Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” … Frank Sinatra in “The Manchurian Candidate” … Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in “All the President’s Men.” Big political movies with big stars have long been part of the Hollywood playbook.
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As chief of staff for President Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen got his first taste of the fictional White House in 1995 in “The American President.” Four years later, Sheen became the most famous commander on the small screen, as President Jed Bartlett in “The West Wing.” He describes the role as one of the best moments of his life, “as an actor, as an American.”
“The West Wing” premiered 25 years ago this month. But getting it on the air in today’s contentious political climate will be difficult. “Today, where we are, you know, the political divide, of course, is going to be very difficult,” Sheen said. “You have to tell the truth. And now there are all the questions about, ‘who correct?'”
Despite the intense interest in this upcoming election, Hollywood seems to have largely stopped making political films. “If they made it, they didn’t show it to me,” says Michael Lynton, a former studio executive (he ran Sony Pictures Entertainment for 13 years). Show business, he said, is a bottom line business that is now more dangerous than ever, relying on big-budget global franchises to generate profits.
Running a studio, Lynton said, makes him responsible to his bosses and shareholders: “So much. And, you know, they want to return, understandably. And that’s a big piece of the equation. They want to return financially”.
Are they the same? don’t want to be controversial. Consider “The Apprentice,” a new movie that traces the rise of Donald Trump in the 1970s and ’80s. It took months for the manufacturer to find a distributor. No one wants to touch the film, especially after the Trump campaign threatened to sue.
Watch a clip from “The Apprentice,” featuring Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump’s protégé:
Producers and studios have long had an obsession with the bottom line (plus a healthy fear of political controversy). But that didn’t stop him from making films with bold political themes, such as 1957’s “A Face in the Crowd,” starring Andy Griffith as a folksy entertainer who manipulates his way to the top.
“I think ‘A Face in the Crowd’ is a wonderful film, and very relevant to our own times,” said Columbia University film professor Annette Insdorf. “We can actually see the rise of a man who assumes power, and not because he is talented, idealistic, or has a vision, but because he is removed from an obscure and manageable situation, until he can manage. others.”
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Mankiewicz asked, “So, does that leave us in a bad place, where we don’t have Hollywood making (political) movies?”
“The relationship between Hollywood and Washington is not static; it swings, back and forth,” said Insdorf.
Michael Schulman, who writes about culture and art for The New Yorker, said, “I think most of the time, politics comes through in movies through metaphors. Movies refract more than they reflect.”
He says strong political messaging still thrives in the subtext of big movies. “One of my favorite movies of the 50s was ‘High Noon,’ a western about a sheriff in a small town who has to face his own enemies because all his allies have abandoned him. It’s a movie about the blacklist, about the cowardice of people in Hollywood during the Red Scare.
“‘Planet of the Apes is,’ of course, about the planet of the apes. But it’s really – surprise! – about how humanity is destroying itself and the threat of nuclear destruction,” he said.
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Many of the biggest hits of the last five years, said Schulman, convey deeply political ideas: “What is more political than ‘Joker,’ which kind of captures the white male disaffection and isolation of the Trump era? What is more political than ‘Barbie,’ ” that, you you know, about feminism, and how hard it is to be a woman?”
“Films always, even unconsciously, take on the politics of their time,” Schulman said.
Michael Lynton, the former studio boss, misses the daring films of the past (such as the ’70s thrillers “The Conversation,” “The Parallax View,” and “Three Days of the Condor”), although he understands the challenges of making them today. and marketing of political films. “I run a business, and I understand why businesses would be afraid,” he said. “And I’m not advocating, if businesses have to change their practices, I’m just monitoring what’s happening.
“On the other hand, it’s just a shame, I think it’s a shame that right now we’re not hearing from some of the people who really need to be heard,” Lynton said.
Martin Sheen agrees. He also wants to hear from the filmmakers: “I think we have the right to different opinions, and for the courage of writers, producers, directors, actors, all creative people to say that they are announcing or portraying the truth. the whole truth and nothing else unless the truth is done.”
Mankiewicz asked, “So you think this is the right time to start making political stories?”
“This is probably the most critical moment,” Sheen replied.
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Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
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