W.
(2008)
Artemus Ward
Department of Political Science
Northern Illinois University
• This early
promotional
poster for the film
as well as a
leaked early
version of the
script (with cowriter Stanley
Weiser)
suggested that
Stone’s portrait
would be onesided, harsh, and
unflattering.
Father and Son: In Three Acts
• Oliver Stone depicts the
personal, political and
psychological evolution of
George W. Bush in three acts: 1.
Bush's hard-living youth; 2. His
personal and religious
conversion; 3. And finally his first
term in the Oval Office.
• Stone suggests that it is the
intricate parent-child relationship
between George H.W. Bush and
George W. Bush that helps
explain the latter’s life choices
and ultimately his rise to power.
Josh Brolin as George W. Bush
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Brolin spent countless hours studying the president's speech
patterns and body language but said he wasn't trying to concoct
a spitting-image impression, which ran the potential of becoming
a "Saturday Night Live" caricature.
"It's not for me to get the voice down perfectly," the 40-year-old
Brolin said, even though he came close. More important, the
actor said, was to unearth Bush's inner voice -- "Where is my
place in this world? How do I get remembered?"
Like other actors approached for the film (including Robert
Duvall, who was asked but declined to play Vice President Dick
Cheney), Brolin had more than vague misgivings about starring
in "W." He was, in fact, dead set against it. "When Oliver asked
me, I said, 'Are you crazy? Why would I want to do this with my
little moment in my career?' " Brolin recalled. Then, early one
morning during a family ski trip, Brolin read the original
screenplay, which covers Bush from 1967 to 2004. "It was very
different than what I thought it would be," Brolin said, "which was
a far-left hammering of the president."
Brolin said many friends still weren't buying it. "There were a lot
of people I tried to get involved, who were very, very reluctant to
do the movie," Brolin said. While noting Bush's low approval
ratings (23% in a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll from June
2008), Brolin, like Stone, said "W." isn't intended to kick the man
while he's down. "Republicans can look at it and say, 'This is why
I like this guy,' " Brolin said. "It's not a political movie. It's a
biography. People will remember that this guy is human, when
we are always [outside of the movie] dehumanizing him, calling
him an idiot, a puppet, a failed president. We want to know in the
movie: How does a guy grow up and become the person that he
did?"
Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush
• Banks said that she took a straightforward approach to
portraying First Lady Laura Bush. ''I don't want to do an
impression,'' she said. ''I just want to honor her voice, her
stillness, and her hairstyle.''
• W.’s marriage to Laura is portrayed as central to his personal
conversion from reckless youth to successful politician.
• Laura and George are shown in caring, real dialogue in their
bedroom. Is this meant to ridicule them or is it sweet and
endearing? When Laura soothes George by promising to
take him to his favorite play, Cats, should the audience
snicker or appreciate her gesture?
Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney
• In one of his weekly lunches with Bush,
Cheney uses a ham sandwich to explain
the “One Percent Doctrine” and says “You
have the capacity to do anything you see
fit.”
• Cheney explains that Iraq should be
invaded for its oil: “Nobody will fuck with
us ever again!”
• Cheney represents the incarnation of one
of Stone’s recurring film motifs: “The
Beast” – a set of forces greater than a
single person or even the presidency.
• Yet Bush tries to tame the Beast: ''Just
keep your ego in check,'' Bush snaps at
Cheney during one chilly exchange. ''I'm
the president. I'm the decider.'‘
• Yet ultimately Bush is unable to tame the
Beast and overwhelmed and consumed
by uncontrollable forces.
Act I: Reckless Youth
• The opening Act shows how W. squandered his privileged
circumstances.
• W. is portrayed as a hard-drinking C student whose failed
career choices are a sharp contrast to his larger-than-life father
and successful younger brother Jeb.
• We see the 26-year-old Bush peeling his car to a stop on his
parents' front lawn and drunkenly hurling insults at his father:
''Thank you, Mr. Perfect. Mr. War Hero. Mr. Fucking-GodAlmighty!'', while another scene set a few years later finds Bush
nearly crashing a small plane while flying under the influence.
Act II: Personal and Religious Conversion
• Many have suggested that Stone’s portrayal of W.’s spiritual counseling
by Earle Hudd (Stacy Keach) in the film is far from the self-righteous
stereotyping of Christians. Hudd tells Bush that “We’re all wounded
sinners.” Bush looks contrite and earnest. From then on out, it’s hard not
to believe his praying at meetings as cynics might want to do. As Bob
Dole once told the National Catholic Register, “I think Bush’s faith is
authentic, and that will be useful to us.”
• In 1999, Bush confesses: ''The truth is, I really don't want to run [for
president].... But I feel that God wants me to do this, and I must do it. I
MUST.''
• "He won a huge amount of people to his side after making a huge amount
of blunders and really lying to people," Stone said.
Act III: The Improbable President
• Why does Stone leave out 9/11 - or at least 9/14, when W. visited Ground
Zero? Isn’t this central to understanding the man and his presidency?
Why or why not?
• The movie’s W. clearly believed there were weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. He also clearly had the best of intentions when he ordered the
invasion.
• Yet in the final scene, Bush seems to be imploding amid the fiasco in Iraq
where no WMDs were found.
• Should Bush have been re-elected? Was he re-elected? Did it matter to
us in trying to understand him or to his legacy as president?
Father
and Sons
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W.’s younger brother Jeb was a model student, taught English in Mexico where he met his
future wife Columba, and embarked on a career in business and lobbying. Jeb was wellpositioned for a future career in politics.
After George H.W. Bush is elected president, Stone shows W. telling Laura, ''I'll never get
out of Poppy's shadow.... I wish he'd LOST.... No matter what I do, it's never going to be
good enough.''
“Maybe better you stay out of the barrel," the senior Bush told W., and leave the family's
political legacy to younger brother Jeb. "Well, son, I've got to say I was wrong about you not
being good at baseball," the father ultimately said, tossing him a scrap of a compliment.
George W. realized that he would have to prove himself to his father.
W. blames his father’s 1992 re-election defeat to Bill Clinton on his father’s failure to depose
Saddam during the Gulf War. George W.’s grievances further escalates when George Sr.
pleads in vain for W. to postpone his run for the governorship of Texas so as not to coincide
with Jeb Bush’s running for governor of Florida. Ironically, W. wins and Jeb loses. No matter.
W. complains that George Sr. is more disconsolate over Jeb’s defeat than gratified by
George’s victory.
The Gulf War (1990-1991)
• Why did the United States go to war against Saddam Hussein during
George H.W. Bush’s presidency?
• "You need to back him down and take him out -- like you did Noriega,"
George W. tells his father about Saddam, referring to the Panamanian
dictator and one-time CIA asset who was forcibly removed from power
after a U.S. invasion, tried in a U.S. court, and convicted of drug
trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering.
• The elder Bush wasn't sure he was going to be that rash with Saddam.
"You know I've always believed in leaving personal feelings out of
politics," the 41st president told his son. "But Saddam -- this aggression
cannot stand. Not gonna allow this little dictator to control 25% of the
world's oil.”
Imagining Act IV: Redemption?
• Beginning in 1998 Jeb easily wins two
terms as Governor of Florida.
• Many talk of a “Bush Dynasty” with
Jeb as a future president.
• Yet W.’s unpopularity in his second
term make it impossible for Jeb to run
for president in 2008.
• As Jeb’s son George Prescott Bush
remarks: “Bush fatigue” made it
impossible for his father to run.
• Can the family legacy be redeemed?
Will Jeb or another Bush make a bid
for the White House?
• In 2004, George P. Bush married
Amanda Williams. They are both
attorneys and reside in Austin, Texas.
Jeb and Columba Bush
George P. and Amanda Bush
• Stone is an openly political filmmaker (e.g.
"Platoon," "Salvador," "Wall Street," "Born on
the Fourth of July" and "JFK”) who actively
backs liberal causes and candidates.
• His controversial track record scared off at
least three potential major studio distributors
and any number of actors, including, initially,
star Brolin, and even Major League Baseball,
which declined to cooperate with the
production.
• Because of his political views, can he be
expected to portray Republican politicians such
as George W. Bush or Richard Nixon in
anyway other than a partisan fashion?
• Is W a sympathetic portrait of George W.
Bush?
• "We are trying to walk in the footsteps of W and
try to feel like he does, to try to get inside his
head. But it's never meant to demean him,"
Stone said. "W. isn't an overly serious movie,
but it is a serious subject. It's a Shakespearean
story. . . . I see it as the strange unfolding of
American democracy as I have lived it.“
Oliver
Stone
Stone’s Necessarily Censored,
Toned-Down Portrait
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Stone has been criticized in the past for playing fast and
loose with the truth in his political films.
Yet W. was based on twenty books, dozens of articles,
and employed consultants who worked for and/or knew
Bush. Articles in both the New York Post and Slate
checked the depictions in the film against these sources
and found corroboration.
But what is even more surprising is that W. is the rare
Oliver Stone film that had to tone down the historical
record because the truth was too lurid.
For example, Laura Bush threatening to divorce her
husband if he did not stop drinking, an account of
Governor Bush mocking a woman who was to be
executed, Bush Administration officials pressuring a
hospitalized Attorney General for a signature on an illegal
wiretap plan, and near-mandatory prayer and bible-study
at the White House were left out.
So the question is how do you tell the uncensored story of
a guy like George W. Bush? The answer is that you don’t.
No one would believe it.
Conclusion: I Like Bush
• Perhaps the ultimate reason why Bush was so likeable to many
filmgoers in this movie was that Josh Brolin made him likeable.
• His W. is an earnest guy who overcame his partying youth by selfdiscipline, the steady and tolerant love of a woman, and real faith.
• He saw his life as part of a larger plan, and invaded Iraq because he
thought it was the right thing to do. He’s a sincere striver who tries to do
right by God, his country, and his family, and is startled and crushed
when things don’t go the way he hoped.
• Then who are the films real villains? All those around the president who,
the film suggests, work with duplicitous motives for dishonorable ends
they really don’t believe in. And they found in Bush a vehicle to further
their interests. In this sense, Stone’s indictment isn’t of W. but is instead
of “The Beast” – the larger political process and those who attempt to
use it for evil ends.
• Stone’s movie carefully makes the argument that all of America was put
in danger because Bush was able to get to the presidency with no real
experience after political handlers took him over following his failed
attempts at various careers. It suggests that Bush has iffy military
experience, and the script hurls Cheney’s “four deferments” in our face.
If the lesson is, “Don’t put an Ivy League cushy career-jumping
reinvented politician with little or no executive experience in office, and
only turn to those with military experience in times of peril.”
Sources
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Horn, John, “In Defining Bush, Oliver Stone Goes Where Others Fear to Tread,” Los Angeles
Times, June 29, 2008. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/29/entertainment/ca-w29
Hoopes, Tom, “Oliver Stone’s ‘W.’ Backfires,” National Review Online, October 26, 2008.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/24/opinion/main4544588.shtml
Noah, Timothy, “Dubya, Stoned,” Slate, October 17, 2008. http://www.slate.com/id/2202341