Death of a FIPRESCIdent
As you may already know, I was a member of the FIPRESCI jury that awarded Gabriel Range's "Death of a President" the International Film Critics' Prize at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.
It seems this choice was, um, slightly controversial. Our award was at the top of many festival wrapups, as opposed to being tucked away at the bottom, since in most cases no one's ever heard of the movie that wins; it's also honked off a few online commentators.
Over at Torontoist, Mathew Kumar took strong exception to our decision, mainly because he loathed the film, and explains his feelings at length in his review for Twitch. I don't agree with his position, but I can see where he's coming from. (As for the assumptions put forth by his readers in the comments section, well, that's just horseshit.)
Jury deliberations are supposed to be private, so I won't go into the specifics of our decision. I will, however, point y'all to jury president Klaus Eder's review of the film on the FIPRESCI site, which makes the case for the movie far more eloquently than I can. (I'm gonna try anyway, so keep on reading.)
Also, here are the official FIPRESCI regulations for the International Critics' Prize, which I hope will clarify some of the peripheral confusions.
There's one other point I want to make: The FIPRESCI jury isn't watching everything in the festival. (That's a practical impossibility; I spent four weeks in screenings and saw maybe fifty titles.) We're given a selection of films culled by certain qualifications -- world premieres, first features, no international distribution, things like that. When I was a juror in 2004, there were twenty-one titles on our list; this year, there were only fifteen, and I was thankful for it.
Speaking only for myself, I'll say that "Death of a President" is not a political screed; it's a policier, a whodunit. Structurally, that's a little naive; after all, the movie's supposed to be a documentary from an alternate future, and surely in that future the assassination of George W. would be the most media-saturated event since 9/11; there wouldn't be a person in the English-speaking world who didn't know who'd pulled the trigger, or why, by the time this program is supposed to be airing. All the suspense around who the shooter would turn out to be just kept reminding me of all the episodes of "Law & Order" where they arrest somebody before the end of the first act. You just know someone else is going to be the guilty party.
Still, the larger effect of the film is nothing short of ingenious. "Death of a President" uses an invented future to comment on present-day political reality, showing an America where guilt or innocence will always place second to political expediency, where facts are shaped to fit a predetermined policy, where government officials can theorize, rhapsodize or eulogize at length without ever saying anything specific to the topic or person under discussion.
(That's why the use of Cheney's eulogy for Reagan at Bush's fake memorial is so effective; all the empty platitudes he spouted over Reagan's coffin were designed to reflect back onto Bush, anyway.)
And yes, Mathew has a point in that Range's America doesn't accurately reflect the America that exists today -- specifically in the absence of "free speech zones" where protesters are kept blocks away from the presidential motorcade route. But the film does point out that the protesters at this specific event numbered in the tens of thousands, and had already overrun several barricades as the motorcade approached its destination; I didn't have much trouble believing that, a year from now, civil disobedience might reach the level of mob scenes and riots.
And then there's the other thing. "Death of a President" won our prize, out of the fifteen eligible films, "for the audacity with which it distorts reality to reveal a larger truth." The larger truth, to my mind, is that the assassination of George W. Bush would change absolutely nothing about the current political landscape. (As I said in my Metro review: "Two words: President Cheney.") It wasn't the politics that spoke to me, but its artistry in the depiction of its cynicism.
Over on Salon (subscription required), Stephanie Zacharek dismissed the film outright, arguing that it "doesn't make you think; it just confirms what you already think you know." Again, I can see where she's coming from. But she misses one essential point: It's not the story, but how the story is told.
It seems this choice was, um, slightly controversial. Our award was at the top of many festival wrapups, as opposed to being tucked away at the bottom, since in most cases no one's ever heard of the movie that wins; it's also honked off a few online commentators.
Over at Torontoist, Mathew Kumar took strong exception to our decision, mainly because he loathed the film, and explains his feelings at length in his review for Twitch. I don't agree with his position, but I can see where he's coming from. (As for the assumptions put forth by his readers in the comments section, well, that's just horseshit.)
Jury deliberations are supposed to be private, so I won't go into the specifics of our decision. I will, however, point y'all to jury president Klaus Eder's review of the film on the FIPRESCI site, which makes the case for the movie far more eloquently than I can. (I'm gonna try anyway, so keep on reading.)
Also, here are the official FIPRESCI regulations for the International Critics' Prize, which I hope will clarify some of the peripheral confusions.
There's one other point I want to make: The FIPRESCI jury isn't watching everything in the festival. (That's a practical impossibility; I spent four weeks in screenings and saw maybe fifty titles.) We're given a selection of films culled by certain qualifications -- world premieres, first features, no international distribution, things like that. When I was a juror in 2004, there were twenty-one titles on our list; this year, there were only fifteen, and I was thankful for it.
Speaking only for myself, I'll say that "Death of a President" is not a political screed; it's a policier, a whodunit. Structurally, that's a little naive; after all, the movie's supposed to be a documentary from an alternate future, and surely in that future the assassination of George W. would be the most media-saturated event since 9/11; there wouldn't be a person in the English-speaking world who didn't know who'd pulled the trigger, or why, by the time this program is supposed to be airing. All the suspense around who the shooter would turn out to be just kept reminding me of all the episodes of "Law & Order" where they arrest somebody before the end of the first act. You just know someone else is going to be the guilty party.
Still, the larger effect of the film is nothing short of ingenious. "Death of a President" uses an invented future to comment on present-day political reality, showing an America where guilt or innocence will always place second to political expediency, where facts are shaped to fit a predetermined policy, where government officials can theorize, rhapsodize or eulogize at length without ever saying anything specific to the topic or person under discussion.
(That's why the use of Cheney's eulogy for Reagan at Bush's fake memorial is so effective; all the empty platitudes he spouted over Reagan's coffin were designed to reflect back onto Bush, anyway.)
And yes, Mathew has a point in that Range's America doesn't accurately reflect the America that exists today -- specifically in the absence of "free speech zones" where protesters are kept blocks away from the presidential motorcade route. But the film does point out that the protesters at this specific event numbered in the tens of thousands, and had already overrun several barricades as the motorcade approached its destination; I didn't have much trouble believing that, a year from now, civil disobedience might reach the level of mob scenes and riots.
And then there's the other thing. "Death of a President" won our prize, out of the fifteen eligible films, "for the audacity with which it distorts reality to reveal a larger truth." The larger truth, to my mind, is that the assassination of George W. Bush would change absolutely nothing about the current political landscape. (As I said in my Metro review: "Two words: President Cheney.") It wasn't the politics that spoke to me, but its artistry in the depiction of its cynicism.
Over on Salon (subscription required), Stephanie Zacharek dismissed the film outright, arguing that it "doesn't make you think; it just confirms what you already think you know." Again, I can see where she's coming from. But she misses one essential point: It's not the story, but how the story is told.
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1 Comments:
I'm rather pleased you finally got back to me, Norm; I still don't agree with you (of course!) but it's interesting to read your opinion. I might argue with you about it still; but is it out of hand to ask you what other films were eligible? I judged that with the term "from a list of films from emerging filmmakers" that it was an absurdly large list, if you only had a list of 15 I'm intrigued.
For example, I'd still like to know if you saw S&Man, which blew DOAP away, doing everything you say that is clever about DOAP about a zillion times better. Klaus Eder's review of DOAP certainly infers that he hasn't seen it.
He also seems to fall straight into the traps he explains Gabriel Range setting. By the middle of the review he states "It's frightening to see how quickly Arabs come under fire." as if it were fact. No matter how much we believe that would probably happen, it's not. Before that, too, he actually says, "After seeing the film, one might possibly wish President Bush not to be killed."
No matter how much I hate Bush's policies, I don't wish him dead and I'd rather no one else did, and not "just to avoid Dick Cheney becoming president."
Sorry, I'm actually debating someone else's points with you. Ahem.
E-mail me if you wish.
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