Suzanne Fields
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
ONE OF THE REWARDS for watching the Academy Awards (there aren't many) is that we see
unambiguously how life is not a movie. The most self-indulgent director in Hollywood wouldn't dare
make a movie that long and that boring. Despite the splendor of fine threads and spectacular tricks
of technology, the men and women who create the glamour are exposed as mere mortals without
the illusion of the artful craft.
Behind a microphone without a script, Warren Beatty rambles like a political has-been. Jack Nicholson is merely unctuous and a little raw inside the body of a snide and nasty character without someone to write the brilliant dialogue. Can anyone imagine him as best buddy of a presidential candidate? (Well, maybe the president we've already got.)
My favorite moment at the awards ceremony occurred during a medley of songs when singer Isaac Hayes unintentionally disappeared in a fog of artificial smoke, which gave Billy Crystal a running joke: Whatever happened to Isaac Hayes? Technology giveth, technology taketh away.
There's lots of irony to go round, too. Warren Beatty, who would hardly describe himself as a "family-values'' man, is most earnest (if a tad tedious) in describing what he values most -- the love of the expectant Annette Bening and their children. The camera for the evening frequently framed Tom Cruise snuggling up affectionately to his wife, Nicole Kidman. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a hate-seeking misogynist.
It's a cliche that movies reflect the national psychology. Sometimes they do. Ronald Reagan was said to confuse his movies with his life, but there was nothing inconsistent in the points of view of the movies from the '30s and '40s, from which he drew his allusions, and his belief in the American sentiments his scripts reflected. He was the optimist who promised it would be "morning in America'' again, not because that's how life always was, but because that was the American Dream that made all things possible. He knew that the Bill of Rights guaranteed the pursuit of happiness, not happiness.
His anti-missile defense system was derided as "Star Wars,'' but he also understood that movies provided a topical reference that could capture the public imagination. (And now "Star Wars,'' no longer derided, is about to be brought back by popular demand.)
Nancy Reagan insisted there are not "two Ronald Reagans.'' She meant that he was guided by the same spirit in his public life as in his personal one. Life was his performance. That may be why biographer Edmund Morris found it so difficult to get inside the man.
Neal Gabler, in his book "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality,'' argues that Ronald Reagan was such a consummate performer that he unconsciously set a new standard for measuring presidential performance. In an age dominated by the values of the media, presidential performance no longer refers to policy but to polish.
Hence, we push our candidates into making appearances with David Letterman or Jay Leno, as if how they tell a joke will tell us something about them. Bill Clinton never studied Method acting but he deserves an Oscar for the line: "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.''
Neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush have a way with words. Mr. Gore has replaced a wooden style with a fiberglass style. His transformation was quick, decisive, and a little unconvincing. George W. is more natural with words than his father, but he still drives a sentence like it's raw dough in pretzel machine. He's more comfortable in his skin than in his speech. He's better in a small group than on a national stage. Both presidential wanabees lack subtlety.
That's why we have campaigns. We get to watch the candidates in both scripted and unscripted
circumstances. In fact, campaigns are less like movies than like the Academy Award ceremonies
watching the stars repeating themselves as they try to twinkle. Without the writers giving them
something to say, they ramble on, losing their thoughts and occasionally disappearing in a fog of
rhetorical smoke. But November will eventually arrive, when we ask for the envelope,
03/23/00: The gaying of America
03/20/00: Pointy-eared quadrupeds on campus
03/16/00: The shocking art of the establishment
03/13/00: Sawdust on the campaign trail
03/10/00: Campaign rhetoric of manhood
03/06/00: The Amphetamine of the People
03/02/00: Elegy for Amadou
02/29/00: With only a million, what's a poor girl to do?
02/24/00: The changing politics of change
02/16/00: Tip from Hillary: 'Let 'em eat eggs'
02/10/00: No seances with Eleanor
02/07/00: Campaigning like our founding fathers
02/03/00: When neo-Nazis have short memories
01/31/00: George W. -- 'Ladies man' and 'man's man'
01/27/00: Dead white males and live white politicians
01/25/00: Smarting over presidential smarts
01/21/00: A post-modern song for `The Sopranos'
01/19/00: When personality is a long-distance plus
01/13/00: French lessons in amour --- and marriage
01/10/00: Reaching for the Big Golden Apple
01/07/00: Liddy Dole as the face of feminism
01/04/00: Hillary: From victim to victor
12/30/99: 'Dream catchers' for the millennium
12/27/99: In search of a candidate with strength and eloquence
12/21/99: The president as First Lady
12/16/99: Columbine with blurred hindsight
12/09/99: Homeless deserve discriminating attention
12/07/99: Casual censors and deadly know-nothings
12/02/99: Why mom didn't make general: A reality tale
11/30/99: Potholes on the road to the Promised Land
11/25/99: A feast for the spirit and the stomach
11/23/99: Fathers need to say 'I (can) do'
11/18/99: Adventures of a conservative pundit
11/15/99: Traveling with Jefferson on the information highway
11/11/99: Wanted: 'Foliage of forbiddinness' for the oval office
11/09/99: Eggs, art and rotten commerce
11/05/99: Al Gore, 'Alpha Male'. Bow wow.
11/01/99: Gay love
10/28/99: Lose one Dole, lose two
10/26/99: Rebels with a violent cause
10/21/99: Reforming parents, reforming schools
10/19/99: The male mystique -- he shops
10/13/99:The campaign of the Teletubbies
10/08/99: Money is in the eye of the art dealer
10/01/99: Lincoln's 'Almost Chosen People'
09/29/99: Introducing Bill and Hillary Bickerson
09/27/99: Must we wait for the next massacre?
09/24/99: Miss America meets Miss'd America
09/21/99: Princeton's 'professor death'
09/16/99: The Cisneros lesson
09/13/99: No clemency for personal politics
09/08/99: M-M-M is for manhood
08/30/99: Blocking the schoolhouse door
08/27/99: No kick from cocaine
08/23/99: Movies don't kill people
08/19/99: A rude awakening
08/16/99: Dubyah and that 'language' thing
08/09/99: Chauvinist sows -- oink oink