Family Guy

Oliver Stone sets his eyes on Bush

W., Directed by Oliver Stone, Lions Gate, 2008. 129 minutes.
Oliver Stone’s latest film, W., offers a fresh, revisionist look at many of the major players in the life of George W. Bush. The movie’s assessment of the Bush administration’s legacy, however, is a decidedly mainstream one. Though at times this biopic feels like a Saturday Night Live retelling of Bush’s most famous mishaps, W. is one of the first of what are sure to be many historical analyses of the last eight years. Cutting between scenes of deliberation in the White House and selections from Bush’s life before his arrival on the national stage in 2000, Stone connects key moments in Bush’s personal history, filled with the difficulty of meeting family expectations, with the defining decision of his administration, the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Growing Up Bush
The first scene of the future president’s youth is a pledging ceremony in a secret society. Bush is called upon to name the members of the organization who are present after a fellow pledge fails at the task, and Bush effortlessly rattles off a list, including nicknames. In this context, Bush is far from the stuttering, clueless, dependent caricature that typically appears in pop culture representations. Rather, this W. has moments of warranted confidence; in social settings, he is at ease, such as at the barbeque where he meets and charms the liberal, intellectual Laura Welch, his future wife. Certainly, W. demonstrates his trademark casual attitude, calling his Cabinet members nicknames like “Rummy” and “Brother George,” but the movie is careful to distinguish this attitude from stupidity. He is quick on his feet: When Karl Rove, coaching him for a debate, asks him to defend his “swagger”, he replies, “In Texas, we call it walking.” His greatest weakness is not his ability to apply himself but his desire to do so.
The young George’s hesitance to apply himself as an entrepreneur, an academic and, especially, a politician is a manifestation of the rebelliousness toward his father that is one of the most prominent motifs in the film. Early on, the elder Bush criticizes his son for a range of faults, from his desire to become Commissioner of Baseball to a rumor that W. had impregnated a young woman. His father, then the United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations, pulled strings to get his son into Harvard Business School, but it would be several more years before W. decided to enter the family business by running, unsuccessfully, for Congress from Texas.
Even when W. came around to the idea of a life in politics, tension with his father remained high. His father invited him to come to Washington to work on his presidential campaign but only chose to extend the invitation because George’s younger brother, Jeb, was unavailable. George’s personality inevitably clashes with his father; in 1992, when Bill Clinton defeats the first President Bush, W. lashes out at his father’s failure to continue the Gulf War long enough to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Then, in 1994, when W. announces his intention to run for Governor of Texas, his parents scold him for not waiting his turn—Jeb was planning a run in Florida in the same year—and forcing them to divide their time between the two campaigns. This early tension between Jeb and George’s political careers foreshadows the catastrophe that the last eight years were for the Bush name; few Americans today think of Jeb as a future national political figure.
The Farcical Years
The film features a number of Bush Cabinet member look-alikes who build the political framework in which Bush operates. Because of the film’s obvious emphasis on finding actors with convincing physical resemblance to their characters, some clearly fail to capture the persona they are supposed to embody, instead coming across as black and white. Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, the lone voice of dissent against invading Iraq, is almost hauntingly sage in his pragmatic stand against a hastily prepared war. The character of Condoleezza Rice spends most of her time smirking and nodding sycophantically at the President in a highly unflattering manner. Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney perfectly captures the principle for which the vice president stood: brazen willingness to finish the job started by the Gulf War. He also articulates the aspiration to eventually become involved in Iran, and is perhaps more influential in the film’s simplified administration than he is in real life. In one scene of deliberation in the Oval Office, Cheney lurks in the doorway, arms folded, contributing little but surveying the entire group with a clear air of superiority. At another point in the film, Bush has to remind his second-in-command: “I’m the decider.”
Casting a Long Shadow
In W., the planning and execution of the Iraq war receive far more detail than the life of George W. Bush. The former is a blow-by-blow account of major decisions, while the latter is an anthology of symbolic moments. The movie opens with a Cabinet discussion of the phrase “axis of evil,” during which the President largely disregards the nuanced differences among the countries he is about to lump together in favor of a more ideologically compelling message. The result: an invasion justified using the same vague logic to conflate fundamentally different forces. It is telling that the film mentions little of the Sept. 11 attacks; rather, details like presidential speechwriters arguing over the word “yellowcake” truly comprise the build-up to the Iraq war. When Bush finally delivers his address on Iraq to a joint session of Congress, the film cuts away to footage of the audience from the actual address. These clips focused exclusively on prominent Democratic leaders—Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden—a reminder, perhaps, of the party that stood to gain from this blunder.
The collegiate George W. Bush, enjoying beer and barbeques, shirking work opportunities, seems drastically different from the force behind the Iraq War for which he is now best known. Even as Bush’s political ambitions rise, personal aggrandizement never seems to be the driving factor in his life choices, even up to the invasion of Iraq. He is far more motivated by the expectations, whether real or perceived, of his family. Bush watched his father win a war but lose an election, and he never forgot it. Ironically, the son followed the opposite trajectory: a questionable war was enough to re-elect him, but an inability to end it will, if W. is any indication, leave an indelible mark atop the Bush legacy.♦