The People's President: Man, Myth, and the Media

America's perception of the presidency is often driven by image. The People's President: Man, Myth, and the Media looks at the role of Hollywood film and network/cable television in both shaping and reflecting America's views of the presidency.

For as long as film has captured the president, Hollywood has been there to provide its take on the nation's leader. In 1915, Abraham Lincoln was portrayed in Birth of a Nation. Henry Fonda played Young Mr. Lincoln in 1939. Fonda also played a fictional president in Meteor, trying to protect citizens from a runaway asteroid headed for Earth. With the help of the Soviets, and Sean Connery, the world is saved from annihilation.

In The People's President, Workman has woven together 130 clips from film (Kisses for my President, All the President's Men, Dave) television (The West Wing, Truman) newsreels and press coverage to explain the traits we treasure in our leader and the danger of idealizing the heroic president at the expense of understanding the daily grind of governance.

When Hollywood and television productions meet the presidency, viewers are presented with a mix of bio-pics and complete fabrication—both of which tend to give us the president we all wish to call our own. As film critic Richard Schickel comments, "When people set off to make a movie about a president, whether it's a fictional one or a real one, I think they start out good heartedly and seriously. And it's going to get into some of the ideas and some of the issues that plagued this president; 'We're going to deal with that,' but then the reality of movies take over...And the reality of movies is always toward simplification."

Credits

Director/Producer: Chuck Workman
Producer: White House Historical Association
Cinematographers: Bruce Liffiton, John Sharaf
Editors: Jeremy Workman, Chuck Workman
Running time: 57 min.
Website: www.whitehousehistory.org
Article: Press Release

About the Filmmaker

CHUCK WORKMAN has been involved in filmmaking and theater for more than 30 years as an award-winning director, writer and producer. Workman's theatrical short, Precious Images, won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short and has become the most widely shown short in film history, appearing in schools, museums, international conferences, numerous film festivals and over 1,000 theaters worldwide. Workman produced and directed the acclaimed documentaries Superstar, about Andy Warhol, and The Source, about the Beat Generation. A new film on JFK, In Search of Kennedy, will come out in 2009. He is a former president of the International Documentary Association.