•Written by The Editors• ••Wednesday•, 26 •November• 2008 15:17•
“W” Oliver Stone’s new film, recounting the life of George W. Bush, is showing at the Fernay Voltaire theater near the Hyper Champion. We went to the six o’clock showing Wednesday night. A total of five people were in the audience, and two of them were editors from the Essential Edge. The third was the wife of one of the editors. It is not hard to imagine why Stone’s film might bomb. Since Barak Obama’s election victory, most of us have heaved a sigh of relief and tried to erase the last eight years from our memories. But it is a shame to let Stone’s film, which is a masterful mixture of comedy and extreme tragedy, go unnoticed. Stone came under heavy criticism for historical inaccuracies in his film on JFK, which missed its mark. But in “W,” he succeeds in accomplishing the nearly impossible—making us see Bush as a nearly sympathetic, if tragically failed, human being. It’s the story of a ne’er do well son, who means well, but can never quite make the grade, and whose father loves him, but knows from the start that he can only be a disappointment. He’s the eternal frat boy who never quite grows up, who is fun to have a beer and watch Saturday night football with, but never fully grasps what the real world is really about.
The family name and the father’s power pushes this doomed offspring to heights and responsibilities that for his own well being and that of his country, he should never have attained. Ultimately, the family’s carefully constructed reputation and the country itself are nearly destroyed. Added to this is a cast of minor characters. A demonic Dick Cheney is the slithery Iago, whispering various paths to disaster to his master’s ear. Why not use the disaster of 9/11 to eliminate the perpetual annoyance of Saddam and at the same time secure American domination over most of the world’s energy before other countries try to secure it for themselves? Colin Powell comes across as the intelligent servant, too loyal and too careful to speak truth to power, especially when that power is too simple minded to understand the complexities of international diplomacy. Condoleeza Rice is the perpetual sycophant, anxious to please. CIA boss, George Tenet, is the overburdened bureaucrat who finally ceases to stave off inevitable disaster out of sheer fatigue. In this film, Oliver Stone has created a small masterpiece, a minor Shakespearian tragedy in beginner’s English.
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