“Running for president is kinda like being an astronaut. Until your orbiting space you really don’t know what it’s going to be like.” - David Axelrod
In the HBO documentary film By the People: The Election of Barack Obama filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sands follow then presidential candidate Barack Obama into the unknown Axelrod describes above as he embarks as the underdog in one of the most exciting political races in American history.
The film begins in 2007 as Obama campaigns in preparation for the Iowa Caucuses and continues through the primaries and all the way up to the historical moment the long race was called. Some may compare this film to the documentary film The War Room where James Carville and George Stephanopoulos campaigned for Clinton in 92’, but there is one pretty big difference. Times have changed, campaign strategies have changed and expectations have changed, resulting in a race where we as Americans not only got involved, but seized the opportunity to define our individual beliefs. This time around, after a disastrous eight years, change became a chant and everyone felt invested in the future. The result is what this film captures beautifully - the people who made it happen - from an Obama supporter as young as 9 years-old to young adults just out of college to the seasoned politicos to small-town and big city America.
The filmmakers had incredible access and were able to get very close to Obama, his family and his campaign team, catching moments on the fly that you won’t see anywhere else. Obama’s team, campaign strategists David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, David Plouffe, and speechwriter Jon Favreau are all caught with intimate verite and interviews, but there’s less of an emphasis on these folks in comparison to The War Room where the personalities behind Clinton shine in the end. At the center of this film is the community of people who banded together, which is appropriate given the way the Obama camp ran their campaign.
Interestingly, and maybe even somewhat politically, the film does not dwell on the negativity that came up during the campaign, although Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers were all addressed very matter of factly, which again, is in line with they way Obama addressed such concerns during the campaign.
All in all, By The People: The Election of Barack Obama is a great documentary showing how our president connected to people and how the people connected to him.
This film is showing in New York at the Landmark Sunshine Cinemas tonight (4 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.). If you don’t have a chance to see it tonight, you’ll have to wait till November to see it on HBO. I’m glad I had a chance to see it on the big screen, but I plan to watch it again come November. I left the theater reminded of that amazing feeling I had last November as I witnessed strangers hugging in the street, taxicabs honking in unison and people for the first time in a long time genuinely feeling hope, and that’s a moment I like to remember.
Photo courtesy of Time
I am edge-of-my-seat excited about this movie, but even more so about the part that I bolded.
Ahhh—boyfriend.
