There’s a moment in Oliver Stone’s new film, "W", when I found myself unexpectedly taken by emotion.
It’s when President George W. Bush is asked, during a press conference, to identify his biggest mistake as president. Actor Josh Brolin’s Bush stumbles and searches. Needing help, he glances at Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney, standing by the side wall.
But they can’t help him. The press waits.
"Hmm," says Brolin’s Bush, painfully. "I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it."
"I’m sure historians will look back and say, ‘Gosh, he could have done it better this way or that way.’ You know, I just – I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hasn’t yet."
The scene is accurate word for word. I remember simply shaking my head at the time. But Josh Brolin’s riveting performance reveals something unexpected. He opens a new window into the moment by rendering Bush’s human dimension and vulnerability. He prompted me to question my previous notion – that our president simply lacked the weight, self-awareness, and critical perspective we hope for in a leader.
Suddenly this moment became less about Bush, and instead spoke volumes about how our politics have become a go-for-broke proposition steeped in wilfull certitude, with no turning back, even for self-reflection.
Oliver Stone’s sympathetic portrait of George W. Bush is not surprising. He showed the same impulses in his film about Richard Nixon. I spent some time on the set of Stone’s "JFK" and I think he sees himself as a kindred spirit to these men – as a larger-than-life player – misunderstood and the product of a rocky childhood. Stone disagrees with Bush and Nixon’s politics, but he sees himself, like them, taking huge risks and more than a few lumps as he navigates his turbulent life stage.
Stone has mined his subjects’ early lives and family relationships for emotional and psychological clues. He suggests that frat boy Bush never overcame his father’s disapproval. A fascinating though tragic oedipal subtext emerges, suggesting that the Iraq invasion showed Bush’s need to prove himself to the old man. Oliver Stone’s Bush looks to Cheney and Rice as surrogates he hopes will redeem the unresolved emotions he still carries about his father and mother.
Oliver Stone’s "W" is a work of fiction – and it’s best viewed that way. Missing are the darker and harder edges that I believe characterize the real Bush and his world.
David Hare’s play, "Stuff Happens" treats these characters and relationships better than "W," overall, and James Cromwell’s elder Bush lacks dimension. But Josh Brolin’s performance is brilliant. He avoids the easy temptation to impersonate George W., choosing instead to explore emotional layers and textures that yield insight and subtext that resonate into our imagination and understanding of contemporary history.