It’s less than two weeks to go until the wealthiest and most powerful country in the western hemisphere decides whether it will go bravely into the lion’s den of a second Donald Trump era or point itself towards safer shores under the guidance of its potential first female leader Kamala Harris.
Now seems like a good time to briefly step away from the absurdity and madness of real-world election bombast and turn to the prescient craziness and hard truths about politics offered by these five films, picked from the long history of the movies’ obsession with the darker side of American democracy and its effects on those who choose to swim in its shark-infested waters.
THE BEST MAN (1964) — YOUTUBE
Gore Vidal was born into a family knee-deep in the swamp of Washington politics. He made an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1960 on the Democratic ticket of John F Kennedy. His intimate knowledge of the back room realities of the political machine would serve as useful fodder for many of his novels and this play, which he adapted for the screen. Directed by Franklin J Schaffner and starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson as two presidential hopefuls on opposite sides of the aisle, it’s an old-fashioned but still pertinent examination of the thin line between ethical duty and personal ambition.
THE CANDIDATE (1972) — YOUTUBE
Director Michael Ritchie’s dark comedy about the soul-destroying nature of US politics was released towards the end of the Nixon era, when trust and faith in US democratic institutions were swiftly being erased by the revelations of the Watergate scandal. Peak-era, all-American Robert Redford stars as Bill McKay, a social justice warrior lawyer who is doing his best to live a good life, far from the shadow of his former governor father, until cunning kingmaker Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) arrives to convince him that he’s the ideal Democratic candidate to oust a stodgy, longtime incumbent Republican senator. McKay’s initial idealism, self-confidence and righteousness are soon erased by the exhaustion and ethical sacrifices of realpolitik necessities and by the end of his ordeal, the bags under his eyes and his scowl show that the nasty business of politics is not for the good-hearted. The film proved prescient about the direction that US politics would take, even if history has since proven that it would go to even worse places than its creators imagined.
BOB ROBERTS (1992) — VIMEO
Tim Robbins wrote, directed and starred in this pioneering political mockumentary, which in many ways foresaw the rise of Donald Trump long before the real-estate mogul even dreamt of entering the presidential arena. Robbins plays wealthy, right-wing Pennsylvania candidate Bob Roberts whose conspiracy-theory-tinged folk songs propel him to the front of the race and into the sights of crazed paranoid far-right sniper rifles. It is a bitingly sharp and prescient view of the 21st-century madness that would envelop the Republican Party in the post-Obama era.
PRIMARY COLORS (1998) — YOUTUBE
When the book Primary Colors was published anonymously in 1996, the identity of its author was a mystery, and everyone wanted to know which Clinton insider could have so thoroughly revealed the dirty behind-the-scenes secrets of the Arkansas governor’s successful presidential bid in 1992. By the time director Mike Nichols adapted the book for screen, it’s author had been revealed as journalist Joe Klein, who had used his experiences covering the Clinton campaign for Newsweek as the basis for his dark satirical novel in which the Clintons and their entourage were thinly disguised in the fictional campaign of idealistic, much-loved, and serial-womanising southern governor Jack Stanton. Billed as a film about “what went down on the way to the top”, it stars comeback-era John Travolta as Stanton, Emma Thompson as his long-suffering wife and British actor Adrian Lester as young, idealistic campaign aide Henry Burton, through whose eyes we watch as the Stantons ruthlessly ensure victory by any means necessary. Written by longtime Nichols’ collaborator Elaine May, the film was overlooked at the time, but has endured as a clear-eyed, cynical reminder of how ambition can corrupt even the most apparently virtuous of players.
BULWORTH (1998) — RENT OR BUY FROM APPLE TV +
Warren Beatty was one of the most politically outspoken members of the 1970s New Hollywood scene. This angry but smartly funny takedown of the prejudices and hypocrisies of the Clinton era proved that he’d lost none of his youthful spark.
Co-written, directed and starring Beatty as corrupt Democratic senator Jay Bulworth, it’s the story of what happens when Bulworth attempts to cover a debt by taking out a $10m
life-insurance policy, and then taking a hit out on himself so the money can be collected. As he begins to descend deeper into insanity in the middle of a re-election campaign, Bulworth learns about life on the streets and the realities facing black Americans after he falls for young activist Nina (Halle Berry). As he realises that the solution to his problems isn’t dying but rather speaking the truth, the race is on to see whether he can get away with it. The film takes hard and often effective aim at the rampant corruption and corporate capture that have since become so prevalent.
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