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The politics of Hollywood
  
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By Peter Jones
As cinema, last year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver offered far more drama than the predetermined coronation of a presidential nominee. The four days of celebrity, politics and protest had a colorful cast of characters to rival any Hollywood fiction.
As evidenced by three new documentaries being screened as part of the 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival, Nov. 12-22 at the Starz Film Center on the Auraria Campus, politics and movies can make strange, but fascinating bedfellows.
“There are lots of great characters in that world, and you often see them in the most extreme because of the egos involved,” said filmmaker George Hickenlooper, whose “Hick Town” follows his cousin, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, though the morass of the DNC.
But it was not just local and national politicians who comprised the convention’s mix of character, motivation, conflict and resolution. The media, law enforcement, celebrities, awestruck delegates and protesters were also important parts of the confluence of politics, culture and mayhem.
“Convention” by director A.J. Schnack assembled all those components to create a sort of collage of recurring characters convening at the Pepsi Center for different reasons. The humor and drama recall a nonfiction answer to Robert Altman’s sprawling narratives of overlapping stories and people.
“It’s not what I had hoped to see,” said Mark Cohen, a local organizer for the Recreate ’68 protest group who figures prominently in “Convention.” “I was hoping that the film might better reflect why we were out there demonstrating. But for what they were aiming at, which was apparently an impressionistic overview of what was going on, I think they did a decent job.”
If “Convention” is an unselfconscious slice of life at the DNC, Barry Levinson’s “PoliWood” is a pointed examination of the intersection of Hollywood and politics.
One could not walk down the crowded concourses of the Pepsi Center without literally bumping into the likes of Ron Howard, Jamie Foxx and “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart.
Levinson sets much of “PoliWood” against the backdrop of the DNC to examine the influence Hollywood has had over the democratic process — comparing politics to theater, news to entertainment, and public policy to tabloid fodder. Levinson interviews the likes of Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee and David Crosby.
The filmmaker raises a number of issues, including the power of video footage to convey “truth” and the perception that Hollywood is overwhelmingly liberal. But the film by the successful director of “Diner,” “Good Morning, Vietnam” and “Wag the Dog” is not without self-referential irony.
“[Levinson’s] take on the intersection between Hollywood and politics is all too relevant in this media-saturated, celebrity-centric age, but ironically the film's chief selling point is the presence of numerous well-known movie and television performers,” the Hollywood Reporter said in its review.
“Hick Town,” on the other hand, mainly uses the convention setting as an illustration of Mayor Hickenlooper’s unique, often quirky character as a big city mayor, whose loose tie and casual manner belie his political acumen.
Director George Hickenlooper’s previous projects include 1991’s acclaimed “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” a bird’s-eye documentary on the disastrous making of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”
As in that documentary, for the episodic “Hick Town” — which is being pitched as a reality series — the mayor’s cousin was granted unprecedented access to Denver’s top executive. The result is something akin to a nonfiction answer to “Spin City.”
“He was basically managing the city from the back of his environmentally friendly SUV, dealing with everything from bomb threats to that horrendous assassination plot against Obama,” Hickenlooper the filmmaker said. “We were privy to those moments when John was really sweating it out.”
The mayor, no worse for wear, comes off in “Hick Town” as a calmly self-assured manager with a knack for self-deprecation and an unrestrained boyishness.
He jokes with then-Sen. Obama about being the two skinny Democrats with funny names. In another scene, the mayor playfully races his manager of security up the stairs of the City and County Building.
“Most politicians mold themselves to be perceived the way they think people want to perceive them. John is just who he is,” George Hickenlooper said.
Such candor has long been the key to the kind of cinema-verite documentaries that the festival has long screened. As for Cohen, the Recreate ’68 protester says he never became overly aware of the film crew that was following his group around the city either.
“I didn’t realize I would be quite as prominent in [‘Convention’] as I turned out to be,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of people who’ve been the subject of documentaries say that after a while you forget the cameras are there. That was certainly the case. We weren’t going to alter our behavior in any case just because we were being filmed.”
If you go
“Hick Town” screens Nov. 21 at 3 p.m. and Nov. 22 at 1 p.m. at the 32nd Starz Film Center in the Tivoli on the Auraria Campus. Director George Hickenlooper will attend. The mayor’s presence was unconfirmed at press time.
“Convention” will screen Nov. 19 at 6:45 p.m. Director A.J. Schnack and participant Mark Cohen, among others, will attend.
“PoliWood” will screen Nov. 14 at 2 p.m. at the King Center on the Auaria Campus.
For more information, call 303-595-3456 or visit denverfilm.org.
As evidenced by three new documentaries being screened as part of the 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival, Nov. 12-22 at the Starz Film Center on the Auraria Campus, politics and movies can make strange, but fascinating bedfellows.
“There are lots of great characters in that world, and you often see them in the most extreme because of the egos involved,” said filmmaker George Hickenlooper, whose “Hick Town” follows his cousin, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, though the morass of the DNC.
But it was not just local and national politicians who comprised the convention’s mix of character, motivation, conflict and resolution. The media, law enforcement, celebrities, awestruck delegates and protesters were also important parts of the confluence of politics, culture and mayhem.
“Convention” by director A.J. Schnack assembled all those components to create a sort of collage of recurring characters convening at the Pepsi Center for different reasons. The humor and drama recall a nonfiction answer to Robert Altman’s sprawling narratives of overlapping stories and people.
“It’s not what I had hoped to see,” said Mark Cohen, a local organizer for the Recreate ’68 protest group who figures prominently in “Convention.” “I was hoping that the film might better reflect why we were out there demonstrating. But for what they were aiming at, which was apparently an impressionistic overview of what was going on, I think they did a decent job.”
If “Convention” is an unselfconscious slice of life at the DNC, Barry Levinson’s “PoliWood” is a pointed examination of the intersection of Hollywood and politics.
One could not walk down the crowded concourses of the Pepsi Center without literally bumping into the likes of Ron Howard, Jamie Foxx and “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart.
Levinson sets much of “PoliWood” against the backdrop of the DNC to examine the influence Hollywood has had over the democratic process — comparing politics to theater, news to entertainment, and public policy to tabloid fodder. Levinson interviews the likes of Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee and David Crosby.
The filmmaker raises a number of issues, including the power of video footage to convey “truth” and the perception that Hollywood is overwhelmingly liberal. But the film by the successful director of “Diner,” “Good Morning, Vietnam” and “Wag the Dog” is not without self-referential irony.
“[Levinson’s] take on the intersection between Hollywood and politics is all too relevant in this media-saturated, celebrity-centric age, but ironically the film's chief selling point is the presence of numerous well-known movie and television performers,” the Hollywood Reporter said in its review.
“Hick Town,” on the other hand, mainly uses the convention setting as an illustration of Mayor Hickenlooper’s unique, often quirky character as a big city mayor, whose loose tie and casual manner belie his political acumen.
Director George Hickenlooper’s previous projects include 1991’s acclaimed “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” a bird’s-eye documentary on the disastrous making of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”
As in that documentary, for the episodic “Hick Town” — which is being pitched as a reality series — the mayor’s cousin was granted unprecedented access to Denver’s top executive. The result is something akin to a nonfiction answer to “Spin City.”
“He was basically managing the city from the back of his environmentally friendly SUV, dealing with everything from bomb threats to that horrendous assassination plot against Obama,” Hickenlooper the filmmaker said. “We were privy to those moments when John was really sweating it out.”
The mayor, no worse for wear, comes off in “Hick Town” as a calmly self-assured manager with a knack for self-deprecation and an unrestrained boyishness.
He jokes with then-Sen. Obama about being the two skinny Democrats with funny names. In another scene, the mayor playfully races his manager of security up the stairs of the City and County Building.
“Most politicians mold themselves to be perceived the way they think people want to perceive them. John is just who he is,” George Hickenlooper said.
Such candor has long been the key to the kind of cinema-verite documentaries that the festival has long screened. As for Cohen, the Recreate ’68 protester says he never became overly aware of the film crew that was following his group around the city either.
“I didn’t realize I would be quite as prominent in [‘Convention’] as I turned out to be,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of people who’ve been the subject of documentaries say that after a while you forget the cameras are there. That was certainly the case. We weren’t going to alter our behavior in any case just because we were being filmed.”
If you go
“Hick Town” screens Nov. 21 at 3 p.m. and Nov. 22 at 1 p.m. at the 32nd Starz Film Center in the Tivoli on the Auraria Campus. Director George Hickenlooper will attend. The mayor’s presence was unconfirmed at press time.
“Convention” will screen Nov. 19 at 6:45 p.m. Director A.J. Schnack and participant Mark Cohen, among others, will attend.
“PoliWood” will screen Nov. 14 at 2 p.m. at the King Center on the Auaria Campus.
For more information, call 303-595-3456 or visit denverfilm.org.
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