Dick Cheney's vices in close-up4 reading minutes

Cinema Wednesdays - Lauriane Pipoz

Dick Cheney is a man of the shadows. a series of stratagems, this man from the depths of Wyoming silently rose to the position of Vice-President in 2001. Pulling the strings behind a completely out-of-touch George W. Bush, he was determined to invade Iraq. The The September 11th attacks gave him the opportunity.  

This is the face of politician Dick Cheney that Adam McKay shows us. With left-wing bias, this filmmaker offers us a biography of the former the former American vice-president. During these 132 minutes, it's virtually impossible to get bored. His colorful portrait is painted with ferocious irony irony, black humor, hard-hitting metaphors and a healthy dose of surprise. surprise. And with the help of a brilliant Christian Bale, incredibly at ease in his role as the guy-about-to-be-a-monster, adapting wonderfully to the evolution of his character's image.

Carefully selected facts

To tell his story and make it understandable to a wide audience, McKay has chosen a number of facts that he has simplified and arranged in a way that speaks for itself. He avoids falling into the trap of recounting too many elements in rapid succession. The shots are precise, the dialogue carefully crafted, his vision carefully elaborated. He uses slow motion and zooms to linger on certain details. As for the interactions between the characters, they are long, interesting and sometimes even downright funny, despite the film's serious subject matter.

Note that the characters are rather stereotypical, like a cynical and hysterical Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), an immature and manipulable George Bush (Sam Rockwell) or a selfish and power-hungry Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams). Yet this simplification is not disturbing: the film makes no claim to realism, but aims to present a story from a point of view. Helping to convey this opinion on screen, Cheney's life stories - not always arranged chronologically, but with repetition and analepsis - contrast with images from a completely different register. Like a heart, for example, or lions hunting each other.

Shock on shock

This disconcerting cocktail serves several functions: it highlights aspects of the story such as Cheney's monstrosity, it gives the impression that the story is accelerating, and it keeps the viewer completely on the edge of his seat, since surprise effects are always at the ready. One of the greatest is certainly the hilarious fake end credits of the type Little House on the Prairie, This is in keeping with the tone of the film, which is set halfway through. It's also worth noting the originality of having chosen a narrator who is more or less external to the story - we'll say no more, since you're going to see this incredibly good film.

It's worth noting, however, that some of the images inserted are intended to be extremely shocking. For example, bomb explosions or freeze-frames showing scenes of torture or ill-treatment. While their inclusion is fully justified by the film's subject matter, these seem far more dispensable: as the story is already very heavy, there was probably no need to add any more shock value.

The story of Dick Cheney, but not only

As mentioned above, Dick Cheney's wife is portrayed as a person consumed with ambition. The biographical account makes this point repeatedly: in the man's shadow, there is the woman. Lynne Cheney plays a key role in the construction of this ruthless vice-president. Indeed, it was she who seems to have lifted this man to power, pushing him to become someone important when he was thinking more about fighting than working, or not hesitating to stand in for him during speeches when he had heart problems.

His character is particularly horrifying, especially in the scene where their daughter reveals her homosexuality: never losing composure, Lynne immediately points out that this fact could cost them the presidency. As for Dick Cheney, his love for his daughter seems to be the only thing that separates him from a monster. Or, as Donald Rumsfeld's character puts it, a «ruthless bastard», because that's the image of the vice-president that you'll be left with from this extremely successful film, both in form and content.

Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Ascot Elite Entertainment