The Hunting Of The
President (Documentary)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
For those wondering why John Kerry lost the Presidency to
George W. Bush, and it was Kerry’s election to loose, one place to look is in
the Harry Thomason/Nickolas Perry documentary The Hunting Of The President,
issued a few months before the election.
At first, many were shocked that explicitly conservative Fox would pick
up and distribute it and do it well enough not to be criticized. Instead of it being a case of “fair and
balanced” though, it turns out they did it because it shows the weakness in the
Kerry approach that was so bad, it allowed Bush to win.
Based on the well-chronicled book by Gene Lyons and Joe
Conason, the film has great material to unreel, but anytime the film gets
really interesting and makes a very strong, valid point, idiotic nonsense
footage and editing kicks in and undermines the film over and over again. The bizarre kind of humor the film offers is
condescending and among the most counterproductive I have ever seen. There is this growing attitude in the
Democratic National Party that is ruining it and is the reason the Republicans
had so many surprise gains. There is
this attitude that is not the elitist stereotype, but a strange assumption that
the votes can be taken for granted for democrats (lazy Democrat syndrome) and
that these people are in on some strange groupthink joke where everything a
candidate says is “valid” and “obvious” to any “idiot” who is “paying
attention” to what they see as going on.
The problem is they are thinking and saying only things they know the
meaning of, very bad in politics. This
“humor” is perverted by a sick, dysfunctional sort of anger that comes blaring
through in this work; the anger that helped Arnold Schwarzenegger win the
Governorship of California after a sudden wave of accusations that he was a
predator of women, that came through in all of Al Gore’s multiple personalities
as he ignored the good things Clinton did, ignored the potential of Ralph Nader
and sold himself out, the kind of silliness that people are not going to
tolerate. Promising four years of
nonsense will repel anyone and considering Thomason did the film that got
Clinton in The White House in the first place, this is a huge miscalculation
that shows these people were in a bubble and blew it. As for this film, what does work are the facts. Too bad a “phantom edit” could not be done
to fix this film, but Election Day 2004 is long over and it is too late for
this to be taken as seriously as Fahrenheit 9/11, despite being more
accurate.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is inclusive of
a combination of a bunch of standard definition news broadcast video in the
analog NTSC format and new interviews shot in digital video, but the inclusion
of those silly film clips is unfortunate and the quality of them is often
richer. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
has some Pro Logic surrounds, but they are nothing sonically great, yet better
than simply two channels. There are
hardly any extras, but the main one that is here is a doozey. After a major premiere screening, former
President Clinton gives an incredible speech over forty minutes long that is
stunning. He tells it like it is about
the past, present and future. This was before
Kerry lost, of course, but what he says holds so much weight and it is the kind
of talk Bush could never hope to give.
It alone is as much a reason to get this DVD as the main program, but
both are worth a look for their own reasons.
- Nicholas Sheffo
