“This is nothing! Piece of cake! Producing is being a samurai warrior. They pay you day in, day out for years so that one day, when called upon you can respond, your training at its peak and save the day!”
-Stanley Motss, Dustin Hoffman’s character in Wag The Dog, screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, based on the book by Larry Beinhart American Hero
Have you seen the movie Wag the Dog? Aside from it being a wonderfully fun political satire of how a government misdirects public attention with falsified information, it presents Dustin Hoffman as this hot-shot Hollywood producer to whom nothing is impossible. He assists a pair of federal goons, played by Anne Heche and Robert De Niro, to fabricate a completely fake war in an attempt to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. They have eleven days leading up to this President’s possible re-election, running on a flimsy platform. Ultimatley the fun of the film is in watching Dustin pull together the fake narrative as if it were his next blockbuster movie. For anyone interested in movie making, Wag the Dog is an interesting pers on the film business, our government, and the power of storytelling (for better or worse).
Now, this isn’t a political blog, and I’m in no way endorsing fabricated false information. The comedic satire of the film is hauntingly relevant now twenty years after its release. At one point Anne Heche’s character even comments that she hates television for ruining the country’s electoral process. The chilling reality is media and propaganda do effect not only the democratic process in the US but can have devastating global impacts.
Our world is shaped by stories, and much of my passion into production stems from the desire to make movie making accessible to communities and underrepresented cultures around the world. Give the power to the people to educate their fellow citizens. Empower diverse perspectives and minorities to share what the universe looks like from their point of view so that we may develop compassion, love, and understanding for all the people of our world and not just a fortunate few. Movies are a vehicle to share these experiences peacefully as one global nation under God, and you don’t need one million dollars to get your story made and out there.
The heart of making movies is about telling stories. One of the most interesting things about cinema as a storytelling medium is its power to influence the way we look at the world. This is a major aspect that many people who are drawn into making movies overlook, and it’s easy to get sucked into projects for all the wrong motives. Wag the Dog illustrates this point as Hoffman’s character uses his powers as a Hollywood producer to spin a world class coverup. It’s apparent that they are quickly carried away not because of their desire to save the President’s reputation (whom throughout the movie we see he couldn’t care less about, even outright criticizing their re-election campaign) but by the challenge of success. Speaking from my own experience, it’s easy to chase the desire to accomplish a movie, but when the focus isn’t on the content but on delivering a finished product, you wind up with an end product no one cares about.
Seventeen minutes into the movie, De Niro asks Hoffman what he wants to get out of producing this war. “Hell, I just do it for the fun of it,” Hoffman says, “for a story to tell.” De Niro’s character is stern to make certain Hoffman knows he couldn’t tell anybody, and Hoffman backs off of his statement with the understanding this is some top secret work he’s getting into. Without spoiling the ending, it becomes clear Hoffman’s ego threatens the secrecy of the operation. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the monetary gain so much as receiving credit for all his hard work.
One of my favorite moments in Wag the Dog takes place in a post effects house where Hoffman, and the team are disputing what type of cat an “Albanian” girl (Kirsten Dunst) carries as she “runs for her life”. The cat is an element we’ve seen Hoffman’s character fight to have included in the project in the few scenes leading up to this moment. Hoffman wants a calico kitten, and directs the effects team to insert one into the picture. Anne Heche steps in to inform Hoffman the President wants a white kitten. Reluctantly, Hoffman folds and inserts the white kitten into the picture.In a sense Hoffman’s character in Wag the Dog sums up the majority of producing. The ability to take the seed of an idea and develop it into a full on presentation with the potential to change the way people see the world. The work is fueled by a passion to combine all the elements into a final picture. Of course this is typically under some major pressure or constraints; be it time, money, resources, a studio or executive’s intervention (the President of the US in this case). There is a deep drive to accomplish the seemingly impossible, and often times when that final presentation gets out the door it’s not the producer who stands out so much as the actors, director, and studio who are the ultimate front runners for the audience to grasp on to.
So, why do it? Why put fourth all the time and energy and resources to accomplish something that doesn’t even place your name at the center of attention? Ultimately, if you’re looking for fame, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If it takes a village to raise a child, you could say it takes a metropolis to make a movie. Being able to put ego aside in order to effectively collaborate with the countless technicians, operators, artists, agents, and executives it takes to pull together a major motion picture is a priceless skill in itself. Embracing humility and learning to enlist key talents that bring the most to the picture is one of the most notable traits a good producer can maintain.
There are dozens and dozens of famous producers out there. I bet you can even name a few (Jordan Peele, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg). If you can’t and are serious about getting into the movie business, open your browser, go to IMBD.com and do some research. You’ll find not only are there tons of successful producers out there! Most movies credit more than a few. There are myriad producers, line producers, executive producers, associate producers, co-producers, post-producers, ect. Who receive credit on major movies. Wag the Dog, for instance, credits Robert De Niro, Barry Levinson, and Jane Rosenthal as producer; Michael De Luca, Claire Rudnick Polstein, and Ezra Swerdlow as executive producer; and Eric McLeod as co-producer.Understanding that it takes many people to mount and deliver an entire production, it’s typical for there to be one or two producers who have actually been engaged throughout. These are some real dynamos of the industry akin to the Wizard of Oz, acting behind the curtains to deliver a major production.
Wag the Dog in many ways exagerates how the industry works and skims over some of the more intricate details of making a movie. In fact, they aren’t producing a movie at all, they are generating misinformation in order to get a president re-elected. Ultimately, these people are bad guys with a nefarious motive of propagating a lie. So, why am I so fascinated with this movie? Thank David Mamet and Hilary Henkin for that.The writers establish a clear protagonist with De Niro’s character Conrad Brean the “spin doctor”, who has a definitive and clear cut goal to produce a fake war in order to protect the integrity of the President. The antagonist, Stanley Motss (Hoffman) shares the same goal but not for the same reasons. His conviction is in his ability to make the best damn production he can, and it kills him to not be recognized in this. We understand that if the characters fail, not only will the president’s integrity be compromised (as it probably should be) and he will likely lose the election, we can assume Conrad will his job (or worse) and that Motss will be a failure, crushing his ego. This dynamic creates for an amazing story structure causing the audience to suspend any moral reasoning in order to get on board with these characters and their passion to achieve their central goal.
Ultimately, Wag the Dog is a great movie, and certainly one of my all time favorites. Not only because I’m a nerd with an obsessive desire to produce movies and love the perspective on Hollywood production, but because it’s through and through a good movie. I really urge anyone interested in getting into the movie business to watch it while keeping in mind the power story has to impact the world. Then, for those out there who decide they want to be a hot shot movie producer, ask yourself what kind of stories do you want to tell and why. What impact do you want your movies to have? How do you ensure that the story will still be relevant in twenty, forty, or one hundred years? And chose to tell this story now?