With less
than three weeks to the 2008 United States presidential elections, director Oliver
Stone’s new movie is scheduled to open in the United States in what appears to be the nick of
time. On Friday, October 17, his story about the soon-to-be former president of
the U.S. “W.” is set to hit theaters across the nation,
as a cinematographic synthesis of George W. Bush’s two terms as president.
In an
interview with Reuters, Oliver Stone has revealed the reasons that stood behind
him making his most recent biopic.
First of
all, he believes that even though Bush is not running for president again, his
administration and all that it has achieved or has failed to achieve are to be a
major influence on the administration to come. Moreover, he hopes the movie
would give some food for thought to American citizens due to cast their vote
on November 4, by making them weigh the pros and cons of their previous choices
for United States president and maybe helping them find cogent
proof for themselves that who they intend to elect the following month really
deserves their support.
Talking about
what George W. Bush will be handing down to his successor, Stone noted his
major concerns revolved around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on
terror, as well, reckoning that the president was leaving behind a dangerous
weapon in terms of foreign policy, which the nation’s future leader could
easily fail to learn to wield.
When asked
why he had not made the movie back in 2004, when Bush ran for re-election, the
director reasoned that during his first term, the president had been infallible,
managing to keep all documents and inside information hidden from the media. It
was only between 2004 and 2008 that he had become vulnerable, which made it
possible for him to be turned into a character, Stone added.
Speaking of George W. Bush’s character, he is portrayed in the “W.” movie by Josh
Brolin, a 40 year-old actor who rose to fame due to his role in ABC’s western
TV series „The Young Riders,” where
he played Wild Bill Hickok.
In Oliver Stone's movie, Brolin gives
life to an emotionally scarred man, struggling to make his mark and overcome
his complexes, thus rendering very clear the director's attempt to also show George W. Bush
the man and not only George W. Bush the president in his latest work.
While the director
chose to match a face to Bush’s story, his choice (Josh Brolin, that is)
manages to match a soul to a controversial figure believed by many to be
numb-hearted via his role as the lead character in “W.”
As Stone
himself told Reuters, the biopic is compassionate towards the United States president, striving to envisage an
ego in turmoil, haunted by the desire to prove he is better and stronger than
his father, blindly fighting against a nation that has already written him off
as a failure and just waits for him to prove them right.