Hollywood Awakens From its Clinton-Induced Slumber
The recently-released nominations for the upcoming Oscars promise a politically-charged evening, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. The war in Iraq and the Bush presidency have, with the help of a new breed of film producers, managed to awaken the slumbering giant of the pre-Clinton years - to wit, a politically-engaged Hollywood.
By Claudine Mulard in Los Angeles
Translated By Mike Goeden
February 21, 2006
Original
Article (French) 
Monday, February 13 in Beverly Hills, California: The traditional lunch
organized in honor of those actors nominated for an Oscar (the ceremony is
scheduled for March 5) followed on the heels of reports on American Vice
President Dick Cheney's wounding of pro-Republican attorney Harry Whittington.
George Clooney, Hollywood's most talked about liberal actor, couldn't restrain
himself: "I asked Dick Cheney to be my date for the Oscars!" This is droll,
coming from an actor with such a rich history of criticizing the Bush Administration.
Clooney
is up for three nominations for films sure to annoy the White House: best director and
best screenwriter for Good Night and Good Luck 
, concerning the
denunciation of McCarthy's anti-American witch hunt by CBS's star anchorman at
the time, Edward R. Murrow, and best supporting actor for his role as a spy in Syriana 
,
a thriller denouncing Big American Oil's collusion with certain Arab Gulf
monarchies (the film will be released in France on Wednesday, February 22).
"I don't know if the speeches on the night of the Oscars will be
political, but this year's films certainly are," pointed out Clooney, who
is already being compared to senior actors Warren Beatty and Robert Redford for
his political activism.
Among the
political films competing for an Oscar is Steven Spielberg's Munich ,
which tackles the explosive subject of the reprisals that followed the
kidnapping of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Since its release at the
end of last December, the film has revived controversies and been the subject
of considerable hostility.
"My
film was the only one to have caused such a violent outcry! But the other films
are just as inflammatory," commented Spielberg, alluding to the four other
films in the "best director" category and the even more prestigious
"best film" category (Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain , Paul
Haggis's Crash , Bennett Miller's Capote , and George Clooney's Good
Night, and Good Luck). "They were made with courage and passion, and
without fear. As though they were saying This is who I am. This is what I
believe in," enthused Spielberg.
The
Academy's 5,798 members also singled out The Constant Gardener, adapted
from the novel by John Le Carré and directed by Fernando Meirelles, by
nominating both Rachel Weisz, for her role as an aid-worker murdered for
knowing too much about the pharmaceutical companies' dangerous experiments in
East Africa, and the film's screenwriter, Jeffrey Caine. Finally, Charlize
Theron is nominated for best actress; in the film North Country , she
plays the first worker to have won a class-action lawsuit against sexual
harassment. It should be pointed out that Warner chose March 8, International
Women's Day, as the American launch date for this feminist film.
Social
and political engagement is also evident among the nominated documentaries,
with Alex Gibney's Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room 
, which focuses
on the company's financial scandal, the key players of which are currently on
trial in Houston (Texas). All of these films mark the return of a
politically-engaged Hollywood. It is unclear whether this trend is a temporary
phenomenon or something more significant. Clearly, the critical and financial
success of Michael Moore's documentary/political tract, Fahrenheit 911,
contributed to this resurgence of politically and/or socially-engaged films,
following a period which saw the coronation of big-production films made to
entertain, such as Titanic and Lord of the Rings.
The
decreasing popularity of both the war in Iraq and the Bush Administration has
served to revive the Hollywood Left, whose more active members had fallen somewhat
silent during Bill Clinton's presidency. "Since 2000, a large section of
Hollywood's creative community became politically active by taking up arms
against globalization, and such activism grew stronger with the war in
Iraq," states Benjamim Dickenson, author of Hollywood's New Radicalism,
"Well-known anti-capitalists such as Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Sean
Penn joined the ranks of celebrities interested in social justice issues, such
as George Clooney."
But
Hollywood also has a tradition of producing films which give voice to the
concerns of their era: in 1930, the Oscar for best film went to the anti-war All
Quiet on the Western Front. The 1940s rewarded The Grapes of Wrath,
while the 1970s saw a whole series of anti-establishment films; All the President's
Men is still a model of engaged cinema, thirty years after the Watergate
scandal and the unseating of Nixon. More recently, Schindler's List, Erin
Brockovich and Philadelphia were all commercial successes that dealt
with politically or socially-charged themes.
Charlize Theron Stars in the Movie
North Country. (above).
— TRAILER: North County,
00:02:21
Jeffrey Skoll, of e-Bay and
Participant Productions. (below).
--------------------------------------------------------
Today,
the major studios have practically abandoned such films, which they deem too
risky, with the notable exception of Warner Bros, which distributed and
co-produced North Country and chose as its director the New Zealander Niki
Caro (Whale Rider). Of the five films nominated for best picture, only one, Munich, was financed by a studio.
A new
breed of independent filmmakers now dominates the Oscars. The Weinstein
brothers, who sold Miramax, are this year represented by both Transamerica - in which Felicity Huffman (from the series Desperate Housewives)
brilliantly plays a man who, before undergoing a sex change operation, must
confront his son - and Mrs. Henderson Presents, with Judi Dench. There
is also a network of new entrepreneurs who made their fortune in the Internet,
have a perfect mastery of new technologies and are intent upon revolutionizing
show business. Like Jeffrey Skoll, the billionaire behind e-Bay, who founded
Participant Productions two years ago and has gathered 11 nominations. Or Todd
Wagner and Mark Cuban, creators of Broadcast.com and owners of the NBA
Mavericks (Dallas), and who today control HDNet Films (which produced Steven
Soderbergh's Bubble), 2929 Productions, Magnolia Pictures and the
Landmark Theatres cinema chain. There's also Bob Yari, the real estate magnate
who financed Crash.
"My
partner, Mark Cuban and I, or other producers such as Jeff Skoll, we aren't a
bunch of dilettantes making movies so as to show off at parties," explains
Todd Wagner, one of these new entrepreneurs who, with his company 2929, co-produced Good Night and Good Luck and the Enron documentary, "We have made
money and we want to apply our business sense and company spirit to this new
domain. And we've also studied the business of cinema very carefully!"
While
initially they may have raised hackles in Hollywood, these "new kids in
town" are now considered a vital source of inspiration. Especially as the
studios have noticed disaffection on the part of movie-goers, perhaps due to
mediocre, overly-commercialized films. And the success of Brokeback Mountain (a return of $60 million after only nine weeks) has shown that
"niche" films can reach a wide audience.
"This
year proves that films can be made that are both meaningful and
entertaining," declared the actress Charlize Theron, "Things are
rather crazy in the world today, so how can one not take action? But the
studios tend to lose money with such films. What we need to do is bring the
audience back."
