Over the last couple of years, devotees of Sunday morning talk shows surely came across James Carville, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign manager, the so-called “Ragin’ Cajun.” With his crinkly eyes, goofy smile, free-lance eyebrows and scrunched-up face, Carville is quite a political presence himself, fielding press probes on camera as if they were the most ridiculous things he had ever heard in his life.
Carville is, in effect, the star of “The War Room,” a lively documentary that takes a behind-the-scenes approach to the sometimes-potholed road to the White House, from the New Hampshire primary (where Clinton jokes with Carville after a phone interview, “I bet I said something you can take out of context”) to the tense election-night watch in Little Rock. George Stephanopoulos, the callow communications director with the leading-man looks, is also featured, but his low-eyed approach is blotted out by Carville’s flamboyance.
Directed by D.A. Pennebaker-best known for his legendary films about rock and youth culture in the ’60s (“Don’t Look Back,” “Monterey Pop”)-and his wife, Chris Hegedus, it pokes around in what the campaign workers referred to as the War Room, a communications center full of coffee cups, beer cans, TV monitors and chaos.
Viewers are taken through the discussions of damage control after the Gennifer Flowers flap, then on to the Perot withdrawal and re-entry, the Democratic convention in New York, the Clinton/Gore bus tour and, finally, the election night celebration.
Throughout, the focus is really not on Clinton but the consistently funny (sometimes unintentionally) Carville, whether wolfing down popcorn and Tums, reacting to Perot’s maneuvering, commenting that George Bush reminds him of “an old calendar” or snidely remarking that Mary Matalin, the deputy manager of Bush’s campaign and now Carville’s wife, should have “a good career in fiction writing.”
Here is Carville attacking Bush’s alleged use of a Brazilian company to print his campaign literature, and Carville telling a characteristically puerile joke. There is Carville snapping off “Southern” similes like, “We ought to be on this like a snake on (expletive deleted),” Carville concocting a mock concession speech, Carville delivering a teary farewell speech to his troops.
Made with a flashy hit-and-run-style, the documentary too often tries to record too much of the overall campaign, instead of concentrating more on the details of insider baseball-or, as it were, the fun-and-war games.
– “Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country,” which airs at 10 p.m. Friday on the Bravo cable network, is a solid, but rather pro forma documentary about the making of “Short Cuts,” director Altman’s fine adaptation of Raymond Carver’s stories. Produced and directed by John Dorr and Mike Kaplan, it is purportedly an inside look at the shooting, but despite some on-set footage, is mostly a series of talking-head interviews with the cast, Altman and Tess Gallagher, Carver’s widow.
Still, there are a number of nice moments-like actor Peter Gallagher’s unconstrained delight in chopping up his movie wife’s furniture in rehearsals-along with such observations as Madeleine Stowe’s worry over whether she “had the goods” to do her part, and Lyle Lovett’s comment that Altman told him not to take acting lessons because “it would mess me up.”
”THE WAR ROOM”
(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus; photographed by Nick Doob, Kevin Rafferty and Pennebaker; edited by Erez Laufer, Hegedus and Pennebaker; produced by R.J. Cutler, Wendy Ettinger and Frazer Pennebaker. An October Films release; opens Friday at the Music Box Theatre. Running time: 1:34. Not rated by the MPAA. Some strong language.
