by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology
In the pantheon of great American films, The American President might place. You know, if Network was sick that day and took all its friends just out of spite (it's something Network would do, we all know that). But it's a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon: a smart, semi-political romantic comedy that at least pretends it's aiming itself at adults. The idea is simple: Andrew Shepard (played by Michael Douglas) is the President, and a widower of three years, who meets and begins to date a lobbyist (Annette Bening, aka the legs that made Warren Beatty stop running). In turn, they have to deal with the vicious media onslaught who are only too happy to speculate on the effect this development has on the family values of the nation en masse.
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was still a strugging playwright and script doctor when he penned The American President, working under contract to Castle Rock Entertainment. It was his last script for the studio and, in a move that surprises no one familar with Sorkian dialogue, was butchered down to a reasonable running time from an initial 385 page draft. It was a coup for the then-unproven Sorkin, a critical and commercial success that likely made it easier for networks to swallow his subsequent networks pitches.
So it's a success that stands on its own legs. But having watched the film very recently, I can't help but see the entire movie as training ground for his magnum opus, television series The West Wing. For those not familiar with the series, first of all, what's wrong with you? Go here, I'll wait.
And second: the first four seasons are a masterwork of political opera, with very few missteps; the last three, while shaking from withdrawal pangs from Sorkin's departure, is still generally very strong when placed near its competition (such as the 2006 winner of the Nielsen ratings, Desperate Housewives). It too follows the presidency of one man: Josiah (Jed) Bartlet. But the two Sorkin projects share more than a screenwriter and a couple of set pieces; I'm pretty sure if movies had family, they'd at least be cousins. Identical cooooousins.
The first thing that I've noticed is that Aaron Sorkin likes his friends. He likes to give them work. I don't blame him for this; Hollywood does seem like the kind of place when if you possibly can, it seems wise to surround yourself with people you trust. It also has a long tradition in Tinseltown, with the Apatow gang rotating comedic duty these days, the Brat Pack bascially sopping up all viable roles for young people in the 80s...even as far back as Scorsese and De Niro in the 70s or Hitchcock and his famous Blondes.
But Sorkin likes to take this to a new, adorably extreme level. In fact, if you look at the IMDb page for The American President at the right angle, it reads more like a pre-pre-pre-audition reel for The West Wing. Here are but a few:
Aw, look, it's Dr. Nancy McNally, National Security Advisor to President Bartlet! But..why does she have that awful nineties hairdo? And why is she doing CJ's job? I'm so confused.
Hey, Martin Sheen got a promotion! He goes from Chief of Staff in 1995 to President in under a decade! You must admit, that's impressive. Also, his taste in ties has vastly improved! Way to be a winner, champ.
It doesn't end there; Nina Siemaszko (Ellie Bartlet) and Joshua Malina (Will Bailey) also appear. And take it from me: it's incredibly confusing to see President Bartlett pretend to not be President and call someone else 'sir.'
Michael J. Fox's unbalanced but passionate Lewis Rothschild is but a pale foreshadowing of the unrelenting wunderkind Josh Lyman. Oh and Sorkin? Don't think I didn't notice the casual name-drop of a Senator Stackhouse, whose namesake would later be used for the eponymous senator in my favourite episode, season two's "The Stackhouse Filibuster." As far as I'm concerned, anything that sends me back to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a good thing in my books.
I'm not really surprised by any of these staff overlaps; it also occurs, in smaller doses, on Sorkin's other projects (Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, are your ears burning?). It may seem like I'm treating this overlap as a bad thing...a kind of creative cherry-picking that Sorkin falls back on rather than brainstorm new ideas.
The show, I proudly report, was nicknamed the "Left Wing" for it overwhelmingly liberal stance. It is, without question, the bastard offspring of the Stuff White People Like set: a bunch of like-minded, well-educated people are put in a position of power and actually try to do good, damn it. It's the fairy tale I imagine I'll tell to my kids someday: "Once, there was the Bartlet White House, and it was a wonderful place, filled with people who zinged with impossible witticisms and were also smart-people pretty..."
The interpersonal connections also deepen. In The American President, A.J. (played by Sheen) is the longtime best friend to the President, and was the force that got him to run several years before. There's really only one scene that explores what itmeans to be second in command to the most powerful man in the free world AND his BFF:
President Andrew Shepherd: Is the view pretty good from the cheap seats, A.J.?
A. J. MacInerney: I beg your pardon?
President Andrew Shepherd: Because it occurs to me that in twenty five years I've never seen your name on a ballot. Why is that, A.J.? Why are you always one step behind me?
A. J. MacInerney: Because if I weren't, you'd be the most popular history professor at the University of Wisconsin.
A fine scene, but it's an idea that Sorkin returns to with President Barlett and his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, only this time he has six plus seasons to complicate the relationship. Bartlet bridles at Leo for always behind the man behind the President, and never running for office himself; Leo is frustrated when he's unable to tell Jed exactly what he needs to hear to make the right choices, no matter how politically incorrect.
But the loyalty never falters.
Sorkin also takes every argument the Conservative Right has thrown at various Democrat leaders over the past two decades-- that he doesn't have a history of military service; that he's Ivy League educated and lives out his days in a hypothetical Ivory Tower; that his elitist tendencies put him at a loss for the needs and desires of the "common people."
From this blueprint, Sorkin builds a magnificent, often pigheaded, but always so gosh darn noble President, a man who is intelligent without apology and nerdy without abandon. It's as if Sorkin was writing Jed Bartlet as proof to all the haters that a Democratic presidency doesn't mean weakness, pandering or simple elitism. Sorkin built a candidate that would make most sensible people sigh over their popcorn and wish for a President like Jed Bartlet to pave the way for future generations.
(All of this applies to Michael Douglas' President Shepard, of course, but it gets lost in translation when facing the black hole of Michael Douglas' smarmy good looks.)
But most importantly, Sorkin gets to come full circle and complete the philosophical and idealogical inquiry he began in 1995. He didn't have the time or freedom to delve into the taxing nature of working for the White House, let alone the moral quandaries a staffer can stumble into daily grind of the White House. In The American President, Sorkin starts a conversation about the merits of a widely-accepted military strategy when faced with the destruction of a low-level foreign base:
Bartlet: What's the virtue of the proportional response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: I'm sorry?
Bartlet: What is the virtue of a proportional response? Why's it good? They hit an airplane, so we hit a transmitter, right? That's a proportional response. They hit a barracks, so we hit two transmitters.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Yes, that's roughly it, sir.
Bartlet: This is what we do. I mean, this is what we do.
Leo: Yes sir, it's what we do. It's what we've always done.
Bartlet: Well, if it's what we do, if it's what we've always done, don't they know we're going to do it? I ask again, what is the virtue of a Proportional Response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: It isn't virtuous, Mr. President. It's all there is, sir.
Bartlet: It is not all there is.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Just what else is there?
Bartlet: The disproportional response.
So Sorkin gets to flesh out the obvious passion that drove him to write The American President in the first place, in that first 385 page draft. And thank the Powers that Be that Sorkin got the chance. He still hasn't outdone the work he put into the first four seasons of The West Wing, and it'll likely go down as a high-point in a generally strong career. But really, as far as days of glory go, I reckon you could do a whole lot worse than having this stand as your legacy:
"Break's over."
In the pantheon of great American films, The American President might place. You know, if Network was sick that day and took all its friends just out of spite (it's something Network would do, we all know that). But it's a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon: a smart, semi-political romantic comedy that at least pretends it's aiming itself at adults. The idea is simple: Andrew Shepard (played by Michael Douglas) is the President, and a widower of three years, who meets and begins to date a lobbyist (Annette Bening, aka the legs that made Warren Beatty stop running). In turn, they have to deal with the vicious media onslaught who are only too happy to speculate on the effect this development has on the family values of the nation en masse.
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was still a strugging playwright and script doctor when he penned The American President, working under contract to Castle Rock Entertainment. It was his last script for the studio and, in a move that surprises no one familar with Sorkian dialogue, was butchered down to a reasonable running time from an initial 385 page draft. It was a coup for the then-unproven Sorkin, a critical and commercial success that likely made it easier for networks to swallow his subsequent networks pitches.
So it's a success that stands on its own legs. But having watched the film very recently, I can't help but see the entire movie as training ground for his magnum opus, television series The West Wing. For those not familiar with the series, first of all, what's wrong with you? Go here, I'll wait.
And second: the first four seasons are a masterwork of political opera, with very few missteps; the last three, while shaking from withdrawal pangs from Sorkin's departure, is still generally very strong when placed near its competition (such as the 2006 winner of the Nielsen ratings, Desperate Housewives). It too follows the presidency of one man: Josiah (Jed) Bartlet. But the two Sorkin projects share more than a screenwriter and a couple of set pieces; I'm pretty sure if movies had family, they'd at least be cousins. Identical cooooousins.
*
The first thing that I've noticed is that Aaron Sorkin likes his friends. He likes to give them work. I don't blame him for this; Hollywood does seem like the kind of place when if you possibly can, it seems wise to surround yourself with people you trust. It also has a long tradition in Tinseltown, with the Apatow gang rotating comedic duty these days, the Brat Pack bascially sopping up all viable roles for young people in the 80s...even as far back as Scorsese and De Niro in the 70s or Hitchcock and his famous Blondes.
But Sorkin likes to take this to a new, adorably extreme level. In fact, if you look at the IMDb page for The American President at the right angle, it reads more like a pre-pre-pre-audition reel for The West Wing. Here are but a few:
Aw, look, it's Dr. Nancy McNally, National Security Advisor to President Bartlet! But..why does she have that awful nineties hairdo? And why is she doing CJ's job? I'm so confused.
Hey, Martin Sheen got a promotion! He goes from Chief of Staff in 1995 to President in under a decade! You must admit, that's impressive. Also, his taste in ties has vastly improved! Way to be a winner, champ.
It doesn't end there; Nina Siemaszko (Ellie Bartlet) and Joshua Malina (Will Bailey) also appear. And take it from me: it's incredibly confusing to see President Bartlett pretend to not be President and call someone else 'sir.'
Michael J. Fox's unbalanced but passionate Lewis Rothschild is but a pale foreshadowing of the unrelenting wunderkind Josh Lyman. Oh and Sorkin? Don't think I didn't notice the casual name-drop of a Senator Stackhouse, whose namesake would later be used for the eponymous senator in my favourite episode, season two's "The Stackhouse Filibuster." As far as I'm concerned, anything that sends me back to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a good thing in my books.
*
I'm not really surprised by any of these staff overlaps; it also occurs, in smaller doses, on Sorkin's other projects (Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, are your ears burning?). It may seem like I'm treating this overlap as a bad thing...a kind of creative cherry-picking that Sorkin falls back on rather than brainstorm new ideas.
But it's just the opposite: it makes me happier than ever that Sorkin got the opportunity to expand on the themes he could only briefly touch on in a major Hollywood film designed to appeal to a much larger audience. The American President is the teaser trailer to what The West Wing would later accomplish: they both feature a Democratic President, and the short sonnet for liberal ideals written for Shepard's staff in 1995 is turned into an epic poem during The West Wing's seven year run.
The show, I proudly report, was nicknamed the "Left Wing" for it overwhelmingly liberal stance. It is, without question, the bastard offspring of the Stuff White People Like set: a bunch of like-minded, well-educated people are put in a position of power and actually try to do good, damn it. It's the fairy tale I imagine I'll tell to my kids someday: "Once, there was the Bartlet White House, and it was a wonderful place, filled with people who zinged with impossible witticisms and were also smart-people pretty..."
The interpersonal connections also deepen. In The American President, A.J. (played by Sheen) is the longtime best friend to the President, and was the force that got him to run several years before. There's really only one scene that explores what itmeans to be second in command to the most powerful man in the free world AND his BFF:
President Andrew Shepherd: Is the view pretty good from the cheap seats, A.J.?
A. J. MacInerney: I beg your pardon?
President Andrew Shepherd: Because it occurs to me that in twenty five years I've never seen your name on a ballot. Why is that, A.J.? Why are you always one step behind me?
A. J. MacInerney: Because if I weren't, you'd be the most popular history professor at the University of Wisconsin.
A fine scene, but it's an idea that Sorkin returns to with President Barlett and his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, only this time he has six plus seasons to complicate the relationship. Bartlet bridles at Leo for always behind the man behind the President, and never running for office himself; Leo is frustrated when he's unable to tell Jed exactly what he needs to hear to make the right choices, no matter how politically incorrect.
But the loyalty never falters.
Sorkin also takes every argument the Conservative Right has thrown at various Democrat leaders over the past two decades-- that he doesn't have a history of military service; that he's Ivy League educated and lives out his days in a hypothetical Ivory Tower; that his elitist tendencies put him at a loss for the needs and desires of the "common people."
From this blueprint, Sorkin builds a magnificent, often pigheaded, but always so gosh darn noble President, a man who is intelligent without apology and nerdy without abandon. It's as if Sorkin was writing Jed Bartlet as proof to all the haters that a Democratic presidency doesn't mean weakness, pandering or simple elitism. Sorkin built a candidate that would make most sensible people sigh over their popcorn and wish for a President like Jed Bartlet to pave the way for future generations.
(All of this applies to Michael Douglas' President Shepard, of course, but it gets lost in translation when facing the black hole of Michael Douglas' smarmy good looks.)
But most importantly, Sorkin gets to come full circle and complete the philosophical and idealogical inquiry he began in 1995. He didn't have the time or freedom to delve into the taxing nature of working for the White House, let alone the moral quandaries a staffer can stumble into daily grind of the White House. In The American President, Sorkin starts a conversation about the merits of a widely-accepted military strategy when faced with the destruction of a low-level foreign base:
A. J. MacInerney: Sir, it's immediate, it's decisive, it's low-risk, and it's a proportional response.
President Andrew Shepherd: Someday someone's going to have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response.
The scene, more or less, ends there. But in the third episode of The West Wing, he gets to finish the conversation, when Bartlet finds himself sitting in the Situation Room facing a similar dilemma:
Bartlet: What's the virtue of the proportional response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: I'm sorry?
Bartlet: What is the virtue of a proportional response? Why's it good? They hit an airplane, so we hit a transmitter, right? That's a proportional response. They hit a barracks, so we hit two transmitters.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Yes, that's roughly it, sir.
Bartlet: This is what we do. I mean, this is what we do.
Leo: Yes sir, it's what we do. It's what we've always done.
Bartlet: Well, if it's what we do, if it's what we've always done, don't they know we're going to do it? I ask again, what is the virtue of a Proportional Response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: It isn't virtuous, Mr. President. It's all there is, sir.
Bartlet: It is not all there is.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Just what else is there?
Bartlet: The disproportional response.
So Sorkin gets to flesh out the obvious passion that drove him to write The American President in the first place, in that first 385 page draft. And thank the Powers that Be that Sorkin got the chance. He still hasn't outdone the work he put into the first four seasons of The West Wing, and it'll likely go down as a high-point in a generally strong career. But really, as far as days of glory go, I reckon you could do a whole lot worse than having this stand as your legacy:
"Break's over."
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