Moody Amphitheater
Documentaries and the Cult of Personality
I had a thought the other day while watching Frontrunners, Caroline Suh’s documentary about the race for student-council president at New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. The teacher in charge of the election, talking about what he thinks students look for in a candidate, argues for the primacy of personality over ideology. He believes that a particular politician’s take on an issue can change depending on circumstance, while his personality is likely to stay the same regardless. This kind of consistency, he says, is what voters look for when they mark their ballots, whether during a high school election or in a presidential primary. Take George W. Bush, he says. The fact that Bush changed his campaign-era position on nation-building after the events of Sept. 11 didn’t change most of his supporters’ belief that, personalitywise, he was still the candidate they’d most like to have a beer (or two)) with and, therefore, the guy they'd most likely vote for come Nov. 2004.
This personality/issues debate is at the heart of Frontrunners, not just in terms of the election it documents but in relation to the audience’s appreciation of the movie itself. The film’s “lead,” George, is only one of four main characters, but his personality is so enormous, so idiosyncratic, so sui generis, that – win or lose - he is the guy viewers walk away from the theatre thinking about, discussing, and rooting for. Consequently, he is, in essence, the movie.
This personality/issues debate is at the heart of Frontrunners, not just in terms of the election it documents but in relation to the audience’s appreciation of the movie itself. The film’s “lead,” George, is only one of four main characters, but his personality is so enormous, so idiosyncratic, so sui generis, that – win or lose - he is the guy viewers walk away from the theatre thinking about, discussing, and rooting for. Consequently, he is, in essence, the movie.