A year after he was elected, President Barack Obama faces a stern test: living up to the memories of his own campaign. Two movies and a book out this week recount that saga and implicitly pose some questions: Whatever happened to the guy who seemed so dazzling, confident, and convincing? Why has a campaign so laser-focused become a presidency that sometimes seems all but overrun by its own ambitious agenda? And did we really know the candidate we thought we saw? (Click here to follow Howard Fineman).(Article continued below...)
HBO's documentary By the Peoplemakes its debut Tuesday night. It offers two hours of behind-the-scenes footage of Obama's crusade, from its earliest moments in Iowa to the final victory suite. The candidate throughout is ice cool (but for one teary moment); his staff is meticulous and driven (but in a good way); the young volunteers are inspired and inspiring.
The laudatory if unsurprising portrait is matched in book form by the manager of that campaign, David Plouffe. He is out with The Audacity to Win. It, too, portrays a candidate as discerning and in charge. Obama, in Plouffe's narrative, distances himself from the ravings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright by calmly—and quickly—writing a speech on the history of race.
The third part of this coincidental triple bill is Poliwood, a contemplative documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Barry Levinson. It airs on Showtime, starting Monday. It features no inside access, and instead depicts Obama's mastery of image making, and wonders aloud about the process that led to his victory. Following a theme he explored in the movie Wag the Dog, Levinson muses on-camera that celebrity, television, and politics conspire to confect candidates whose real qualities we can never know. "They've blurred the lines between truth and reality," he says. In politics "you can create a character just like you create a character in a movie … It's all theater."
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