FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W1987738317> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W1987738317 endingPage "332" @default.
• W1987738317 startingPage "327" @default.
• W1987738317 abstract "Reviewed by: Death of a President Carl Freedman (bio) Death of a President (Gabriel Range UK 2006). Lionsgate. NTSC region 1. 16: 9 widescreen. US$14.98. Like vers libre,or the 'talking blues' associated with Woody Guthrie and the early Bob Dylan, the fictional documentary is one of those genres that look easy to do; and they all areeasy in the sense that – unlike writing a sonnet or composing a fugue – they are easy to do badly. An aesthetic mode that offers evident simplicity, great flexibility and the absence of rigidly defined technical specifications will naturally tend to permit slovenliness and, correlatively, to require an unusually strong ad hocsense of form in order to produce work of genuine value. Achieving an adequate structure in a fictional documentary may thus be more readily attainable if the overall ambitions of the film are fairly modest. It is unsurprising that perhaps the most successful director of fictional documentaries is Christopher Guest, whose 'mockumentaries' are devoted to poking gentle (and rather affectionate) fun at such innocuous institutions as small-town amateur theatre ( Waiting for Guffman(US 1996)), the world of dog shows ( Best in Show(US 2000)) and the folk-music scene ( A Mighty Wind(US 2003)). All are pleasant, enjoyable films, and none aspires to greatness. [End Page 327] Death of a President– the British director Gabriel Range's account of a fictional 2007 assassination of President George W. Bush and its aftermath over the following two years – has, quite obviously, ambitions considerably higher than examining the foibles of dog fanciers. Yet it maintains poise, restraint and a balanced cinematic structure to a degree that many viewers may find surprising. Among those who have heard of the film but not actually seen it, a rumour (actively encouraged by some right-wing sources) has spread to the effect that it is a Bush-hating wish-fantasy and even the cinematic equivalent, so to speak, of actual presidential murder. It is not. Although clearly made from a political viewpoint opposed to that of the Bush Administration, the film does not allow itself to be distracted by that infantile personal obsession with the forty-third president which the film itself represents critically and convincingly – and which the late, great radical journalist Molly Ivins more than once warned her fellow leftists against. To the degree that the film shows Bush as a personality at all, he comes across as the perfectly likeable type that Ivins (who was once his high-school classmate) reported him to be. We see Bush (in some archival footage) engaging in good-humoured, generous witticisms with a political opponent (Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, a Democrat); and after the assassination we see spontaneous expressions of loss and love by those (most notably a female speechwriter) who had been close to the president. Furthermore, Death of a Presidentnot only declines to demonise one affable, undistinguished politician whose policies proved such a disaster for his country and for the world, but also insists that a Bush assassination could not possibly be a meaningful act of political praxis. Dick Cheney becomes the forty-fourth president, of course, and the Cheney Administration, even more ferociously reactionary than its predecessor, proceeds to intensify the destruction of liberty in America and to attempt (though unsuccessfully) to expand the Iraq War into Syria. As the absence of a proper name in the title suggests, Range's film has, in fact, relatively little interest in George W. Bush as an individual. Instead, its concern is to use the venerable science-fictional device of future history in order to estrange and interrogate some of the transpersonal and structural realities of today. But future history has rarely concentrated so exclusively on the very nearfuture as Death of a Presidentdoes. Released in September 2006, the film imagines that Bush is shot to death during a visit to Chicago on 19 October 2007. But what we get is not offered as though it were 'real-time' news coverage. Instead, Range's film presents itself as a retrospective documentary – much in the manner of PBS's influential Frontlineseries – broadcast in 2009. Accordingly, Death of a Presidentmust manage two..." @default.
• W1987738317 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W1987738317 creator A5013148075 @default.
• W1987738317 date "2009-01-01" @default.
• W1987738317 modified "2023-09-27" @default.
• W1987738317 title "<i>Death of a President</i> (review)" @default.
• W1987738317 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/sff.0.0077" @default.
• W1987738317 hasPublicationYear "2009" @default.
• W1987738317 type Work @default.
• W1987738317 sameAs 1987738317 @default.
• W1987738317 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W1987738317 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W1987738317 hasAuthorship W1987738317A5013148075 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C2776997653 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C2778044066 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C2778201438 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C52119013 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C548253320 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C94389720 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C124952713 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C142362112 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C17744445 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C199539241 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C2776997653 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C2778044066 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C2778201438 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C52119013 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C548253320 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C94389720 @default.
• W1987738317 hasConceptScore W1987738317C95457728 @default.
• W1987738317 hasIssue "2" @default.
• W1987738317 hasLocation W19877383171 @default.
• W1987738317 hasOpenAccess W1987738317 @default.
• W1987738317 hasPrimaryLocation W19877383171 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2118881881 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2334934639 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2371817278 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2438326205 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2748952813 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2899084033 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W2939139712 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W3166701230 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W4240928184 @default.
• W1987738317 hasRelatedWork W4281713232 @default.
• W1987738317 hasVolume "2" @default.
• W1987738317 isParatext "false" @default.
• W1987738317 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W1987738317 magId "1987738317" @default.
• W1987738317 workType "article" @default.