Wag the Dog

Infobox_Film
name = Wag the Dog

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imdb_id = 0120885
writer = Hilary Henkin
David Mamet
starring = Dustin Hoffman
Robert De Niro
Anne Heche
Denis Leary
William H. Macy
Willie Nelson
director = Barry Levinson
producer = Barry Levinson
Robert De Niro
editing = Stu Linder
distributor = New Line Cinema
released = December 17, 1997
runtime = 97 min.
language = English
budget =

"Wag the Dog" is a 1997 film starring Robert De Niro, about a Washington spin doctor who distracts the electorate from a U.S. presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer, played by Dustin Hoffman, to construct a fake war with Albania. The scheme enlists the musician Willie Nelson (who creates a theme song for the 'war'). Hoffman's character was based directly upon Robert Evans; Hoffman emulated Evans' work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing style, hairstyle, and his large square-framed eyeglasses; the real Evans is said to have declared, "I'm magnificent in this film!"Fact|date=August 2008

Plot

"Wag the Dog" was produced and directed by Barry Levinson. Hilary Henkin and David Mamet co-wrote the screenplay. The film is based on the novel "American Hero" by Larry Beinhart. The book, however, differs greatly from the picture. In the book the president is specifically George Herbert Walker Bush (in the movie he is unnamed) and the fake war operation is explicitly Desert Storm.

The film explores serious themes, such as the manipulation of the mass media and public opinion, with a comedic sensibility. The film drew attention at the time for similarities to the Clinton sex scandal, although the movie also makes reference to the Persian Gulf War as an example of war used as an electoral tactic. The idea of war as a creation of the media is not, of course, original to the movie. The French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard's ideas in particular are relevant to a discussion of the movie — see for example his essay "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place".POV-statement|date=August 2008

Cast

*Robert De Niro - Conrad Brean
*Dustin Hoffman - Stanley Motss
*Anne Heche - Winifred Ames
*Denis Leary - Fad King
*Willie Nelson - Johnny Dean
*Andrea Martin - Liz Butsky
*Kirsten Dunst - Tracy Lime
*William H. Macy - CIA Agent Charles Young
*John Michael Higgins - John Levy
*Suzie Plakson - Grace
*Woody Harrelson - Sgt. William Schumann
*Michael Belson - The President
*Suzanne Cryer - Amy Cain
*Jason Cottle - A.D.
*David Koechner - The Director

Writing credits

Controversy surrounds the writing credits of the movie.Fact|date=August 2008 Original drafter Henkin took the film’s producers to court and threatened to quit the Writers Guild of America after director Barry Levinson chose not to award her a screenwriting credit.Fact|date=August 2008

As a reviewer wrote at the time of the film's release:

:According to Levinson, Mamet had never read the novel nor Henkin's script, and the only commonality between Henkin's draft and the shooting script was the premise of a make-believe war. Citing clear-cut differences between the two scripts, including the entire Hollywood-angle and the soldier left behind enemy lines in Mamet's creation, Levinson appealed the ruling, but was rebuffed. [http://members.aol.com/aleong1631/wag.html] POV-statement|date=August 2008

Current events

The film does not name the president and nominally differentiates him from George H. W. Bush by referring to him and the [First] Gulf War as being in the past. Were it not for the surprise disclosure of President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the scandal's timing, however, the allusions to President Bush's 1988 and 1992 campaigns would have otherwise been more apparent. "Changing a horse in mid-stream" and the opposing candidate's unflattering military photo opportunity harkened respectively to the 1988 theme of continuing the Reagan presidency by proxy and the footage of Michael Dukakis appearing buffoonish in a Massachusetts National Guard tank. The film's war in Albania alluded to Operation Desert Shield and the popularity boost received by the president in response to a quick, decisive war victory. Note also Mamet's choice of Albania, a country whose primary non-Albanian minorities are Greeks and Vlachs; Dukakis' ethnicity is Greek and Vlach.

Less than a month after the movie was released, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal. Over the course of 1998 and early 1999, as the scandal dominated American politics, the US engaged in three military operations:
*Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq that took place as the U.S. House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton
*Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan three days after Clinton admitted in a [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/lewinsky_address/address.html nationally televised address] that he had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky
*Operation Allied Force, a 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that began weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.

Similarly, the missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan were announced by the White House moments before the beginning of a press conference in which Lewinsky was to give details of her appearance before Congress.

Critics, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, charged that the former operation was an attempt to distract attention from the Lewinsky scandal, and Serb state television went so far as to broadcast "Wag The Dog" in the midst of NATO attacks on Serbia.

A photograph of the girl with whom the unnamed president was accused of taking liberties is shown by journalists in the film. The photograph is remarkably similar to the much-seen image of Lewinsky greeting President Clinton in a crowd event, including the wearing of berets by both the girl in the image in the film and Lewinski in the real photograph.

The video cassette version of the film contains an extended feature after the credits that has commentary about the movie in the context of the Lewinsky scandal by the producers of the movie and Tom Brokaw.

Music

The film featured many songs created entirely for the fictitious campaign waged by the protagonists: "Good Old Shoe", "The American Dream" and "The Men of the 303" are but salient examples. None of these pieces made it onto the soundtrack which was released on CD: it featured only the title track, by British guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler, and seven of Knopfler's Instrumentals.

ee also

* Astroturfing, a controversial public relations practice depicted in the film
* "Canadian Bacon", a film about an American war started for similar reasons

External links

*imdb title | id=0120885 | title=Wag the Dog
*rotten-tomatoes|id=wag_the_dog|title=Wag the Dog