Evento

Fascists, Fools and Action Heroes: Fictional Presidents in Three Movie Periods

Jack Nachbar will cover commercial films made during three time periods:

The High Depression and the Early Days of President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s through movies Wild Boys of the Road (1933); Gabriel over the White House (1933); The President Vanishes (1934). In these films, a surrogate for President Franklin Roosevelt saves teen protagonists; the president establishes a fascist state in order to ignore Congress and solve the Great Depression, and the president arranges his own kidnapping as a political strategy.

The 1960s, post-President John F. Kennedy and post the Cuban Missile Crisis through three of the following movies: Kisses for my President (1964); Fail Safe (1964); Seven Days in May (1964); and Dr. Strangelove (1964). In these films, the first woman president discovers shes pregnant; the president must figure out a way to avert nuclear holocaust; the president struggles to prevent a military takeover of the government, and there is comic ineptitude in the War Room in the middle of a nuclear crisis.

Love and Heroic Action in the Age of Clinton through selections from these movies: Dave (1993); The American President (1995); Primary Colors (1998); Mars Attacks (1996); Independence Day (1996); Air Force One (1997); and Deep Impact (1998). In these films, a look-alike subs for the real president; the president falls in love; a sexual scandal threatens to unravel a presidential campaign; the president tries to negotiate with Martian invaders; the president fights aliens; the president takes on murderous hijackers; and the president must prepare the world for the impact of a gigantic comet.