A great article on John Sayles and "Silver City"

[KurtNYC]

Snip -

In the meantime the political drama has largely become the preserve of the documentary, with the likes of Michael Moore and Robert Greenwald firing the most effective broadsides at the Bush administration. Sayles acknowledges this. "Michael Moore, whether you like him or hate him, has done something very important," he says. "Fahrenheit 9/11 took public domain information that should have been on the news every night and put it in a film that a lot of people went to see. But still Bush has never had to answer those charges." He shrugs. "The media in America has become so cowed and compromised."

Silver City sets out to target this ignorance at the heart of America. It is a film that believes that if you shout the facts loudly enough, the audience will sit up and take action. But perhaps the truth is more depressing than that. Writing in the Chicago Sun Times, critic Roger Ebert remarked: "There is nothing in the movie's portrait of Pilager/Bush that has not already been absorbed and discounted by the electorate."

All of which makes Silver City an oddly dispiriting experience. It views like the last stand of a certain strain of coarse-grained American liberalism, one with its roots in the novels of John Steinbeck, the songs of Woody Guthrie and the values of the New Deal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1532956,00.html

[robertarctor]

1. Thanks for posting that.

I saw Silver City for the first time this month. Excellent film.

Chris Cooper's portrayal of a George W. Bush-like empty suit was quite swell, but what really made it for me (and gets no mention in the Guardian piece) is Richard Dreyfuss' spot-on performance as a Karl Rove-like political manipulator. Both these actors really did their homework.

Silver City is one of those American classics that will be much better appreciated in the years to come, especially because of Cooper's and Dreyfuss' performances. It's not my favorite Sayles film (gotta go with Lone Star for that one), but it's pretty damn good.

Loved how the Kris Kristofferson character's corporation nicked the Bechtel logo, too.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. Sayles is great. I hadn't heard about this film and just found the trailer

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newmarket/silver_city.html