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negotiations. Now it is time for Talking Movies. | :00:00. | :00:26. | |
As Americans prepare to go to the polls, hello and welcome to this | :00:27. | :00:36. | |
special edition of Talking Movies. In today's programmes, two different | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
film portrait of the outgoing president Obama. The digitised to | :00:42. | :00:47. | |
tell us what Jackie Kennedy was really like. A landmark political | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
documentary for more than 50 years ago which embraced the techniques of | :00:52. | :00:55. | |
direct cinema. Hollywood's politics is the industry of liberalism, or do | :00:56. | :01:02. | |
conservative forces rule the day? And the favourite films of the | :01:03. | :01:05. | |
presidential candidates. Is Citizen Kane the top toys of Hillary Clinton | :01:06. | :01:12. | |
or Donald Trump? We will be telling you the answer in this edition of | :01:13. | :01:25. | |
Talking Movies. In just over a week from now America's television | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
networks, headquartered in New York, will bring the American people the | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
results of the election. Nothing is certain but we do know that | :01:34. | :01:37. | |
President Obama will be leaving the White House in January and cinema | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
will know doubt be playing a role in defining his legacy. -- no doubt. | :01:42. | :01:49. | |
Already we have had two Obama films and both look at him when he was a | :01:50. | :01:53. | |
young band. -- younger man. As Americans head | :01:54. | :02:00. | |
into the final days of the elections, Barack Obama is enduring | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
a revival of popularity. Meanwhile the nostalgia for this politician | :02:06. | :02:09. | |
who has not yet left office can also be seen in two films about the 44th | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
president. President Obama is now 55, at the film Barry tells the | :02:16. | :02:21. | |
story in the life of a younger man attending Columbia University in New | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
York on in 1981. Barry avoids politics completely in favour of a | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
universal coming-of-age story. In a way we divested from Barack Obama | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
and we made it a story about Barry, a guy who would eventually become | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
this guy we all know. A lot of the film is about being truthful to the | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
experience of a young man of mixed race trying to figure out his way | :02:45. | :02:49. | |
and truthful to Barry as this idea. And it wasn't about you know | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
reconstructing how he got this political opinion or that political | :02:55. | :03:03. | |
opinion, it was who was this person, who was leader of the free world? | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
You know the guy I told you about? What is this boy's name? Barack | :03:09. | :03:16. | |
Obama. Coincidentally Barry is the second film this year to tackle | :03:17. | :03:21. | |
Barack Obama's early days. South Side With You chronicles the first | :03:22. | :03:26. | |
date between Barack Obama and Michelle. It isn't a political film | :03:27. | :03:31. | |
to me, it is truly a love story and you just sit two powerful minds walk | :03:32. | :03:37. | |
and talk all day and I love it because it is before cellphones, so | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
they had to talk to each other and there is no checking cellphones, | :03:42. | :03:47. | |
looking at memes. I wonder if I can write books and hold a position of | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
influence in civil rights. Politics? I just want to do more. So do I. | :03:53. | :03:59. | |
These are not the first films to be made about a sitting president. | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
Primary Colours was released in the middle of a second term and W came | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
out in the final days of the Bush administration. But those films | :04:11. | :04:17. | |
criticised their subjects, while the Obama films take a more holistic | :04:18. | :04:21. | |
approach, perhaps because is about a president who was more open about | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
his flaws. There is something about Obama. The reason we have seen two | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
films about him in one year, his story sparks the sense of | :04:30. | :04:32. | |
possibility in so many people's lives. People of colour, people of | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
certain economic backgrounds. There is nothing partisan about Barry or | :04:37. | :04:42. | |
South Side With You. In fact they barely feature any discussion of | :04:43. | :04:45. | |
politics at all. But that doesn't mean the president embraces them. In | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
our divisive political era it is unlikely the film will have appeal | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
beyond those who already hold Obama in high esteem, but these films | :04:55. | :04:57. | |
deserve credit for their personal approach to political filmmaking. | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
Many would say this long and exhausting election season has | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
questioned parts of humanity. Gregory and Southside With You with | :05:07. | :05:13. | |
their focus on a personal may bring some of that back. Barry. It isn't | :05:14. | :05:25. | |
just presidents who have been to be the film, it is also first ladies. | :05:26. | :05:30. | |
For some 30 odd years one of America's most charismatic first | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
ladies lived here in New York. She moved into the building in the wake | :05:36. | :05:39. | |
of the assassination of her husband, president John F. Kennedy. Now | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
Natalie Portman brings a striking betrayal of Jackie Kennedy in the | :05:45. | :05:49. | |
forthcoming film, Jackie. Each evening from December to December... | :05:50. | :05:57. | |
The focus of this elegantly crafted film is on the days following the | :05:58. | :06:00. | |
assassination of Presidents John F. Kennedy in Dallas, in November, | :06:01. | :06:05. | |
1963. A truly shocking event that traumatised the American people. | :06:06. | :06:12. | |
I've changed my mind. I'm sorry? I said I've changed my mind. We will | :06:13. | :06:16. | |
have a procession and I will walk to the cathedral with the casket. The | :06:17. | :06:20. | |
picture shows a morning Jackie Kennedy in the wake of the | :06:21. | :06:23. | |
assassination, planning among other things the funeral. All the time | :06:24. | :06:27. | |
conscious of shaping his legacy. Natalie Portman was well aware of | :06:28. | :06:30. | |
Jackie Kennedy's legacy in putting this picture together. I think I | :06:31. | :06:35. | |
viewed her the way many people view her in sort of popular perception, | :06:36. | :06:39. | |
this 2-dimensional icon, sort of an Andy Warhol silkscreen, the head, | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
the clothes, the elegance, and I never really considered her | :06:46. | :06:51. | |
humanity. Would you mind getting the message to the funeral guests when | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
they arrive? In the film she does come over as being a strong woman | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
dealing with a lot and pulling it off, but she had this little girl | :07:00. | :07:02. | |
voice. How do you reconcile that apparent contradiction? I think | :07:03. | :07:07. | |
there was a lot of pressure at the time to be a specific kind of woman, | :07:08. | :07:15. | |
to be kind of coy and demure and defined by your husband. She was | :07:16. | :07:20. | |
really tapping down herself in the public eye and of course privately | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
she was much sharper and had this bitter humour that everyone remarks | :07:25. | :07:31. | |
on in their recollections of her. The pig was directed way -- the | :07:32. | :07:37. | |
picture was directed by a Chilean filmmaker. He was drawn in by what | :07:38. | :07:41. | |
we don't know about Jackie Kennedy. There are a lot of things we don't | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
know about her and there are things we will never know. That mystery | :07:46. | :07:51. | |
captivated me and I think there's... In this movie what we do is show | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
basically four days of her life and see how she was able to put a | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
country together, how she was able to protect the legacy. Matt -- | :08:02. | :08:12. | |
Natalie Portman is emerging as a strong Oscar candidate. It is about | :08:13. | :08:17. | |
a woman who managed to become the mother of the country when it lost | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
its father. The country that found the first queen it ever had. | :08:22. | :08:30. | |
In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the subject of a film called Primary | :08:31. | :08:39. | |
which is widely regarded as the first such documentary in its Thelma | :08:40. | :08:45. | |
-- of its kind. It followed the campaign trail in Wisconsin. One man | :08:46. | :08:52. | |
intimately involved in that film was a legend in documentary circles. We | :08:53. | :09:02. | |
went to meet him. In 1960, two presidential hopefuls were | :09:03. | :09:05. | |
desperately trying to win a US primary election. The glamorous John | :09:06. | :09:11. | |
F. Kennedy, from an Irish, American political dynastic, and Hubert | :09:12. | :09:14. | |
Humphrey, a pharmacist from South Dakota. Filmmaker Robert Drew | :09:15. | :09:18. | |
decided to take it unique approach to tell the story. At the time, one | :09:19. | :09:24. | |
of his crew makers on the film said the goal was to be a fly on the | :09:25. | :09:28. | |
wall. We wanted to see what Kennedy was like. We were interested in it | :09:29. | :09:35. | |
because we thought he was a different kind of person becoming | :09:36. | :09:39. | |
president, a different kind of president than what we usually have. | :09:40. | :09:43. | |
We never interviewed him, we just watched what he said and did. The | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
filmmakers hoped to craft the story that mirrored reality, one that | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
didn't tell the audience what to think or feel. A technique known as | :09:53. | :10:00. | |
direct cinema, are cinema verite. The idea was news was filmed as it | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
happened, you didn't change it or edit it to make it different. This | :10:06. | :10:11. | |
had that sense, that this material hasn't been changed or we -- | :10:12. | :10:18. | |
reworked in order to have a different effect. Primary was not | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
only revolutionary because it was known as the first American cinema | :10:23. | :10:28. | |
verite documentary but also because of the cutting edge tools used to | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
achieve the images. The team modified a camera to be able to | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
simultaneously record sound and picture, enabling the crew to easily | :10:39. | :10:41. | |
follow the candidates and record real-time conversations. The | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
technique was known as sync sound and was unprecedented in film. | :10:48. | :10:50. | |
Usually what you did was play music for what you shot or you recorded | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
the voice and used it as voice over. Either way, it was not the way you | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
usually engaged with reality. But when it was used and shot in | :11:01. | :11:08. | |
synchronised time you felt that what you watched really happened | :11:09. | :11:15. | |
somewhere. Primary was a rough attempt at cinema verite, but by | :11:16. | :11:23. | |
1992, with a much more advanced camera, this time there was another | :11:24. | :11:31. | |
attempt, this time with his wife. He would tell the story of a young | :11:32. | :11:34. | |
governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, hoping to become president. | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
But this time he did in differently from Primary. The Democrat comes | :11:40. | :11:44. | |
along, the Republicans are going to ambush them. He was more interested | :11:45. | :11:52. | |
in the campaign strategy of others, that he was in Bill Clinton, the | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
candidate himself. I guarantee you that if you do this you will never | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
work in government or politics again. That was somebody you could | :12:01. | :12:07. | |
watch. George was his buddies and he had a kind of bloody thing. Stay | :12:08. | :12:11. | |
focused. Talk about things that matter. We love the new patriotism | :12:12. | :12:16. | |
thing. Speak from your heart. That's all that matters. According to | :12:17. | :12:27. | |
Pennebaker, people across the country were inspired. Afterwards | :12:28. | :12:34. | |
they created the scenery of it and that somehow really helped them. I | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
don't know what they thought it would do. I like the way this thing | :12:39. | :12:45. | |
feels. The prints from the film were sent all over the world is the | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
politicians who wanted to look at it and figure out what was there that | :12:50. | :12:54. | |
they could use. And I'm not sure many of them did. How can we believe | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
anything he is saying about the future? Well, he has a good career | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
in fiction writing when this is over. Although it is about politics, | :13:05. | :13:10. | |
in true cinema verite style Pennebaker said he had no agenda and | :13:11. | :13:12. | |
reality was compelling enough. A few days ago big names from | :13:13. | :13:30. | |
Hollywood participated in what was called a Stronger Together | :13:31. | :13:33. | |
fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. That was here in the heart of Broadway at | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
St James theatre. Among those to appear were Hugh Jackman, Julia | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
Roberts and Emily Blunt. Glitzy event such as this reinforced notion | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
that Hollywood is a democratic town, at how liberal is Tinseltown? We've | :13:47. | :13:52. | |
been finding out. Democrats are well supported by | :13:53. | :13:55. | |
Hollywood stars and they turned up in force at the St James theatre to | :13:56. | :13:59. | |
display their talents and help raise money for Hillary Clinton. Why are | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
so many stars joined Thelma jaunt to the Democrats? -- so many stars | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
drawn to the Democrats? I think to be an artist you have to be | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
open-minded, open to all things. So if I am asked to play someone who | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
was a terrorist I have to try to believe in this cause, otherwise I | :14:21. | :14:24. | |
am just some guy making a comment on the person I am playing. So we're | :14:25. | :14:29. | |
people who I think, as a lot of artists are, I do have empathy for | :14:30. | :14:33. | |
people not like Gus and that's considered liberal. Compared to the | :14:34. | :14:37. | |
Democrats, Republicans have the backing of only a few stars. Adam | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
Sandler, John Voigt and Clint Eastwood are among those links the | :14:43. | :14:45. | |
republican causes. Some religious conservatives who dislike Hollywood | :14:46. | :14:51. | |
star laden liberalism think they know why there are so few Republican | :14:52. | :14:56. | |
stars. One argument is that people have a more conservative Republican | :14:57. | :15:05. | |
-- who have a more Republican mine are less likely to go and make | :15:06. | :15:10. | |
movies and go into acting, or to go into the social sciences and the | :15:11. | :15:13. | |
anatomies. Another argument is that they are wanted. -- are not wanted. | :15:14. | :15:25. | |
Hollywood may have had more of the teat influence public policy then | :15:26. | :15:28. | |
Democrats, as the movie industry has been successful in spawning | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
significant Republican leaders. A number of Republicans, especially | :15:33. | :15:35. | |
Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, have all sort of | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
political office, and have succeeded, and have also moved the | :15:41. | :15:46. | |
political matter by getting a large number of Americans with them to the | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
right. Check political barometer. While Republicans have focused on | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
electoral politics, Democrats in general, historically, have focused | :15:57. | :15:58. | |
on what I call issue oriented politics. That is, rather than | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
getting deeply involved with a political party, they get involved | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
with political causes. Not only may Republicans in Tinseltown have had a | :16:08. | :16:11. | |
larger political impact on American life then Democrats, what there is | :16:12. | :16:14. | |
also the view they may control movie content as well. It is argued that | :16:15. | :16:18. | |
the largely conservative white men of corporate Hollywood may narrow | :16:19. | :16:22. | |
the spectrum of films that get made to fit their worldview. The action | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
drama American Sniper, and going back in time, the war drama Rules of | :16:28. | :16:32. | |
Engagement, are perceived as examples of conservative films. But | :16:33. | :16:36. | |
many commentators argue that ideology only plays a minimal role | :16:37. | :16:39. | |
in determining what movies individual Hollywood corporate | :16:40. | :16:44. | |
executives will back. If you sync at the box office, your career will | :16:45. | :16:47. | |
sink. If you do well, your career will rise. So you can have | :16:48. | :16:52. | |
conservative studio people who are going to greenlight what they see as | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
kind of left or liberal movies if they believe it is going to have an | :16:58. | :17:03. | |
appeal with the larger audience. But away from the movies themselves and | :17:04. | :17:07. | |
the realm of making a noise and raising money, this election season, | :17:08. | :17:11. | |
it is Democrats in Hollywood who are out on top. Hillary Clinton has | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
netted an estimated $20 million from the show business community, | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
compared to the $275,000 raised by Donald Trump. Hilary! | :17:20. | :17:34. | |
E. 60th St in Manhattan was once home to the legend Eric Copacabana | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
nightclub, the site of an unforgettable tracking shop in | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
Martin Scorsese's mobster drama Goodfellas. It so happens that | :17:46. | :17:48. | |
Goodfellas is one of Donald Trump's favourite films. What are the movie | :17:49. | :17:52. | |
preferences of the presidential candidates? Tristan Daley has been | :17:53. | :17:59. | |
finding out. In the US, each presidential | :18:00. | :18:02. | |
candidate has one or more movies that they favour. We are off to see | :18:03. | :18:08. | |
the Wizard! Hillary Clinton isn't off to see the wizard, just more | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
voters in the last days of her campaign. But it is widely reported | :18:13. | :18:16. | |
that the Wizard of Oz is one of her favourite movies. So I Out of | :18:17. | :18:23. | |
Africa, and Casablanca. You must remember this... Donald Trump ranked | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
his top five movies five years ago. His first choice was Citizen Kane. | :18:30. | :18:35. | |
Rosebud... The movie preferences of presidential candidates are not | :18:36. | :18:39. | |
always casual, spur of the moment comments. I think everything is | :18:40. | :18:44. | |
calculated to make the candidates look as relate a ball as possible, | :18:45. | :18:47. | |
especially movies, they are such a popular medium that it is very easy, | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
especially if it is a movie that people have heard of, classic film, | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
even if people haven't seen the film they might say, that is a good | :18:57. | :18:59. | |
movie, so they must have taste, they must know what quality is, and I | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
trust them and find them a bit more electable. It is also believed that | :19:05. | :19:07. | |
a candidate's movie preferences can reveal significant information. | :19:08. | :19:11. | |
Donald Trump seems drawn to films that have strong male protagonists, | :19:12. | :19:15. | |
and that are violent, like the west and a good, the bad and the ugly, or | :19:16. | :19:19. | |
the Godfather. When it comes to Trump's number one film, it is | :19:20. | :19:26. | |
Citizen Kane. But some critics don't think Trump as much in common with | :19:27. | :19:31. | |
that movie's media tycoon. Trump and Kane are two different men. Citizen | :19:32. | :19:36. | |
Kane, at a certain level, is brilliant and has built an empire. | :19:37. | :19:39. | |
Trump, in my opinion, stumbled his way to great wealth, because he | :19:40. | :19:43. | |
inherited a great amount of wealth and happen to be in real estate in | :19:44. | :19:47. | |
New York as real estate was entering a boom period in the late 1970s. For | :19:48. | :19:51. | |
the candidate who is perhaps the most avid movie lover in a | :19:52. | :19:55. | |
presidential race, we have to go a long way back to earlier this year, | :19:56. | :19:59. | |
when Ted Cruz had his sights on the Republican nomination. Look who | :20:00. | :20:01. | |
knows so much! It's just so happens... PC and to adore the 1987 | :20:02. | :20:06. | |
fantasy adventure the Princess Bride. Ted Cruz even memorise lines | :20:07. | :20:12. | |
from the film, and he was eager to show off his talents, as he did in | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
this broadcast from New Hampshire. There is nothing better than true | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
love. There is nothing better, except for a nice mutton, letters | :20:21. | :20:25. | |
and to make a salad. In fact, it has been alleged that Ted Cruz has taken | :20:26. | :20:28. | |
loans from Hollywood movies to emphasise his rhetoric. After Donald | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
Trump threatened to spill the beans on Ted Cruz's life Heidi, the | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
candidate responded with lines from the 1995 movie the American | :20:37. | :20:42. | |
President. He is better off sticking with me, because Heidi is way out of | :20:43. | :20:46. | |
his league. You'd better stick with me, because Sydney Allen Wade is way | :20:47. | :20:49. | |
out of your league. It was actually quite moving and the language he | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
used was quite poetic. Then people just realised he was quoting the | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
movie Of the American President, when Michael Douglas is defending | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
his partner's character. Is that a valiant way to act? I don't know. I | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
would read it that it makes it look like him, look like a thief, because | :21:07. | :21:10. | |
he is stealing somebody else's language. It makes him seem even | :21:11. | :21:13. | |
more programmed and robotic Ben Edwards, an actual full-blooded man | :21:14. | :21:19. | |
defending his wife. Political candidates clearly have an affinity | :21:20. | :21:22. | |
for movies. Perhaps because both politics and cinema have so much in | :21:23. | :21:28. | |
common. Movies peddle fantasy. They often deflect from reality, create | :21:29. | :21:31. | |
illusion, and evokes strong emotions. And that is just what | :21:32. | :21:42. | |
politicians often want to do too. Well, that brings this edition of | :21:43. | :21:47. | |
Talking Movies to a close. We hope you have enjoyed the show. You can | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
always reach us online. And you can find us on Facebook as well. So from | :21:53. | :21:57. | |
me, Tom Brook, and the rest of the Talking Movies production team here | :21:58. | :22:02. | |
in New York, it is goodbye, as we leave you with a moment from the | :22:03. | :22:05. | |
past when Hollywood and politics really came together. It was Marilyn | :22:06. | :22:08. | |
Monroe singing happy birthday to President John F. Kennedy in 1962. | :22:09. | :22:20. | |
# Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Mr | :22:21. | :22:35. | |
President, happy birthday to you. # | :22:36. | :22:53. | |
Thank you, Mr President, for all the things you've done, the battles that | :22:54. | :23:07. | |
you've won. We thank you so much. Everybody, happy birthday! | :23:08. | :23:16. | |
It's going to be a quiet weekend of weather. | :23:17. | :23:20. | |
We saw some sunshine yesterday, this was Deal. | :23:21. | :23:22. | |
Don't expect to see many blue skies this weekend. | :23:23. | :23:24. | |
Many of us it could be rather grey and cloudy, | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
just as it was earlier on in the Wirral yesterday. | :23:30. | :23:32. |