Newsweek Article on 'W'

W, Oliver Stone's biopic of George W. Bush, comes out this week and most reviews so far have been favorable. This article from Newsweek is also positive and makes some interesting comments about the perils of adapting history to the screen:

Through most of the undistinguished history of films about American presidents, concern for truth has been in short supply. From "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939) to "Wilson" (1944) to "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960) to "The Missiles of October" (1974), to the many other, often cheap and cheesy films that populate cable television and direct-to-video products, the purpose of these movies has mostly been hagiography, propaganda or both. "Young Mr. Lincoln" (with Lincoln played by Henry Fonda) portrayed a saintly lawyer engaged in an idealized and implausible battle for justice. "Wilson" is a mediocre and now justly forgotten film that won five Academy Awards because of its usefulness to the debate over the aftermath of World War II. "Sunrise," drawn from a Broadway play, was a tribute to Franklin Roosevelt's courageous conquest of polio (a conquest that in reality never occurred) and a portrayal of a "great American love story" that was in fact the story of a broken marriage never repaired. "The Missiles of October" conveyed not the muddled confusion of a seemingly intractable crisis, but a stark moral conflict in which wisdom defeated rashness.

Of Stone's take on the 43rd president, Alan Brinkley has this to say:

Stone, like most others trying to chronicle their own time, has undoubtedly made educated guesses about Bush that will turn out to be wrong. But "W." is, nevertheless, different from most earlier movies about presidents (including Stone's own). Whatever its qualities as a dramatic film may be, however its portrayal of Bush may fare in the light of history, it is on the whole an honest effort to find some truth in the blizzard of partisan battles over almost everything associated with this presidency. There are no conspiracy theories, no wild speculations, no paranoia. Stone's film is not hagiography. It is not propaganda. It is, surprisingly, more or less fair.

I'll be screening and reviewing the film in due course and give my assessment then. But so far this is promisng.