Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Errol Morris Is as Scared as You Are
Nearly midway through his new film about Breitbart co-founder and former White House adviser Steve Bannon, “American Dharma” director Errol Morris makes a familiar confession. Their roles as documentarian and subject briefly reversed, Bannon asks, “How could you possibly make ‘Fog of War,’ and how could you make ‘What Known Unknowns’ [sic]? How could you make this, and then vote for Hillary Clinton?” To which Morris replies, “Because I was afraid of you guys. I still am!” He adds, “I thought that she was the best hope of defeating Trump. And Bannon. I did it out of fear.”
What emerges from “American Dharma” is a portrait of a narcissistic personality suffering from delusions of grandeur. Bannon may see himself as Gregory Peck or John Wayne (himself a white supremacist, it should be noted), but his self-styled heroism craters under the most minimal inquiry. When Morris calls his populism a sham, serving only the interests of the rich, all Bannon can do is twitch with rage. Like a drunken college freshman, he repeatedly intones that “revolution is coming, as night follows day” without ever elucidating what that means or articulating a coherent vision of the future. Its stage burned to the ground, the documentary concludes with Bannon almost literally wandering off into the woods—a scene that may foreshadow his own
" target="_blank">failed crusade in Europe. (Far-right leaders in Austria and France have distanced themselves from him, and last month, the Italian ministry evicted his think tank, Dignitatis Humanae Institute, from a 13th century monastery.)
Days before White House adviser Stephen Miller’s leaked emails to Breitbart exposed him as an overt white nationalist, Morris spoke with Truthdig over the phone about “American Dharma’s” critical reception, the nature of propaganda and whether Bannon actually believes his own bullshit. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
<snip>
JS: Then let me return to the film’s reception, which you’ve said you were “hurt” by. Do you think the last three years have altered what we expect from our art?
EM: Why do you think people reacted negatively to the movie? Let me interview you for a moment.
JS: My guess is that people desperately wanted to see you dismantle this guy. I’m not a film critic, but I happened to think the film did just that, so I was a little puzzled by that response in some quarters.
EM: I too am puzzled. I have been doing Q&As after screenings here in Los Angeles. I did several in New York last week. Watching the movie, how anyone could think that I didn’t confront Bannon. … I tell him I think he’s crazy. I tell him he’s a racist. I tell him that his populism is essentially bullshit. It’s anti-populism.
JS: Seeing what has become of Bannon in the year or so since the film was made, do you take any kind of validation in your portrayal of him?
EM: I wouldn’t speak of it in terms of validation. I would say that the idea that somehow you can make him go away by ignoring him is not going to be, in the end, terribly effective and is going to be ultimately self-destructive. This is not a magic slate, where you just lift up the acetate window and it just goes away. This is a political movement. Whether we like it or not, Trump did become the 45th president of the United States, and there is a real danger that he could be reelected. Confronting what happened in 2016, trying to understand it better is, to me, the first step in preventing a recurrence of the same.
<snip>
JS: Then let me return to the film’s reception, which you’ve said you were “hurt” by. Do you think the last three years have altered what we expect from our art?
EM: Why do you think people reacted negatively to the movie? Let me interview you for a moment.
JS: My guess is that people desperately wanted to see you dismantle this guy. I’m not a film critic, but I happened to think the film did just that, so I was a little puzzled by that response in some quarters.
EM: I too am puzzled. I have been doing Q&As after screenings here in Los Angeles. I did several in New York last week. Watching the movie, how anyone could think that I didn’t confront Bannon. … I tell him I think he’s crazy. I tell him he’s a racist. I tell him that his populism is essentially bullshit. It’s anti-populism.
JS: Seeing what has become of Bannon in the year or so since the film was made, do you take any kind of validation in your portrayal of him?
EM: I wouldn’t speak of it in terms of validation. I would say that the idea that somehow you can make him go away by ignoring him is not going to be, in the end, terribly effective and is going to be ultimately self-destructive. This is not a magic slate, where you just lift up the acetate window and it just goes away. This is a political movement. Whether we like it or not, Trump did become the 45th president of the United States, and there is a real danger that he could be reelected. Confronting what happened in 2016, trying to understand it better is, to me, the first step in preventing a recurrence of the same.
more: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/errol-morris-is-as-scared-as-you-are/
7 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
