All the Presidents' movies
The White House has always been a great backdrop for the silver screen. And this year's candidates are a scriptwriter's dream. Declan Cashin reports
Premiere role: Josh Brolin plays George W Bush in the much anticipated Oliver Stone biopic 'W'
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The 2008 presidential contest between Barack Obama and John McCain has been the most thrilling and dramatic race in modern American history, and it's sure to make a hell of a movie some day.
All the elements are there for a great Hollywood epic: generational conflict, cliff-hangers, intrigue, bitch fights, glamorous leading ladies (as well as the odd femme fatale), and a spectacular plot twist in the third act in the form of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a candidate and a character that even the most imaginative screenwriter would surely struggle to create.
Indeed, the historic nature of this year's battle, the result of which will see either an African-American or a woman elected to one of the two highest offices in the land, has until now only ever been a reality on the big and small screen.
As The Daily Show host Jon Stewart joked at this year's Oscars: "The only time there has ever been a black guy or a woman in the White House is when an asteroid is heading for the Statue of Liberty. How else will we know it's the future?!"
Tinseltown, of course, has always mined the White House and its occupants for real and imagined drama.
Hollywood's fascination with the Oval Office was exemplified two weeks ago with the 13 Emmy awards heaped on HBO's presidential mini-series John Adams, and it is set to continue in the coming months, with the release of Oliver Stone's eagerly-anticipated biopic W, starring Josh Brolin as George W Bush, and Ron Howard's big-screen treatment of the stage play Frost/Nixon, with Frank Langella stepping into the disgraced shoes of Richard Nixon.
Politics may very well be "showbusiness for ugly people", but the real- life presidency itself has had its fair share of superstar leading men during the cinema age, be it the handsome lothario (JFK), Machiavellian villain (Nixon), or, in the unique case of Ronald Reagan, an actual real-life Hollywood star, and all three have been granted the big screen or mini-series treatment.
Arguably the most Hollywood president of all was Bill Clinton, whose White House had close ties to the biggest entertainers in showbiz.
Fittingly, his period in office saw an explosion of presidential-themed movies and TV shows, ranging from the affable and glossy Dave (1993) and The American President (1995), to the deeply satirical likes of Bulworth, Wag the Dog and Primary Colors (starring John Travolta as a thinly disguised Clinton), all of which came out in 1998 at the height of the Lewinsky scandal.
But in the past decade, it's been television that has most successfully explored the possibilities and perceptions of, as well as the modern challenges to, the American presidency. 24 featured a powerful black US president and, indeed, actor Dennis Haysbert has publicly stated that he believes the character softened the ground for Obama's candidacy.
Meanwhile, the short-lived Commander in Chief, starring Geena Davis as a popular, though untested, female VP who assumes office when the president dies from sudden health complications, seems more relevant now than ever in light of Palin's ascendancy.
It goes without saying that the most famous fictional presidential series of all is The West Wing, which starred Martin Sheen as idealised Democratic president Jed Bartlet (see panel).
Throughout its seven seasons, the show used its platform to discuss several topical political issues in the US, and even used fiction to correct errors and mistakes of both the Clinton and Bush administrations (for instance, Bartlet intervenes in a Rwanda-style genocide in Africa, plus he orders the assassination of a Bin Laden-esque Middle East terror leader).
However, the final seasons of The West Wing, which aired over two years ago, have since provided an astonishing example of life-imitating-art-imitating-life by eerily prophesising the look and tenor of this year's real-life election battle between Obama and McCain.
In the show, the race to succeed Bartlet comes down to a face-off between the inexperienced, though charismatic minority (Latino) Democrat Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and accomplished, retirement-age Republican Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), a maverick distrusted and disliked by his party's base for his moderate views that conversely give him huge independent appeal.
The similarities don't end there. Santos is the dark horse of The West Wing's primaries, and narrowly, but decisively, gains his party's nomination at a brokered convention (which was just about avoided in reality this year), after a gruelling run-off against his sure-thing establishment rivals.
Throughout the race, Santos, like Obama, refuses to be classified as an ethnic candidate, and insists instead on being a unifying, "American candidate".
Of course, we now know for a fact that the producers of The West Wing modelled the character of Santos on the then largely unknown Obama, who at the time had gained some degree of national prominence with a powerhouse speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.
But the similarities between fiction and eventual fact get even spookier. Santos ends up picking an older party stalwart and foreign policy expert as his running mate to shore up the gaps in his CV.
Meanwhile, Arnold Vinick opts for a much younger and conservative (albeit male) governor as his vice presidential nominee, who ends up electrifying the Republican religious base, ensuring an almost statistical tie in all election polls until a month before voting. The fictional election is then transformed after a leak at a nuclear power plant in California puts pressure on Vinick over his pro-nuclear views, while the avowedly anti-nuclear Santos gains a lead in the polls.
This mirrors the current real-life economic crisis and banking meltdown in the US, which has seen Obama and his message of change gain ground over McCain, whose core policies now, more than ever before, make him seem part of the problem rather than the solution.
In the end (avert your eyes now if you're catching up on DVD), Santos wins the election by a tiny majority, but, in a bipartisan move only possible in fiction, he asks his vanquished foe to become Secretary of State in his new administration.
It's highly unlikely that McCain would get such an offer should Obama win (and vice versa), but there can be little doubt that Obama would have to reach out and give a plum post to his other defeated rival, Hillary Clinton, should her supporters help to cast him as America's new leading man on November 4.
