When it comes to movies, conservatives can be just like liberals if a film pushes their buttons. This week I saw a former CIA official on TV praise Bridge of Spies as a “great movie” but then go on to cite the continued, unresolved, post–Cold War antipathy between the U.S. and Russia — a contradiction of Bridge of Spies’ insulting, ameliorative message. Many people who consider themselves politically vigilant still look at movies as separate from propaganda — as if only the news media could be partisan. They ignore the fact that the business of contemporary Hollywood is often the business of creating ideological weapons. Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies isn’t simply an entertainment, and neither are four films released this week: Our Brand Is Crisis, Rock the Kasbah, Heart of a Dog, and The Pearl Button.
Sandra Bullock is lucky that Our Brand Is Crisis will flop. She’ll be spared the embarrassment of many people seeing her fumbling venture into George Clooney political snark (Clooney co-produced). In this film, based on Rachel Boynton’s 2005 documentary, Bullock trades in her niceness to portray Jane Bodine, an American political strategist who rebounds from recent career failure to manage the campaign of a presidential candidate in Bolivia. This fact-into-farce gimmick uses a Third World allegory to instruct Americans’ political naïveté. Instead of tackling the U.S. political industry head-on, the film chides the noxious influence of American dogma (and marketing) on global politics. “The truth is what I tell the electorate the truth is,” Jane dictates. This isn’t really political, just another form of media squabbling. Self-destructively ruthless, Jane informs her staff about her “soul-stealing” profession: “Yeah, it’s advertising. Give people something they don’t need, and then you profit from it.”