Docs & Talks/ 3
DYLAN BANK, DANIEL DiMAURO, MORGAN PEHME: GET ME ROGER STONE
MARC EBERHARDT: MEUTHEN’S PARTY
There are still some weeks before the kick-off of Docs & Talks but I have had the chance to watch two of the films, that will be shown at the festival accompanied by talks. They are both on politics of today. In the US and in Germany.
One – ”Get Me Roger Stone” – with a debate before, in English, where one of the participants is the competent Niels Bjerre Poulsen, who is often on Danish television to talk Trump. It’s on the 21st.
The other – ”Meuthens Party” – where the debate is in Danish after the film: Seniorforsker ved DIIS Cecilie Stokholm Banke og forfatter og journalist på Weekendavisen Jesper Vind debatterer baggrunden for højrefløjens fremgang i Tyskland og resten af Europa og forsøger at give svaret på, hvorfor flere af højrepartierne er plaget af fløjkrige, efter de har etableret sig. It’s on the 22nd.
”Get me Roger Stone” (100 mins.) is not only a portrait of the flamboyant dandy, who for decades have ”made” presidents like
Nixon, Reagan, Bush and now Trump. According to himself – and many others. He is been in and out of the limelight, he adores to be there and he knows how to deal with the media. And he is in total control of this film. A good characteristic comes from the NY Times review (by Manohla Dargis): ”Movies about colorful characters, be they saints or sinners, are often hijacked by their subject, so it’s unsurprising that Mr. Stone, with his bespoke suits and Nixon tattoo, owns this one…”. What you get with this film is an entertaining insight (lots of archive from tv, interviews) to a cynical world full of lies; what you don’t get is a journalistic analysis of what is right and wrong. Everyone, and there are many, talking about Stone either shake their head with a smile or characterise him to be like the president: a crook.
German Marc Eberhardt’s ”Meuthens Party” is classical observational documentary in the genre that we know so well from direct cinema – ”Primary” (on J.F.Kennedy and Humphrey), ”Citizen Havel” – getting close to a politician during his election campaign for the right wing party Afd (Alternative für Deutschland), where he wins a seat in the parliament in Baden-Würtemberg and thus gets into the German Bundestag as one of the chairmen. The director, who is also the cameraman, follows him for a couple of months, Meuthen being the man, who denies that there is antisemitism being expressed by members of his party, well denies racism in general… but but when he is in a full hall for the party gathering, he receives standing ovations for his nationalistic anti-immigration formulations. Would it be wrong to compare him to the Danish righ wing party leader Thulesen-Dahl: Academic, always well-dressed and polite in communications, with pretty clear anti opinions… The film, made by a film student, probably a diploma work, is quite impressive, and has a standpoint. Look for yourself.
http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/
