“We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them,” says the President of the United States at the White House podium. “I was so busy trying to keep my job, that I forgot to do my job.”
This isn’t the current occupant of the Oval Office — could we ever imagine Donald Trump speaking this way?
We are talking about President Andrew Sheperd, played by Michael Douglas, in “The American President,” which celebrates its 25th anniversary this November. Directed by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, the movie still resonates today as we approach what many are calling one of the most critical elections in American history.
Reiner told CineMontage Magazine, Journal of The Motion Picture Editors Guild, that the film still resonates today.
From the article: “The movie’s President Sheperd is a charismatic leader who speaks truth in lofty prose to the American people. That’s a contrast from the real President Trump, who’s often criticized for presiding over a chaotic West Wing of incompetence and speaking in a rambling word-salad of falsehoods that distract and divide the country.”
President Obama once called the film “an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy,” and it makes for a great watch again today. Says Reiner: ““I think people should watch the film and see what a real democracy can be.”
Read the full piece at:
cinemontage.org/...