 7, 2016 at 3:33 pm
Gotham Chopra talked to me about his new series for the Audience Network, “The Religion of Sports,” created with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and premiering November 15, 2016.
Have you always been a big sports fan?
Yes, I have. I grew up in Boston Massachusetts during the 80’s and 90’s and so I’ve just always been a big Celtics, Red Sox, Bruins fan, really a diehard fan of those teams but I would say in general a lover of all sports.
It’s so different being a Red Sox fan now than it was prior to 2004. Not that I would ever go back but there was a sort of magic about that cursed existence. It created a sort of community that is very different than what it is now. They won three championships since then and they are one of those elite institutions now. They have become the Catholic Church where they were sort of the scrappy cults before then.
So what is it that makes sports so visceral and so tribal?
Yes, I think what’s unique about sports is that like religion they create a sense of community, a sense of belonging. Wrigley Field is a sacred space, like it’s a holy land. People go on pilgrimages.
So everything that we associate with religion actually happens in sports. Whereas traditionally religion requires faith and you have to believe in this and you have to do that and they have this dogma and everything, sports requires attendance. If you watch the World Series whether you are a Cleveland fan or you’re a Cubs fan, a miracle is going to happen. You just have to show up and I think that is pretty unique to sports. It is not a metaphor, it is not an allegory, it is a spiritual thing and even people who don’t aren’t even fans, they participate. That last game of the World Series people watched from all walks of life because it’s bigger than sports. That’s why I am very much a true believer. Being a fan is sort of something greater than yourself, it’s really is.
Do you think that there are cultural differences or temperament differences between say fans of baseball, football, basketball, hockey?
Yes, there definitely are. For sure it’s no different than politics, as we are watching some other holy war going on right now. If you come from different cultural backgrounds you are drawn to certain things. Part of what’s been fascinating about working on this series is I’ve been able to explore sports that I never really knew much about. So rodeo and NASCAR and stuff like that. It’s been fascinating to watch those.
One of the episodes is about a Scottish football league. The two city teams in Glasgow the Celtic and Rangers, one which is predominantly Catholic in terms of their fan base and one one predominantly Protestant. In this country let’s there are big rivalries but when you go to a place like that they say, “Wait, hold on, first let us talk about the Crusades, then let’s talk about the Reformation.” You have to go back several centuries to understand the roots of this rivalry. So that certainly has its different cultural complexion than what we necessarily see here.
That being said, there are also certain things that are very similar across all sports, not just from the fans’ perspective but from the athlete’s perspective.
What makes somebody a great athlete?
First of all, certainly they have a gifts, physical gifts, athletic gifts. I’ve been fortunate to work with Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady and David Ortiz, some of the most leading athletes in their respective sports, and I can see there is a competitiveness, there is a commitment, there is a discipline, there is a ambition to be the greatest that I think definitely unites the people at the top. Oftentimes you see with the best athletes that they are not the most physically gifted. There are guys who are and girls who are physically stronger, faster or that are more athletic or whatever but for whatever reason these ones that are so committed to their craft, the ones who are so disciplined no matter the consequence, that is what puts them over the top. And again to sort of spiritualize it there is a sort of almost like a martial arts discipline, even if you watch sort of Kobe Bryant go through a practice by himself it’s a monk in a monastery. I mean there is a routine there that is spiritual that I think is really admirable for me.
What were some of the biggest technological and production challenges of making this series?
We’ve been fortunate and a lot of credit goes to my executive producing partners, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady, you have guys like that who can help you get access but getting access both with athletes and but also in leagues can be very challenging. How do you get on the track at the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR? Great storytelling depends on characters and in this case access and so that can be an incredible challenge. I think even once you get it because these are, even these more niche sports are so covered to death.
All of these athletes are used to cameras in their faces so trying to get something unique and true out of them can be challenging. And I think what I’ve been lucky about is that we tried to make this series less about just getting the biggest names in sports and instead it is very much about the culture around sports, and finding great fans around which you could tell their stories, those tend to be people who want to share their stories, who want to speak about why this thing is so important to them, that’s an incredible benefit.
Tell me about your project with David Ortiz.
I’ve been working with him all summer pretty much chronicling his last season. It’s a series for ESPN and they have run a number of digital shorts. I just drop in with him for 48 hours at a pivotal time in the season, so like opening day or his last series against the Yankees, stuff like that and just be with him as he was going through that.
And the greatest thing about the athletes especially at that level is like they physically can’t do it anymore even though David had an amazing year but they have to sort of give up something that they love as much as they ever did. I’m a filmmaker, you are a writer, we can kind of keep on doing this and get better at it and get passionate about it over and over again, pretty much for as long as we live. With athletes — I don’t even think David is 40 years old. They have to give it up and then what? And so I think it is fortunate to sort of be able to sort of chronicle a little bit of that over the last few months.
What have you learned about how people show their enthusiasm for teams and athletes?
People practice their faith in a lot of different ways. Attendance is probably the most common one but then of course the bigger the league the more difficult it is. It is super expensive to go to some of these games. Actually what I love is like going to the local dirt track in South Carolina on a Wednesday night. It’s the equivalent of going to the community church as opposed to sort of traveling to the Vatican, right? And you see people practicing their faith really at the grassroots level and so it’s inexpensive, it’s accessible, you can go touch the cars, you can really be a part of it, feel the dirt and again I’m not speaking in metaphors. You have to wash your clothes like eight times to get that dirt out once you come back from the race. So I think at the local level like our baseball episode is at the minor league level where the line between the athlete and the fan is a lot more blurred I guess that it necessarily is at the highest level, the professional level and I think for me to sort of be able to see the faith practiced at that level was pretty inspiring.
And superstition — when the Red Sox were in the World Series I couldn’t watch in a room I had to stand outside of my house and watch through the window holding my favorite baseball bat. There’s not a sports fan alive who doesn’t have some version of that, who wears only this jersey or eats only that food. The bigger the game, the bigger the superstition.
Some fan activities are totally ritualistic and the amazing thing about sports. There is a stereotype associated with the fans who paint their faces, that they come from a sort of economic class but I’ve seen deans of major universities do the same thing. You know they are the most sort of academic, intellectual people but then when they enter into this realm suddenly this tribe thing takes over and again they’re sitting side-by-side with people that they have nothing else in common with. I’ve not lived in Boston for years, like for actually more than half of my life, but I still go back every season, I try to go to an opening day or I go to a game or whatever and literally as I’m sitting there and listening, especially in like a political climate like this election, you listen to what people are talking about, I have nothing in common with these people except for this shared devotion to this thing and I think that’s a good thing. It’s fascinating to me, that sort of sense of belonging really cuts across everything.
Interview: “Hacksaw Ridge” Mel Gibson, Luke Bracey, Vince Vaughn
Posted on November 6, 2016 at 8:00 am
Copyright 2016 Warner Brothers
Mel Gibson’s first film as a director in ten years is “Hacksaw Ridge,” the true story of Desmond Doss, a medic in WWII who showed extraordinary courage and devotion, returning over and over again to rescue 75 wounded men under enemy fire in a battle in Okinawa. I spoke to Gibson, and to Vince Vaughn and Luke Bracey, who play soldiers in the film.
The movie’s battle scenes are intentionally brutal. “I don’t think I glamorized war,” Gibson said. “I made it look hard and hopefully realistic, at least that’s what the Okinawa guys told us. There’s not many of them left but it was an experience for them. I think is not really a war film, it’s a love story because a guy went in there through filial love determined never to kill anyone or harm anyone and he kept putting his life on the line to save lives so this is the greatest act of love you could perform, to sacrifice yourself for someone else so it’s a love story. It just happens to be in the worst place on earth.
Vaughn spoke about the challenge of portraying a the sergeant who trains and then takes into battle Doss and his unit.
I have a lot of military in my family and have done a lot of things throughout the years with the USO, so I had a good point of reference for start. And then being in a unique situation playing a sergeant, that you are training a new unit and that you’re actually going to carry them over to the battlefield, you really are going to feel responsible for these kids. You have got a lot of love for them and your job is ready to prepare them to be able to go to their training and as much as possible not kind of freak out during battle and to stay alive for themselves and for their brothers in arms.
Look, you are preparing for war, so the penalty of not being up to the task is death of yourself or the people in the unit. That’s why I think there is a bit of sense of humor in some of it because you want to reach people. You can’t just come and make them tone deaf because you are screaming at them the whole time. I think like everyone has their own unique way of doing it so I think there are moments when you are really hard, you are trying to get your point across to let them know what’s at stake and your intents. And then there is other times when you try to use it a little bit of a sense of humor to try to get them to laugh and to bring them together. And I think that this presents a unique situation. Here is a gentleman who is refusing to carry a gun. You just have to understand that from a military point of view this is close quarter battles you see the depiction of it in the movie, to be in a foxhole at night, sleeping with somebody and them on watch and someone approaches and they don’t have the means to defend themselves, then obviously no one would want to be in that situation. And I think made the true story and what is so powerful about Desmond is he had such a faith such a conviction and a calling and it really transcended the moment. There is something beautiful in that and I think that when you are true to your convictions and you do stay true to what you believe in, not only are you rewarded but actually everyone else around you is rewarded as well and I think you see that resonate in the film.
Bracey talked about the “intense physical aspect to this stuff especially, the battle scenes. You spend about two months filming that stuff and I think preparation for me it was obviously very physical but not just getting in shape. There is a mental aspect to the physical side in that commitment to everything you are doing. If you take the right attitude towards it you can really tolerate it in a positive way where you can try not to give up and everything you do, you know it’s going to hurt but you know there’s so much left to go as well so I enjoyed that aspect of it, and also just kind of delving into what is a man as well. At what point does a man goes from telling another a man to harden up to the point where can empathize with him.”
Filmmaking technology has changed very rapidly, and Gibson appreciated being able to take advantage of lighter, faster cameras and better special effects.
In the old days you had two stops either way for light but now it’s infinite and you can turn day into night with no problem. You can blow frames up without any loss of quality, you can flop the shot. I mean it’s just crazy what you can do with colors and the color palette. So technologically things really advanced and you can move pretty fast and shoot from the hip but I would say filmwise, in the world of films there are restrictions if you want to make an independent film and this is an independent film. So your budgets are restricted, you have less time to do it. This is a superhero movie so don’t get me wrong, but if he’s not wearing spandex you don’t get the budget.
A lot of things had to come together to make the image happen on screen. The thing with combat or war sequences on screen is it that they have to be clear, so clarity is required but within that wider framework of clarity, almost like a sporting or chess game, you have to have a strategy that is at least readable but it has to look like chaos amidst that. So in order for all the pyrotechnics, and the stunts and bullet hits and the camera guys, the actors, the extras, the stunts guys, everything, a lot of things have to come together so that you can catch it all on the screen so that logistically speaking little bit like juggling a few balls at the same time. But there’s a lot of people doing it. You don’t do these things alone and it’s really about synchronizing the departments, the various departments to come together to really get that image that you want. And after that the special effects that was great afterwards. But the earmark of great special effects is when you can’t see them. You don’t know what the practical stuff is from the stuff that you do afterwards. There’s both — there’s a lot of practical stuff like some 800 shots I think where they are special effects. I mean there’s muzzle flashes and tracers and dirt hits and stuff like that that were put in afterwards that really add so much. So technically speaking it’s a real scheduling juggling match.
Perhaps the most fanciful portrayal of a real US President is “The Remarkable Andrew,” with William Holden as an honorable accountant who discovers a discrepancy in the town books and is visited by the ghost of his favorite President, Andrew Jackson (Brian Donlevy), who provides guidance and support.
