How would you programme a ‘Donald Trump film festival’
No, I don’t just mean a weekend of Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, Hillbilly Elegy and Home Alone 2.
But rather how can one use films to understand Donald Trump’s rise to power, his spectacular political return, his upset victories over ‘the establishment’ and the general public’s continuing acceptance — and even championing — of a convicted sex offender, felon and fascist (well, the latter is according to his former chief of staff).
What would a ‘Donald Trump Film Festival’ look like?
Opening Night: Heaven’s Gate — Michael Cimino (1980)
An ever-timely reminder of the deeply evil history of the United States of America and of virulent anti-immigrant sentiment that far predates Donald J. Trump’s ‘build the wall, kick them out’ populism.
It is 1890 in Wyoming and wealthy cattle barons put out a ‘kill list’ of 125 poor European settlers who they blame for a variety of crimes. They have the tacit approval of the state’s authorities but Sheriff Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson in perhaps his best role?) tries to stop them and sides with the immigrants, falling in love at the same time.
Unfairly maligned upon release as a work of pretentious self-indulgence, in the last 10 years Michael Cimino’s magnum opus has been reevaluated as a masterpiece and a shattering indictment of American history and myth-making.
Bulworth — Warren Beatty (1998)
A political satire starring Warren Beatty as the eponymous Bulworth; a jaded senator running for reelection while also trying to avoid a hitman he hired to cash out on a souped-up life insurance policy.
Disillusioned with modern day politics Bulworth decides to ‘go rogue’ and actually tell it like it is, ignoring his staff and instead being brutally honest with voters and donors (and, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, speak in a rap).
We can perhaps blame an uncredited script polish by Aaron Sorkin for the fact the ‘brave’ points Bulworth makes about politics are obvious (corporate lobbying is bad! Black voters are taken for granted by the system!), but that doesn’t harm the film’s overall message of the mendacity of politics.
Reportedly, Barack Obama once desired to ‘Go Bulworth’… but presumably that would have been without the rapping.
Clint Eastwood double bill: Dirty Harry — Don Siegel
Eastwood, the doyen of ‘conservative’ American cinema in the late 20th century, both in front of the camera and behind it, has such a deep oeuvre it is hard to ignore — especially as so many of his films are praised but misunderstood by right wing media.
Eastwood’s iconic Harry Callahan is the idealised Trump cop. A man with no time for pleasantries or due process and a lust for extra-judicial violence. Revered critic Pauline Kael called this action classic a ‘deeply immoral movie’ due to Inspector Callahan’s decision to ignore professional boundaries in pursuit of his ‘justice’ and his loathing of bureaucracy.
Eastwood said that the liberals got it wrong and the cop “is just as evil, in his way, as the sniper.” I doubt Trump would agree.
American Sniper — Clint Eastwood (2014)
“Only Americans could venerate the leader of a murderous death squad rampaging through a sovereign foreign land uninvited with the express purpose of executing fellow human beings and who has no other noteworthy accomplishments to his name, nor any higher aspirations than military service.” — Letterboxd user ‘Tentin Quarantino’.
Maybe. Maybe not. Depiction does not equal endorsement and American Sniper is another Eastwood film that he believes liberals got wrong.
Sure, on the face of it, American Sniper might seem like the deification of a mass murderer (the ruthlessly brilliant US Navy marksman Chris Kyle). But that it is only the veneer of the movie; under the skin Eastwood is showing us how Kyle was merely the product of the violent and jingoistic American culture that begat him.
(Another option in this slot would be Eastwood’s deeply cynical, often overlooked Flags of our Fathers).
Documentary feature: Collective — Alexander Nanau (2019)
In the broadest sense, Collective is a 109-minute look at the political futility of investigative journalism.
That’s being very unfair. Collective is actually much more than that. It’s a Romanian documentary on the aftermath of the Colectiv nightclub fire in Bucharest and subsequent discovery of widespread corruption in the country’s healthcare system.
Twenty seven people were killed in the initial blaze but a further 37 died in hospital. When a group of journalists do some digging, what they uncover and expose brings down the government… but only for a short while and for what larger purpose? Fantastic filmmaking combined with the sort of reporting of which Woodward and Bernstein would be proud.
Being There — Hal Ashby (1979)
One of the more serene (and funny) selections, Being There is a political satire of a different colour with Peter Sellers’s simple-minded gardener Chance somehow finding himself ascending to power.
Director Hal Ashby’s ever-gentle hand strikes a perfect balance of sentimental, ludicrous and touching. It features an ending for the ages and sends up all of society’s power brokers, not just politicians.
Lone Star — John Sayles (1996)
“One of the things that Lone Star is about, to me, is the way in which American culture has always, always been many cultures. [But] in many places, the dominant culture gets to write the history.” — John Sayles
The (fictional) Texas border town of Frontera is the perfect melting pot for a murder mystery that involves immigration, racism and the lies society tells itself about its heroes.
A skeleton is found near a soon-to-be-closed army base and the local sheriff Sam Deeds starts to investigate, linking it with the disappearance of a racist former sheriff who had a run in with Deeds’ dad before disappearing.
In fact Sam Deeds has spent his life reckoning with the shadow of his white knight dad Buddy, but maybe our heroes aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and maybe a lifetime spent dealing with physical borders, be they physical fences or simply acts of self-segregation, lead to mental ones.
Sayles is a genius here, pulling tropes from westerns and noir alike and also wrestling with historical revisionism that has exploded in the last 10 years. Who gets to interpret history? With Donald Trump’s rise to power, it’s the ‘white and right’ who have re-established their dominance once again.
Citizen Kane — Orson Welles (1941)
It has to be on the list doesn’t it? A megalomaniacal media personality, happy to play fast and loose with the truth, takes a crack at political office… but that’s enough about Donald Trump, let’s talk about Charles Foster Kane.
Orson Welles’s debut is still the daddy and with good reason. A towering cinematic achievement that has not only survived the test of time but thrived, now more relevant than ever in an era of billionaire pomposity and shamelessness (Kane builds an opera house, Musk and Bezos build rocket ships).
The parallels are easy to draw, from Kane’s Xanadu to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago but whereas scandal ended Kane’s political ambitions, it did no such thing for The Donald.
It remains to be seen if Trump’s life will end as Kane did: alone and lamenting over the lost innocence and joy of childhood, of a time before untold wealth and power. But Trump never ‘gagged on the silver spoon’ as old Charley Kane did.
Gala screening: Gone with the Wind — Victor Fleming (1939)
“We’ve got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of that, they give them best movie of the year (Parasite). Was it good? I don’t know. Can we get like ‘Gone with the Wind’ back please?’” — Donald Trump
Introduction by Sarah Churchwell, author of The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells.
You can draw a direct line from Gone with the Wind’s twisted Civil War romanticism to Donald Trump’s rise. It perpetuates the Lost Cause myth, glamorizes the Confederacy and soft-pedals the rampant, virulent racism of the era.
Lest we forget Trump has consistently railed against the removal of Confederate monuments in southern states, indeed the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville came about due to opposition to the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. Would that right wing fervour for generals who waged a racist war to keep Black people enslaved exist without Gone with the Wind?
The film’s reputation is now so toxic in 2020 it was briefly removed from the streaming service HBO Max, a decision which sparked great debate over the film’s role in Hollywood and America’s history. Film studies scholar Jacqueline Stewart said Wind was “a prime text for examining expressions of white supremacy in popular culture”.
For some of Trump’s supporters, that sense of white supremacy lives on today.
Trump’s America: Killing Them Softly — Andrew Dominik (2012)
I’ve written before about how Andrew Dominik’s cynical, black comedy predicted the rise of Donald Trump. The down-and-outs don’t give a shit about slogans or about the Obama vs McCain election patter blaring from every radio or TV station. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and it’s about survival.
This is scummy, violent movie, about low-level gangsters reacting to a card game being robbed and the underground economy subsequently going to shit (a heavy-handed metaphor for the 2008 financial crisis).
Brad Pitt’s mob enforcer Jackie Cogan denounces Obama’s platitudinal optimism, derides Thomas Jefferson for his racial hypocrisy and spits out his thesis: “America is not a country, it’s just a business, now fucking pay me.”
Trump’s America: Red Rocket — Sean Baker (2021)
Maybe the best piece of Trump-era media thus far? (Though it did come out during Joe Biden’s term).
The only film at the ‘festival’ to feature Trump himself, albeit through the TV and dozens of ‘Make America Great Again’ lawn signs. But the characters are not politically engaged, they watch with zero interest, half on their phones.
Simon Rex stars as Mikey ‘Saber’ Davies, a down-and-out pornstar who returns to his hometown of Texas City, Texas and weasels his way back into his old life (selling drugs, begging for money from his estranged wife) before becoming obsessed with a local teenager who he wishes to exploit as a sort of pedo-pimp as his ticket back to the ‘big time’.
Mikey Saber might start out as someone to root for, but it becomes clear that in reality he is a repulsive character — a grifter and serial abuser who is only out for himself at the expense of any and all around him.
The characters may be ignoring Trump on the TV but there’s a Trumpian character in their midst.
Prescient cinema: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion — Elio Petri (1970)
Italy literally invented the 20th century proto-fascist in Benito Mussolini and Elio Petri’s stinging, darkly comic rebuke is his best known film — and with good reason.
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is about a Mussolini-esque police chief who murders his lover and plants evidence incriminating himself but, of course, none of his loyal staff dare to imagine their boss could be guilty of such a crime.
A film both of its time and eerily prescient of a 21st century where supporters of the powerful find it all too easy to ignore what’s right in front of their face.
Prescient cinema: A Face in the Crowd — Elia Kazan (1957)
“Those morons out there? Shucks, I could take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them as caviar. I could make them eat dog food and think it was steak. Sure, I got ’em like this… You know what the public’s like? A cage of Guinea Pigs. Good Night you stupid idiots. Good Night, you miserable slobs. They’re a lot of trained seals. I toss them a dead fish and they’ll flap their flippers.”
Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg were cooking with this one.
A down-trodden Arkansas drifter (Andy Griffith) with some homespun country charm rises to great fame and influence thanks to radio and TV. But as his popularity and wealth grows so does his disdain for the general public.
Andy Griffith quite literally steals the show as Larry ‘Lonesome’ Rhodes but don’t overlook wonderful support work by Walter Matthau and especially Patricia Neal who is fascinated by Rhodes, falls in love with him and then becomes increasingly disillusioned by what he turns into: an arrogant blowhard with a lust for power and influence.
I could have written this entry entirely on quotes that ring truer now than they did way back in 1957. “Illegal? Honey, nothing’s illegal if they don’t catch you!”
An incredible work of foresight.
Closing night: Killers of the Flower Moon — Martin Scorsese (2023)
Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth turned David Grann’s book about the Osage killings in the early 20th century in Oklahoma inside out, making it more of a twisted love story between an oil-rich Osage woman and her white husband who was poisoning her and killing her family, with the help of his uncle.
But crucial to both Scorsese’s film and Grann’s book is how the community knew these diabolical crimes were going on but did nothing. It was just part of the common racism of society, white people were ‘superior’ and, crucially, whatever scandal that should emerge would simply be forgotten, life moves on.
Plus, what better way to end the festival than Killers’ chilling denouement that art may not change a thing anyway and history is history. There is no retconning even as we reckon with it.
When was America ever great? In the movies maybe, but not in reality.
