Movie Review: American Dharma

American Dharma **** / *****

Directed by: Errol Morris.

Errol Morris’ American Dharma is essentially a feature length interview with Steve Bannon – the former head of Breitbart, who became a senior Trump adviser, before getting himself fired. Bannon stands for everything that the left hates about Donald Trump – he is racist and xenophobic, he tosses out fiery rhetoric, and stories that have little to no basis in reality. He claims to be on the side of the little men – while being fabulously wealthy himself, having attended all the Universities they know hold in contempt – and when they achieve power, they focus on getting a tax break for the wealthy, that will do little to nothing to help all those little men. He is, in essence, all of the things people hate about Trump personified in one hateful package. And Morris lets him talk and talk and talk for 90 minutes in American Dharma – and apparently, Bannon is quite happy with how the film came out. It was his idea after all – having been a fan of Morris’ The Fog of War – he wanted the same basic treatment.

 

Many see the fact that it lets Bannon talk – and his apparent happiness with the result – as proof that Morris was played – that he “lost” the interview with Bannon, and further proof that the left shouldn’t try to debate people like Bannon – but essentially to stop giving them a platform to spew their hatred at all. It that’s the way you feel, then nothing I can say will make you change your mind – make you see this movie, or not hate it if you do. But I don’t think Morris “lost” this interview with Bannon – mainly because I don’t think Morris ever really tries to “win” these interviews. Morris’ strategy – with everyone from the Holocaust denying inventor or death penalty devices in Mr. Death, to Robert McNamara in The Fog of War, to Donald Rumsfeld in The Unknown Known, to the soldiers at Guantanamo in Standard Operating to Procedure and everyone else he has ever interviewed – is to basically give them enough rope to hang themselves with, and to undermine them as they do so with the visuals Morris so famously cuts those interviews with.

 

The framing device in American Dharma is basically Bannon talking about the movie he loves – from 12 O’clock High to the cinema of John Wayne – and Morris lets Bannon talk about these films, while at the same time showing us clips of those films. Sometimes, they underline what Bannon is saying – but others it undermines them (Bannon talking about The Searchers, seemingly unaware that Wayne’s character there is a racist for example). Later in the film, when Bannon tries to defend himself and Trump against allegations of racism, Morris simply shows us a ton of headlines that prove the opposite, a tactic he uses again and again, no matter what the topic is. Morris makes it clear where he stands on everything – while he never does the verbal evisceration that audiences on the left seem to want him to do on Bannon.

 

This is all part of Morris’ methodology, and while you can critique it, I think it’s an interesting and valuable one. How many times have we seen headlines about how John Olivier, Samantha Bee or other (mostly great) late comedians have “eviscerated” or “destroyed” Trump or one of his cronies? Have any of them actually stopped Trump? They are, in essence, preaching to the choir when they do those shows.

 

Morris is doing something different here. American Dharma is essentially a cinematic Rorschach test – and what you think of Bannon going in will color what you think of him coming out. And yet, Morris also makes it abundantly clear just what he thinks of Bannon – he just does it in a different way – perhaps a way that may actually have a chance to reach a wider audience. Probably not, but the other way hasn’t worked. And at least here, we get to hear everything straight from Bannon’s own mouth – and judge him accordingly.