The Celluloid President

6th November 2012

By Owain Paciuszko.

This has been on my mind for a while now and it all started when I was watching Air Force One on TV a few years ago. I was marvelling at the heroics of Harrison Ford as American President James Marshall as he stays on board the hijacked titular transport to save his staff from the evil Gary Oldman, when a thought struck me. Could this film be made now? Of course, at the time of this puzzler, the incumbent president was George W. Bush and the notion of a motion picture being released that depicted the U.S. president as a heroic man of action seemed doubly ludicrous. With Air Force One being released right in the middle of Bill Clinton’s time in office I at least felt that the notion was somewhat plausible, Clinton was a president who did reckless things but ended his term with the highest approval rating of any President since the end of World War II.

In George W’s term time we’ve seen a number of celluloid presidents come and go; there’s been Dennis Quaid as a thinly-veiled Bush-a-like in American Dreamz, which pitched the president as a simian idiot manipulated by his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe). Elsewhere Billy Bob Thornton portrayed a somewhat untrustworthy President in Richard Curtis’ Love Actually, who seemed designed to further make us cheer on Hugh Grant’s hallway dancing Tony Blair clone. Of course things culminated at the end of last year, and at the end of Bush’s run, with Oliver Stone’s surprisingly even-handed (and thusly under-performing) portrayl of the man himself in W (dub-ya).

With Barack Obama now taking over I can’t help but wonder what movie presidents will be like? Naturally South Park has already jumped in and shown Obama to be not-unlike George Clooney in Ocean’s 11, again though, entirely plausible, charming, smart and not unattractive! Of course Obama was not the first black president, there’s been Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact, Terry Crews in Idiocracy and Danny Glover in 2012.

Also with Watchmen and Frost/Nixon there’s been an on-screen resurgence of Tricky Dick, who has also found fame again with his return to Presidency in Futurama(Billy West’s Richard M. is my personal favourite). Theodore Roosevelet as well has found himself back thanks to Robin Williams in Night At the Museum (and its upcoming sequel), undoubtedly the kids of America shall remember him more fondly for doing battle with tiny Romans than negotiating peace in the Russo-Japanese War. Finally Spielberg’s long cherished Abraham Lincoln project should see a big name actor taking on an Oscar-baiting role, though whether he’ll be any match for Robert V. Barron’s portrayl from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is another question (“PARTY ON, DUDES!”)

Meanwhile on these shores Michael Sheen seems to have copyrighted playing Tony Blair (or any other real-life Englishman), whilst other foreign dignitaries are usually reserved for lampooning in spoofs such as The Naked Gun with its brilliant opening ambush or Team America: World Police.

Personally I’d like to see some sort of ‘Movie Presidency’ being organised, akin to Marvel’s contracting of Samuel L. Jackson to play Nick Fury across all its output leading up to The Avengers. What would happen is a number of actors are nominated and audience’s vote for who should play the President in all contemporary set movies over the next few years, thusly the President in Transformers would be the same as the President in G.I. Joe, and his run would continue until 2013 when he’d either be re-elected or replaced. Personally, my vote goes to Jeff Bridges.

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