New documentary film is "full frontal assault "on Giuliani " deification"

[DeepModem Mom]

Giuliani Documentary Seeks to Get Beyond Heroic 9/11 Image


(Conus Archive)
Rudolph W. Giuliani, subject of "Giuliani Time," at a fund-raiser.

By PATRICK HEALY
Published: April 12, 2006

Fairly or not, it was a phrase that came to symbolize an era thick with accusations of police brutality against minorities, artists and other residents of New York City: "Giuliani Time."

Now it is the title of a new documentary about the political life of the mayor who presided over those years — and who, it is safe to assume, would not include the film on his campaign Web site if he were to decide to run for president in 2008.

The two-hour feature is nothing less than a full frontal assault on the civic deification of Rudolph W. Giuliani that occurred in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, when much of the news coverage shined a spotlight on his steady hand. The film is scheduled to have its premiere at the Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side on May 12; the distributor, Cinema Libre Studio, is aiming to release it in cities like Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco as well.

If the film does not take a wrecking ball to Mr. Giuliani's pedestal, it at least serves as a reminder of all the controversy, all the fighting and all the dirty laundry that defined him before the halo effect set in after the terrorist attacks. If nothing else, the filmmakers say they want to define his public image for voters and the news media before he can define himself as a possible presidential candidate — an approach that prompts the former mayor's aides to call the film a hatchet job....

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With rare exceptions like "Fahrenheit 9/11," political theater can be a tough sell commercially. Regardless of how many Americans wind up seeing "Giuliani Time," the film does point up a number of controversies that the news media would also surely explore if Mr. Giuliani were to run for president. Less clear is whether, in such a presidential race, voters would care about his political record before 9/11. Many political analysts believe that a Giuliani bid in 2008 would be complicated more by his support for abortion rights and gay rights than by strong-arm tactics by the New York Police Department a decade earlier....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/movies/12rudy.html