Interesting background on Clooney's Ides of March. Composite candidate.

[madfloridian]

I have not seen the movie, nor do I plan to do so. I understand that some parts are gathered from other candidates and some pulled from the writer's view of the dark side of politics. Unfortunately, since it was written by a Dean campaign staffer too much will be thought to be his fault. That's a little unfair, since apparently the screen writer did not even know much about the source of it.

So fair is fair in this ugly game, and I understand the candidate is composite.

Interview: Writer/Producer Grant Heslov on Ides of March

Heslov met George Clooney in the early eights and a friendship was born. Both were struggling actors, and while Heslov had a number of key supporting roles throughout the 1990′s (including True Lies and Dante’s Peak), his friend George’s career grew to superstardom. Their friendship stuck, and the two have been writing and producing partners for nearly a decade. The two reworked the play Ides of March for the big screen, and Heslov talked about their working process and the film.

Question to him:

Obviously there’s going to be some kind of reference to Dean’s campaigns, but where were you pulling from to create the Morris Character?

Answer:

"When we optioned this play, someone came up to us and said “you’re doing the Howard Dean play, right?” And I said “Huh? I didn’t know that.” So I talked to the playwright and the producers of the play and they said no. Beau (Willimon) worked on the Dean campaign and that’s true, and it’s where he learned about this world, but for George and I, quite honestly that’s not an interesting campaign to write about. This is a made up campaign. George and I – along with Steven Soderbergh – did this show called K-Street, and we lived in D.C. for fourteen weeks immersed in politics – all we did was talk to politicians, and talk politics for this faux show, and that was really our research, this is where we did our research that’s mostly what we drew from to take the play and open it up."

We were very active on Dean's campaign. We really thought we would make a difference. He went after the wrong Democrats, and he paid a dear price.

I am not pleased with his return to his centrist roots the last couple of years, but I can't say that I blame him. In this party even a hint of liberalism will doom a person. But I have heard of the kitchen scene, and I do not believe that of him. I think I know another candidate who better fits the bill of such behavior.

When a movie by Clooney is laying out a scenario of a composite imaginary candidate, it should be made clear.

Beau Willimon wrote the screenplay, it was adapted by others for the movie. In so attributing it to a Dean campaign staffer all the evils included in the movie could all too easily be applied to him.

I noted the reference to the K Street show by the screen writer. That was James Carville and Mary Matalin...he was their star. Ides' Heslov called it a "faux" show, said they lived politics in DC for 14 weeks. He sounded like this movie was a composite of such things as they experienced then.

He went so far as to say that they were not even interested in making the movie about the Dean campaign.

In stating it is a composite character, and that he did not even know it had been written about the Dean campaign....there is either a lot of ass covering or real truth. If he had to go and ask someone, then he probably did not know.

[pipoman]

1. WAHOOOO!!

[karynnj]

2. Having seen it, there was nothing that made me think that Clooney was any 2004 candidate

It would seem that to know which possible real candidate could have been a model, I suggest looking just at the PUBLIC parts of what the candidate did. What I saw was a charismatic leader (with George Clooney's looks - which make Edwards look plain.) who was articulate and charming, though not especially eloquent.

If he were supposed to be Dean, he would have been more informal and his speeches would have echoed Dean's rather than being almost a combination of every generic Democratic theme I've heard in the last decade. It may be that they are simply playing with the idea that every candidate has a narrative (or a facade) and with many if not most, the real person, with all his or her warts, who the operatives live with for long days at a time, may sometimes not live up to the unrealistic expectations. (Consider how many times, in the course of campaigns over the years, there were things that made you like a candidate less than when you first saw them. What is rarer is when knowing the complex person impresses you more than the facade. Oddly, in my case the only two I felt this about both ran in 2004 - Dean and Kerry.)

What I thought was that the interactions of the political operatives was likely the part that they may have been things they viewed within the Dean campaign and other campaigns. There were many operatives who were pretty obnoxious - think Penn (who worked for Lieberman), Lahayne, who ended up with the Clark campaign, after Kerry fired because Lahayne wanted to attack the other campaigns, Carville, who none of the campaigns wanted, and Trippi, who destroyed the Dean campaign through his arrogance and who, in both the Dean and Edwards campaign attacked the likely nominee(s) of the party in extremely unfair ways - and to add insult to injury, in his book, blamed Dean, for not being a good enough candidate to benefit from his exception campaign skills.

[madfloridian]

3. Sounds like a thoughtful review.

I read an interview with Willimon several years ago, a very informal one. It was before his play was even picked up. It sounded to me then like he was devastated more by the operatives around the candidates. I know I posted about that interview here, but I can't find it. It was interesting. There was no malice in it toward Dean, but there was plenty toward those who manipulated the candidates.

I think when they do a movie like that it reflects on everyone and makes it hard for anyone to defend themselves.

In my mind looking back I believe there was manipulation of supporters, but not just from Dean. From all of them. There was so much malice, anything to win.

And in the end they basically all go back to essentially parroting the party line doled out by the centrist think tanks. :shrug:

[karynnj]

4. Is this it, Madfloridian?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3317952&mesg_id=3317952

Interesting articles.

On KoKO's thread, CTYankee and I had a friendly discussion on the Gosling character. Neither of us saw him as "idealistic". He was younger, but he clearly was as willing to stab anyone - a young woman, the candidate included - in the back to be a successful operative in a winning campaign.

It is possible that the original play was changed enormously in becoming the movie. It is clearly not what was described in that article - I would seriously hope no one would thing Dean had much - other than being short and against the war - with the character.

OT
Have you ever read Trippi's book? It is kind of interesting to read as if it were fiction and the narrator was not to be trusted. It is fascinating how much credit he gives to himself. His criticisms of Dean, actually make Dean look good - and had Dean acted as Trippi wanted, I think Dean would have still lost - and regretted his actions. (Consider all the Edwards attacks on the other two in 2008 - even having Elizabeth speak of how she was happier because of the choices she made to stay home with her young kids - ignoring she didn't with her oldest.) Before reading it, I knew Trippi caused dissension among other people with Dean and wasted a huge amount of money - leading to Dean having no chance but to skip active campaigning in the 7 contests that came on the same day after Iowa and NH. It was a gamble - and had Kerry not carried 5 of those not NE friendly states, Dean could have gained front runner status after beating Edwards in the next set - assuming that Kerry's momentum would have ended if he did poorly that day. A long shot -and it failed.

[madfloridian]

5. Okay, I found something that Willimon said about the play...created a "fictional world".

What you posted was part of what I was looking for, but there was an even earlier interview before that.

This is from a recent interview with him from Critics at Large, and it does mention what I refer to....but the early on interview was very clear about the operatives. Maybe I will run across it someday. It was not from a major source, but from a local news paper.

"Yet Willimon, who had stumped for other Democratic candidates in the past, made it clear in an interview three years ago that his piece was not a Deaniac docudrama. “I drew on all those experiences to create a fictional but authentic world,” he said, while sipping orange juice at a cafe in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. “My intention is to present a universal story about power and ambition.”

And this part is interesting...apparently he met Dean after the campaign ended.

"Willimon passed through Burlington briefly while toiling on behalf of Dean, sometimes for 72 sleepless hours at a time. “My job was to organize logistics for the press, but I never spoke to the man in five months,” he recalled. “With advance work, you are supposed to remain invisible.”

"The Farragut candidate, identified only by the surname Morris, is never seen or heard. (Not so in the movie, which puts Clooney in that role.) Although his agenda is discussed in broad terms, the dialogue largely centers on the dishonorable behavior of several key people helping him in the primaries. “I didn’t want to write a play about politics but about situations that take place in the world of politics,” Willimon said. “I don’t care if audiences like my characters; they just need to be attracted to them in some way.”

He finally did meet Dean in Connecticut, after the candidate quit the race. “He shook my hand and thanked me,” Willimon recounted “That meant a lot to me. It completed the circle.”

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/07/from-stage-to-screen-peeking-at.html

[karynnj]

6. I think he accomplished much of what he set out to do, though I wonder

if the movie added the bad behavior of the candidate. Until that moment, it really was like the candidate was not in the foreground, though obviously everything swirled around him. (I'm trying to be vague in case some have not seen it.) I can see that it does a great job in making the points he was aiming for - though there is a reason to wonder what the feelins would have been if the candidate never became the issue.

Anyway, thanks for that link it is interesting.

[madfloridian]

7. A friend who saw it used the words poetic license....

as in too much of it used. The candidate did not even appear in the play format. I think that part may have been added for attention.

Oh, well. I am still looking for that early interview, I think around early 2004. I even did a Power Desk search on my hard drive and no luck.

[karynnj]

8. That makes sense

It sounds like the scriptwriter of the movie really pulled two themes together and to some real degree showed a campaign as seen by the operatives. In addition to the theme of the play, they added the whole idea of a man (the candidate) who inspires others to do what has to be done in the campaigns because they either believe in him and/or see they could end up as advisers in the White House. I suspect that the latter message might have been caused by the Edwards saga in 2008.

Adding that, completely alters the original play - and avoids an interesting question. Could a genuinely decent candidate run a campaign where the behavior of all these operatives reflexes the integrity of the candidate.

In essence, what the movie got from the Dean campaign was just the focus on the operatives, who really seem to have their own world which interconnects all the campaigns. (Remember the shock on DU that Rove and Donna Brazille were not complete enemies? - quick google result of an example - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3317952&mesg_id=3317952 )