Name | W. |
---|---|
Director | Oliver Stone |
Producer | Moritz BormanJon KilikBill BlockPaul HansonEric Kopeloff |
Writer | Stanley Weiser |
Starring | Josh BrolinElizabeth BanksJames CromwellEllen BurstynRichard DreyfussToby JonesThandie NewtonJeffrey WrightScott GlennBruce McGillJennifer SipesNoah WyleIoan Gruffudd |
Music | Paul Cantelon |
Cinematography | Phedon Papamichael Jr. |
Editing | Julie MonroeJoe HutshingAlexis Chavez |
Studio | Global Entertainment GroupQED InternationalEmperor Motion PicturesMillbrook PicturesOnda Entertainment |
Distributor | Lionsgate |
Released | |
Runtime | 129 minutes |
Country | |
Language | English |
Budget | $25.1 million |
Gross | $29,506,464 }} |
In 1977, Bush announces he will run for Congress in Texas. At a barbecue, Bush meets Laura Welch (Elizabeth Banks), his future wife. During the congress debate, Bush is criticized by his opponent, Democrat Kent Hance (Paul Rae), who says that Bush is not a "real Texan" and has spent campaign contributions to throw an alcohol-fueled party for underage Texas Tech University students. Bush does poorly in the debate and loses the election, but with the highest number of votes for a Republican candidate in the state's history. Angered by the loss, he declares that he'll "never be out-Texas'd or out-Christianed again".
After turning 40 in 1986, Bush becomes a born again Christian, gives up alcohol, and somewhat mends his relationship with his father. The elder Bush invites him to assist with his successful 1988 presidential campaign, though the younger Bush suspects that he only was asked because his brother Jeb was busy. Bush's political advisor, Karl Rove (Toby Jones), tells him that he has the potential to make a name for himself, but has not yet done anything with his life. Bush becomes the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team while his father oversees the victory of the 1991 Gulf War. Allied forces win the war in 100 hours, but the elder Bush decides not to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. When Bush's father loses the 1992 election, Bush blames the loss on the decision not to depose Hussein.
Bush decides to run for Governor of Texas despite his parents' opposition. An election win prompts a successful presidential bid in 2000. Following the September 11 attacks, Bush plans a war with Iraq, and labels America's enemies — specifically Iraq, North Korea, and Iran — the "axis of evil". In 2002, Bush begins searching for evidence that Hussein was creating nuclear weapons, and has the army prepared. Bush's staff supports the president, with the exception of Secretary of State Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), who says that invading Iraq would destabilize the country. He is generally overruled by Vice President Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn), who insist that the war — deliberately waged without an exit strategy — would secure the U.S.' status as sole global superpower while spreading democracy throughout the Middle East.
In his 2003 State of the Union Address, Bush states that "Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists." In March 2003, the U.S. invades Iraq and, at first, the war appears to be a success. Bush gives his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech on an aircraft carrier. When it becomes clear that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush learns that the responsibility for finding them had been relegated far down the chain of command. Bush also discovers that Saddam Hussein gambled his regime and his life on the assumption that Bush was bluffing. Bush is asked in a press conference what mistakes he made as President, a question that leaves him flustered and speechless.
That night, Bush has a nightmare in which his father accuses him of ruining the Bush legacy, which he claims was intended for Jeb. Later, he dreams of playing center field in a baseball game. A pop fly is hit in his direction. As Bush attempts to catch the ball, it disappears.
Originally, the Hong Kong actress Gillian Chung (from the band Twins) also appeared in a cameo. However, since the Edison Chen photo scandal incident happened before it released on the theater, her acting scenes were completely removed.
W was Oliver Stone's third film in a trilogy he made about the Presidency, set in the time from the 1960s to today: the set began with JFK and continued with Nixon. Originally, he was attached to direct Pinkville, a film about the Army's investigation of the My Lai Massacre, but development was canceled due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike and actor Bruce Willis pulling out of the film three weeks before shooting was set to start. As a result, United Artists shut the production down. Stone moved on to direct a film about the life and presidency of George W. Bush, shopping a script that had been written before the strike by Stanley Weiser, who had co-written Wall Street with Stone. Weiser and Stone read 17 books as part of their research for the script, and worked on the project for a year before venturing to film Pinkville. Stone has admitted that he and Weiser had to speculate on some dialogue: "You take all the facts and take the spirit of the scene and make it accurate to what you think happened". W. was financed independently for Stone, with Hong Kong, German, and Australian funds: he tried to approach American studios for money, but got turned down. Lions Gate Entertainment distributed the film. Though Stone has criticized Bush for his administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq, the director said that he was not looking to make an "anti-Bush polemic." Stone compared his goal of the film to that of The Queen, wanting to trace "seminal events in Bush's life." According to the director, "It's a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to Nixon, to give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin. But if Nixon was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece, and not as dark in tone." He described the structure of W. as a three-act film starting with Bush as a young man "with a missed life", followed by his transformation and "an assertion of will which was amazingly powerful" as he came out from his father's shadow, and finally his invasion of Iraq.
The film, originally titled Bush, was re-titled W. Filming began on May 12, 2008 in Shreveport, Louisiana, and completed filming on July 11, 2008. On May 13, 2008 the New York Post published excerpts from an early draft of the script. The column, written by Cindy Adams, stated “Pro-Bushies will hate it, antis will love it.”
The film was released on October 17, 2008, before the presidential election. W. 's producers reportedly ran television spots for the film opposite Republican Party presidential nominee John McCain's ads in the fall of 2008.
Giving the film four stars in his review, Roger Ebert wrote that it was "fascinating" and praised all the actors, noting that Richard Dreyfuss, in particular, was "not so much a double as an embodiment" of Dick Cheney. In contrast, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the film "a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature." Film critic James Berardinelli negatively compared the film with Saturday Night Live skits, saying of the actors that "None of them are as dead-on as Tina Fey as Sarah Palin."
The Monthly film critic Luke Davies spoke highly of Josh Brolin's performance but criticized Oliver Stone's portrayal of the story, writing "The unexamined life is not worth living; in Stone's interpretation, Bush's life has been worthless. And this makes it hard to get a grip on the film's central character. The fault lies not with Brolin but with the material he's been given. There's no interior exploration. The point, no doubt, is that Stone believes there's nothing to explore; certainly, Bush has learned nothing by the end of the film. But audiences want more, especially in biopics that are critical of their subjects." Davies observed that "when weighed against Stone's body of work, the film comes across as decidedly placid, as if, aware of the contentious subject matter, Stone wanted to make a movie where he couldn't, for once, be accused of generating leftist hysteria." Davies grasped that "the film portrays a man who had no real sense of what government might be: that glorious dream of fairness imagined, for all its flaws, by the founding fathers" but that this is lost in the film's entirety, describing Stone's "canvas [as] too broad, and W is like the highlights reel of one man's powerful life."
The Bush administration never officially commented on the film. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is portrayed in the film, called the sibling rivalry portrayed in the film "high-grade, unadulterated hooey" and said that Stone's exploration of the family dynamic could have benefited from actual conversations with the Bush family. Slate Magazines Timothy Noah, however, noted that "most [of] the film's more ludicrous details" are actually directly taken from non-fiction sources, and argued that the film was too kind to Bush in omitting certain historically recorded dramatic events, most notably Bush's alleged mocking of murderer Karla Faye Tucker, a woman put to death during his tenure of the Texan governorship, to interviewer Tucker Carlson. However, the incident is disputed by Bush himself, and as such is also unconfirmed. In a March 2010 "Screen Test" interview with The New York Times Lynne Hirschberg, Josh Brolin claims Bush did in fact watch the film. Brolin said Oliver Stone met with Bill Clinton in China and Clinton told Stone he'd lent his copy of W. to Bush. Apparently, Bush "liked it very much" and "thought there were sad moments."
The film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News named it the eighth best film of 2008, and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times named it on his top 20 list (he did not assign rankings).
The film opened #4 behind The Secret Life of Bees, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and Max Payne, respectively with $10,505,668 from 2,030 theaters with a $5,175 average. The film had a budget of $25.1 million and grossed $25,534,493 in North America, and $3,401,242 internationally.
Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:American political drama films Category:Films about elections Category:Films set in Washington, D.C. Category:Films directed by Oliver Stone Category:Films set in the 1960s Category:Films set in the 1970s Category:Films set in the 1980s Category:Films set in the 1990s Category:2000s drama films Category:Films set in Texas Category:English-language films Category:2008 films Category:American biographical films Category:George W. Bush in fiction Category:Baby boomers in fiction Category:Films about George W. Bush Category:Films shot in Louisiana Category:Films about fraternities and sororities Category:Lions Gate Entertainment films Category:Films about Presidents of the United States
da:W. (film) de:W. – Ein missverstandenes Leben es:W. (película) fa:دبلیو (فیلم) fr:W. : L'Improbable Président it:W. he:W. mr:डब्ल्यु. (चित्रपट) nl:W. (film) ja:ブッシュ (映画) pl:W. pt:W. (filme) ru:Буш-младший (фильм) fi:W. sv:W. (film) uk:Дабл ю (фільм) zh:殊不簡單This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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