By
Justin Camilleri
Who says politics on screen is dead?
Lord David Puttnam (The Killing Fields) summed it up, in
his rousing acceptance speech, for his Lifetime Achievement
Bafta in which he said to George Clooney: “I take my hat off to you sir” congratulating
him for making films with integrity: the lack of politically
themed films being made had been the reason for Puttnam's
retirement from the film industry in the late 1990s.
Clooney is enjoying the triumphs of
having sealed his fate as an inspiring spokesman for a
new liberal Hollywood. Thanks to his Syriana – where he won the Best Supporting Actor – and
his directorial debut Good Night, And Good Luck George is
spearheading a new generation of actor/directors, who have
turned immensely politically active using their commercial
clout to make movies that will raise awareness about today’s
moral and political issues including Third World deprivation,
US imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism.
If Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck brought US political
corruption to the fore at last year's Oscars, one cannot
discard probably the most thought provoking movie of the
year, namely The Constant Gardener that shimmered with its
poignant tale on Western exploitation of East Africa.
Directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles
(City of God) and adapted from John Le Carre’s international
bestseller, the plot centres on Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes)
a diplomat, who discovers that his activist wife (Rachel
Weisz) has been murdered and seeks to uncover the reasons
behind her death.
Weisz won the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance,
but life imitated art when the cast and crew set up the Constant
Gardener Trust http://www.constantgardenertrust.org/ in order
to provide basic education around the villages of Loiyangalani
and the slums of Kibera in Kenya where filming took place.
2006 was also marked by Spielberg’s Munich and Abu
Assad’s Paradise Now who gave us two poignant tales
from both sides of the fence proving that peace is the answer
to problems and not violence.
New movies with a political slant
For years he was derided as the typical Hollywood hunk,
a good looking airhead with absolutely nothing to say, but
now actor Brad Pitt is dead set to prove all the punters
wrong. Pitt through his company Plan B, is producing A Mighty
Heart starring Angelina Jolie as Marianne Pearl, widow of
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel, who was murdered by
Pakistani extremists.
The picture is very important for
the couple as it is their first project together since
the birth of their child in May. Since filming commenced
in mid-October, the movie has not been plain sailing as
Pune in India is doubling for Karachi after the Pakistani
authorities refused permission to film, anxious not to
revive interest in the story of Pearl’s
beheading by Islamic militants.
Pitt’s next acting role will be in a US adaptation
of the hit BBC series, State of Play, about a journalist
investigating the death of a political researcher. According
to film critic Henry Fitzenherbert (Sunday Express): “Brad
thinks the story is pertinent in the current climate, with
civil liberties under threat and the erosion of free speech,
he’s had enough of playing the pin up in romantic comedies
and action films.”
Brad’s transformation into a serious actor looks set
to be sealed with his Oscar-tipped performance as a grieving
father in the upcoming Babel, a dark human drama from Mexican
director Alejandro González Iñárritu
(21 Grams). The star's conversion to serious causes owes
a lot to Jolie’s maturity as an actress who became
a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, focusing on
refugees, following her experiences in Cambodia making Lara
Croft: Tomb Raider. In fact, the couple chose to have their
child in Namibia to raise awareness of Africa’s plight
and donated the profits from their exclusive first pictures
of the baby to UNICEF.
Jolie said: “My role as a goodwill ambassador has made
my work as a film star relatively dull, I am no longer excited
about going to a film set.”
Another movie with a political slant
that’s already
making a lot of headlines is Blood Diamond. Starring Leonardo
DiCaprio (who has a very convincing South African accent)
and featuring Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Djimon
Hounsou (Gladiator), the film is set during the '90s civil
war in Sierra Leone and blows the lid off the ruthless diamond
trade and puts Western exploitation of developing countries
in the spotlight.
DiCaprio does not shy away from voicing
his opinions, in an interview with the Sunday Express he
said: “When
superpowers demand these resources from much less financially
stable countries, what does that do to their livelihood?” He
added: “As a result last October the World Diamond
Council launched a multi-million damage limitation campaign,
offering factual balanced information about diamonds.”
A keen environmentalist, DiCaprio has set up his own eco-website
http://www.leonardodicaprio.org/ and released two documentaries
Global Warning and Water Planet. Last but not least he supported
John Kerry in the 2004 US presidential election, giving speeches
denouncing the Bush administration.
Upcoming political movies seem to
be trying not just to give awareness on today’s moral
and political issues but seem determined to shed more light
on events, organisations and political figures that left
a tremendous influence on their people and the world.
Clint Eastwood, after heavily criticising
the Iraq war in May 2003 as a “big mistake” went
a step further directing two anti-war movies shot back
to back, Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Flags of our Fathers recounts the tragic tale of the five
US Marines and a US Navy corpsman who raised the American
flag atop Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Letters from Iwo Jima on the other hand tell the story
of the invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II from the
Japanese viewpoint.
The Good Shepherd directed by Robert
De Niro (The Godfather: Part II) explores the birth of
the CIA and its impact on world politics in the years to
come. Based on a true story, the plot is told through the
eyes of Matt Damon’s young
recruit Edward Wilson whose years of paranoia and duplicity
take its toll on his relationship with his wife (Angelina
Jolie). This will be followed with The Good German based
on the novel by Joseph Kanon. The film directed by Steven
Soderbergh who gave us Erin Brockovich and the brilliant
Traffic, the film stars George Clooney, Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth)
and Spider-Man’s Tobey Maguire, the film is an intriguing
insight into NASA’s origins and the post WWII redeployment
of German Nazi rocket scientists in the US. The film is not
without an effective marketing campaign with posters echoing
the 1940's style in Casablanca.
Soderbergh will follow The Good German
with the much awaited Guerilla, the acclaimed biopic on
Argentinean-born doctor and revolutionary leader Che Guevara.
If the Academy Award winning biographical film The Motorcycle
Diaries starring Gael García Bernal, depicted a young Ernesto Che Guevara’s
gradual development of his political outlook amidst his travels
across South America during the 1950s, Guerilla will portray
a grown up Che portrayed by Benicio Del Toro.
According to Variety magazine, Soderbergh
is so passionate about Latin American revolutionary that
he has filmed two movies. In addition to Guerrilla, Soderbergh
is to make another film called The Argentine. Del Toro
who bears an uncanny resemblance to the revolutionary leader
will play Guevara in both movies. Guerrilla will focus
on the years following the Cuban revolution, The Argentine
will focus on the moment Che joins Fidel Castro’s forces against Cuba’s
General Batista in 1964. Incidentally, both Del Toro and
Benjamin Brett who plays Fidel Castro, appeared together
in Soderbergh’s Traffic.
Another political figure given the
screen treatment is John F. Kennedy’s brother, the late Robert F. Kennedy. Following
in the footsteps of Oliver Stone’s JFK and Roger Donaldson’s
captivating Cuban Missile Crisis epic Thirteen Days, Emilio
Estevez’s Bobby is told through the eyes of the 22
guests who stayed at the Ambassador Hotel where Bobby Kennedy
was assassinated and how they were affected by it.
The film features an all star cast
starring Anthony Hopkins, Martin Sheen who played JFK,
Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct), Demi Moore (Ghost), Elijah
Wood (Lord of the Rings), Christian Slater (The Name of
the Rose), Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s
Creek), Lindsay Lohan (Herbie Fully Loaded), William H. Macy
(Magnolia) and Emilio Estevez .
Stars and their causes
Without a doubt George Clooney’s undisputable charm
and good looks have revived politics on screen making it
sexy. The job does not stop there for when he is not winning
accolades for being the sexiest man alive, Clooney campaigns
and makes impassioned speeches to the UN Security Council
over continuing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan proving
that voicing political beliefs need not necessarily be a
turn off for his devoted fans. When he was given the 21st
annual American Cinematheque award for his work highlighting
the atrocities in Darfur he was asked the inevitable question
as to whether he intended to run for president, shaking his
head Clooney said: “I like my life.”
Prior to Clooney directors and stars
have always championed causes in the past. In 1963 Charlton
Heston, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and the original
rebel Marlon Brando participated in the Civil Rights March,
Jane Fonda supported the North Vietnamese, and soon after
her final film role, Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) was appointed a special ambassador
to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and
dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished
children in the world’s poorest countries. Hepburn
inspired other stars to follow in her footsteps notably Roger
Moore, Peter Ustinov and Michael Douglas, who is also a spokesman
for nuclear disarmament. Nowadays you have stars like Sean
Penn whose political activism stretches to the extent that
he places a $56,000 advert in the Washington Post asking
President George W. Bush to end a cycle of violence. Actors
like Penn use their influences to act as journalists on assignment
for newspapers such as his visit in Iran on behalf of the
San Francisco Chronicle.
Last year, stars got together for the Make Poverty History
campaign in an advert to increase awareness and put pressure
on governments to take action towards relieving absolute
poverty. In this captivating, poignant advert on www.youtube.com
stars like Liam Neeson, Bono, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson,
George Clooney and Brad Pitt were seen clicking their fingers,
symbolising the fact that a child dies every third second
from poverty.
DŽja Vu
For some this current trend may not be news at all as according
to www.screenonline.org.uk film and politics were linked
together from the time of the first projections. Besides
being a promising new business, movies were quickly perceived
as a potential ideological influence.
As a direct effect of what is seen
by some as the fallacy of the Iraqi war and the fears after
the events of 9/11 today’s
politically aware movie climate is in a way an echo of the
1970s. The '70s were a catalyst for many directors to take
their activism to the big screen as a result of the dire
actions of the US government following the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the Watergate
scandal.
During this period of great uncertainty
political films flourished, reflecting people’s fears
and anxieties, exposing governments' hidden agendas. Often
these films had an aura of paranoia where ordinary folk
found themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that stretches
to high government levels.
Distrust in the US Government would
be reflected onscreen in All the President’s Men starring Robert Redford
and Dustin Hoffman, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation
with Gene Hackman, Mars landing conspiracy theory film Capricorn
One, and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, starring a young
and almost unrecognisable John Travolta.
The British film industry also challenged the establishment
with a quaint look at the fervent corruption in UK politics
with the Whistle Blower starring Michael Caine, and the
political sitcom Yes Minister during the late '70s.
The '80s continued this trend with
films giving an unbiased glimpse at life behind the Iron
curtain, quite notably Reds starring Warren Beatty and
Diane Keaton. It’s based
on the true story of John Reed, the journalist, who chronicled
the Russian Revolution in his book Ten Days that Shook the
World.
During the early '90s few American
movies were made where directors were noted as being politically
active for instance the humorous political anecdotes of
Tim Robbins’ Bob
Roberts and in the 1997 movie Wag the Dog. The latter involves
a pre-election attempt in the US by a spin doctor and a Hollywood
producer to fabricate a war in a Balkan state in order to
cover-up a presidential sex scandal. This film, interestingly,
was made before the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and the US led
Kosovo intervention.
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