The American President. Directed by Rob Reiner. Written by Aaron Sorkin. Produced by Barbara Maltby. Release Date: November 17, 1995. Country of Production: United States of America. Key Cast: Michael Douglas (President Andrew Shepherd), Annette Bening (Sydney Ellen Wade), Martin Sheen (A.J. Maclnerney), Michael J. Fox (Lewis Rothschild), Anna Deavere Smith (Robin McCall).
President Andrew Shepherd is confident that he will win the upcoming elections until he meets lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade. This new relationship opens the father and widower up for character attacks from his Republican opponent, to which Shepherd refuses to acknowledge. Suddenly, President Shepherd's approval rating is down. Sydney also bears some of the burden as she receives constant critique from her employer. In the end, Shepherd makes the decision to address the slander and continue his relationship with Sydney Wade.
The main themes of the film are confusion over identity/individuality and the nation's response to personal/public loss/death (Shepherd as the sympathetic president). The main theme of The American President is the notion of the King's two bodies.
Formally, the film begins with several shots of “presidential objects” to set the tone of the film. These objects include eagles and portraits of past presidents, globes, a bust of Lincoln. All of these objects serve to get the audience in the mindset of a president film, but they also serve to have a “priming effect” to think of Michael Douglas in the presidential light.
This film was not shot in Washington D.C., but in Los Angeles. Several special effects (digital imaging) were used to layer over many backgrounds/sets to give the appearance of Washington. The Oval Office/White House was constructed from visits by the set designers to the White House. There are several long shots in the film which follow the president through these halls. These shots allow us to imagine the scope of the set, “The White House,” as well as feel like we are in fact, in this place. These images also satisfy our scopophilic impulses—we are viewing a very important man in an intimate way.
These first few shots also set up the audience for the King's two bodies theme, as the President is first shown doing very presidential things—discussing approval rating and the upcoming election. This is a view of the president that confirms many cynic's view of the men behind the office as being only greedy for more.
There are also direct political messages in the film, regarding gun laws and the environment. Aaron Sorkin has been quoted as saying of the film, “To me, guns have always been an issue with which I find difficulty seeing both sides. We simply won't make any dent in crime whatsoever without eliminating guns. The environment is something I was always happy other people were concerned with because I like clean air as much as anyone, but I just don't feel like doing anything about it. Rob is someone who feels like doing something about it.” In the film, the environmental issue is spearheaded by Sydney Wade, while President Shepherd's original campaign was very tough on hand gun laws, but as Sydney pointed out, the new crime bill that Shepherd was pushing was insignificant and pointless. So, in finding his way back to his love the lobbyist, the President also manages to realign himself with his actual moral concerns (the gun laws).
This film itself was shot during the Clinton years, and Rob Reiner visited the White House while filming the movie. The Clinton staff was very generous about letting Reiner in the building, and he followed the President around for two days, observing him. This is interesting to me because of the way Reiner has said in an interview that many of the scenes he shot were based on the way Clinton ran his office. The film itself might have been fresh in the public's mind when the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal broke. Although the circumstances were undeniably different from the Sydney Ellen Wade/President Shepherd relationship, it might have seemed relevant at the time to compare the two. The film focuses on the merging of the King's two bodies. Sorkin clearly believes that the man can not be separate from the office, the man can not be separated from the job. Yet all of these Clinton fans are seeing their president acting “shamefully” on the news, and can only recover by separating the man from the job. The recent “Clinton defense” holds that he was a good president and a sleazy guy. Yet The American President, and later, the West Wing, emphasizes that the good man makes the good president. In fact, nearly all reverential/glorified president movies of Hollywood operate under the same claim.
It is was interesting to see this film and compare it to the situation of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. On its own, it was kind of entertaining...very much a “Sorkin experience.”
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