Celluloid Confetti

I can’t wait for Oliver Stone’s forthcoming W., his biopic of the 43rd President of the United States.

We’ve already had a Clinton movie, the superb Primary Colors (1998), so I think it’s time the members of the Bush administration took their turn on the silver screen.

Just thinking about W.’s cast makes me excited: Josh Brolin (yup, one of the kids from The Goonies) will be playing Dubya himself, and Ioan Gruffudd and Thandie Newton have been pencilled in as Tony Blair and Condoleeza Rice (respectively). And who better than James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn to play Bush’s ma and pa, Barbara and George Sr.?

If they could get James Earl Jones to play Colin Powell, my happiness would be complete (maybe they could even get him to provide the voice of Dick Cheney?).

I have high hopes for W., as I thought Stone’s Nixon (1995) was one of the most entertaining historical biopics since Franklin J Schaffner’s Patton. Anthony Hopkins’ barnstorming turn as Tricky Dicky had a similar energy to George C Scott’s portrayal of the maverick general.

(Ironically, Stone disliked Schaffner’s film intensely, claiming it inspired Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia)

With a 200 minute running time, Nixon was a tale of political tragedy told on a grand Wagnerian scale, with powerhouse performances from the likes of Joan Allen, Ed Harris, James Woods - and a deliciously seedy turn from Bob Hoskins as J Edgar Hoover.

My main issue with Nixon is its occasional tendency to descend into tin-hat conspiracy-theory territory, and I really hope W. doesn’t follow suit.

You would think that, with Watergate and Deep Throat, Stone would have had plenty ‘nuf intrigue for one movie, but he also made a hamfisted attempt to implicate Nixon in the Kennedy assassination.

Maybe Nixon shot JFK himself. I don’t know. But it all seemed a bit clumsy.

So I dread to think what charges Stone is about to level against Dubya, who must surely be one of the most guileless politicians of modern times. I really don’t think it counts as a conspiracy if someone tells you what they are going to do, attempts to do it, and then publicly falls flat on their face.

Any attempt to weave some kind of Machiavellian plot around Bush’s two terms would not only over-egg the pudding, it would subject it to some kind of reverse-liposuction. I am getting tired of conspiracy theories - and, I think I’m not the only one:

9/11 Conspiracy Theories ‘Ridiculous,’ Al Qaeda Says

Anyway, an ‘Election Year’ edition of Nixon is out later this year on Blu-ray, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it - I think the film is a real testimony to just how compelling Oliver Stone can be when he gets the bit between his teeth.

In the meantime, here’s hoping that Stone decides to keep his imagination (more or less) in check with W..