Did anybody watch the "Strange Justice" movie on
Showtime last night, based on the book about Clarence Thomas and
Anita Hill?
I watched it and thought it was well done (for that kind of
instant historical made-for-tv movie -- although the one with
Bernadette Peters and Kevin Spacey about Tammie Fae and Jim
Bakker is still the best).
But frankly, I feel uncomfortable with making up stories about
real events so quickly after the fact. It's the same thing that
bugs me about Bob Woodward books. It's arrogant to think anybody
can re-create what another person is thinking or even feeling.
And often the most sympathetic character is the one who was the
most generous to the reporter (particularly true of Woodward's
books). In this movie, Mandy Patimkin played Kenneth Duberstein,
a Republican lobbyist, and he seemed to be the most likable
character.
The two main actors also gave good dramatic performances. Because,
I assume, the images of the hearings are burned in our brains,
the director took the approach of contrasting between seeing the
testimony scenes as we saw them the first time (so we see people
watching the hearings on tv screens in places other than the
hearing room with CT or AH actors sewn into the video, their
actors voices quoting word for word the testimony) and then cross-cutting
to an interior space where the actors continued with the same
actual words, but presenting them passionately, dramatically.
Politics aside (hard to say for such a celebration of the worst
in American politics), I was hoping 109109 saw it because he
might have some insight in the R side of this. I don't know much
about Duberstein but I was curious if this flick came even close
to describing him.
A final note. Congressmen and legislators often come across
personally as assholes. I thought this movie caught that quite
well, both Byden's waffling and Danforth's internal grandstanding
before Duberstein. There was one live clip that went on and on,
Hatch holding up the Exorcist in reference to the pubic hair
on the Coke can. As ridiculous as Hatch's little monologue
was, there was plenty of this silliness on both sides.
