THE WAR ROOM
a film review by Tak
Placed in the public domain 1994 by Mark Takacs
An October Films Release / 96 mins film by: DA Pennebaker & Chris Hegedus Featuring: James Carville & George Stephanopoulos Tak Rating: watch it on cable
TV-Style-One-Line-Summary ------------------------- You-are-there documentary of Clinton's Presidential campaign, focusing on James Carville & George Stephanopoulos as they lay out strategy, do damage control, and cope with daily difficulties.
Tak Summary ----------- The film begins tracing the efforts of the War Room -- Clinton's campaign headquarters -- in the New Hampshire primary, and leads us all the way through the last days of the election. We see phone interviews, bull sessions, staff meetings (equally as boring as any I've ever been to), pep talks, behind the scenes convention footage, spin-doctoring, scandal shunting and attempts to leak a story.
Instead of focusing on Clinton, like the film-makers originally intended, the focus was shifted to THE WAR ROOM staff, specifically James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. Bill Clinton is rarely shown. It ends up as a study of THE WAR ROOM and the two people who successfully guided it.
Tak Thoughts ------------ I generally don't like documentaries. They remind me of high school social studies classes where half the class is sleeping and the other half is doing last night's homework for math next period. I always managed to learn something though, I just never enjoyed the format. The same goes for THE WAR ROOM.
I did get an interesting look at how a campaign runs. Anyone who thinks a political campaign is a model of order, organization and efficiency will be disillusioned after this film. Bill Clinton's "well-oiled political machine" is chaotic, headless-chickens running-around, seat of the pants group like any other group that needs to respond dynamically to rapidly changing information while still presenting a unified, organized and dignified front. Only the efforts of Carville and Stephanopoulos lend the mess any direction. While usually hellish to be involved in, such chaos is great to watch.
Repeatedly during the campaign, THE WAR ROOM staff has to deal with mudslinging from other candidates and questions about Clinton's past. These include draft issues, Jennifer Flowers, and college activist organizations. With some of these same issues plaguing Clinton today, it's interesting to realize that some of the same people (Stephanopoulos at least) are still at work defusing and directing policy.
The human elements are THE WAR ROOM's best point. That and the LACK of narration. Seeing the excitement after the debates, seeing the tense final days when everything is topsy turvy, seeing their depression when a news story is suppressed, seeing their reactions on the last day as it slowly dawns on them that they've done it. These are the things that made the film watchable.
There's some great lines here too. And you know they're not scripted... they're real lines. After a phone interview -- "I bet I said something you could take out of context" -- Bill Clinton. The sardonic Carville has several; my favorite regards Perot's expensive campaign -- "That's gotta be the single most expensive act of masturbation...". And Stephanopoulos after the election results are in -- "Now we have to actually do something..."
One thing I can't figure out -- how do they expect to make money on this film? I can't see it being a big box office draw. The husband and wife team of Pennebaker and Hegedus were dead set on making a feature length film, but who were they making it for? Who's the PAYING audience? Perhaps people who hang out in coffee shops and talk about politics? (Admittedly, there's a glut of those here in Seattle -- maybe they're on to something...) But still. Maybe they've got a sweet side deal with video.
Technical Comments ------------------ Of course, I knew THE WAR ROOM was a documentary and didn't expect steady-cams and special lighting effects. Accordingly, documentary fans will be happy with the obligatory running-with-the-camera footage, as well as dialogue volume swells, and rough manual pans as they flip back and forth between speakers. I think they actually added to the behind-the-scenes feel.
How did they film a 96 min movie while still maintaining a behind the scenes feel? According to the press packet, the film was done without huge lights and sound booms. No one was ever asked to "say that again for the camera", and the cameraman often lurked in the corner of the room, rather than crouching at people's feet.
In fact, the war room staff often forgot the small film and sound crew was there, often asking incredulously "You guys were filming? We thought you were waiting..." But you'd never know from seeing the movie. The film and sound crew got some great stuff from their unobtrusive locations.
Additional footage was culled from unused bits of a film called FEED, which covered the 1992 NH primary, and from network TV source tapes. The network excerpt were great. It was fun to see a TV reporter being jokingly (?) cut down by his interviewee moments before she and he start their standard schtick -- "This is Joe Blow reporting to you live with ..."
Tak Rating system: ------------------ Documentaries are interesting, but I'm not sure this works well as a feature film. It's not really a date film, a Saturday afternoon matinee, or even late night cable. I wouldn't be surprised to find something like this on your local PBS channel, or some of the better cable educational channels. Actually, if you're in high school or taking a poly-sci class, this would be a GREAT excuse for a field trip. Maybe you can even get it paid for as an official activity. If not, you can at least munch some popcorn and get out of the classroom.
avoid at all costs
X watch it on cable
wait for videotape
see once as a matinee
see several times (w/friends) as matinee
see once at full price
see it several times - full and/or matinee
see many times at full price
.
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