Posted on 07/14/2011 10:58:38 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
‘The Undefeated,’ a new documentary about Sarah Palin that pays glowing tribute to the GOP pol, hits red-state theaters today. Marlow Stern reviews the film and talks with director Stephen K. Bannon about its omissions, Michele Bachmann, 2012, and the filmmaking bomb he’ll drop before the Iowa caucus.
With the exception of her recent confession to NEWSWEEK, Sarah Palin has remained coy about her 2012 plans. A new fawning documentary, however, hopes to lure the Mama Grizzly out of campaign hibernation.
Stephen K. Bannon’s film, The Undefeated, opens with a dizzying barrage of Palin insults by celebrities, ranging from Matt Damon (“a really bad Disney movie”) and Bill Maher (“dumb twat”) to, strangely enough, John Cleese. The aural and visual assault has the cumulative effect of an aerial blast from a high-powered rifle—and is just as subtle—to establish that the former governor of Alaska has been a constant magnet for trivial ad hominem attacks by what she calls the “lamestream media.” “She’s presented as a bimbo and as a Christian ideologue, and there’s nothing that could be further from the facts,” said Bannon, in an interview with THE DAILY BEAST. “She has tremendous applied intelligence, accomplished great things that were quite complicated, and did it in a very smart and savvy way.”
We are then transported to scenic Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez oil spill motivated Palin, then a married mother helping her husband on his commercial fishing vessel, to, as she says, “Work for the ordinary, hard-working people, like everyone that was part of my ordinary, hard-working world.” Here, the state of Alaska is painted as a sort of utopia where people are treated “much, much richer” than “the lower 48,” according to Palin (which wasn’t exactly the impression I got after seeing Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia). And, in a series of gradually more shocking and overt symbolic images, Bannon goes into Terrence Malick mode, showing repeated loops of plants sprouting up from the ground to represent the seeds of Palin’s raison d'etre, namely: battling corruption, fighting Big Oil, and reinvigorating the commercial economy of Alaska.
The Undefeated cleverly uses Palin’s audiobook recording of her autobiography, Going Rogue: An American Life, as voice-over narration, and never consulted Palin to be involved in the documentary, instead opting to place viewers “in the middle of the whirlwind,” as Bannon puts it. In Palin’s absence, a string of Palin acolytes sing her praises, including her former spokesman, Meghan Stapleton, various Palin advisers, and even her attorney. Aside from the initial onslaught, any moderate and liberal viewpoints are noticeably absent. “When Michael Moore made Fahrenheit 9/11, is the criticism of him that he didn’t include conservative voices?” asked Bannon. “It’s not that I’m not trying to add a balance, my question is: give me what’s not accurate? Is it incredibly flattering? The answer is yes.” He added, “We screened it in Phoenix, and [Palin] literally got up and said, ‘It blew me away. I loved it.’ No comments. No changes.”
This perky, small-town girl soon becomes mayor of Wasilla, where her emphasis on improving infrastructure and fiscal responsibility helped attract Walmarts and Home Depots to the town, leading to rapid job growth and a boost in the economy, all the while slashing property taxes nearly 75 percent, and coolly brushing off the tasteless jabs of her Wasilla mayoral challenger, John Stein, who compared Palin to a “Spice Girl.” About 35 minutes is then dedicated to her appointment to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where Palin goes into Erin Brockovich mode—crossing party lines to file ethics complaints against Randy Ruedrich, then a fellow commission member and high-ranking official in the Alaska GOP, and she eventually resigns from the commission in protest of Ruedrich’s alleged corrupt activities.
“She’s not in the political, cultural, or social elite of Alaska,” said Bannon. “She’s out of the loop, and as obscure as any American walking into a Walmart. It’s interesting how anti-establishment she is. She’s a true populist, and I think that’s why she’s feared so much.”
Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs trader under Hank Paulson and now film documentarian of the Tea Party movement, financed the $1 million film himself through his conservative-oriented production company Victory Film Group. He then struck an exclusive deal with a special unit of AMC Theaters that will release The Undefeated in 10 theaters in 10 Tea Party cities, and if it works, there will be a national rollout. And although he worked at Goldman and went to Harvard Business School, Bannon considers himself blue collar at heart. “My grandfather never went past the third grade, and my father’s a high-school graduate who eventually rose to a midlevel manager at the phone company after many years,” he said. “I was a naval officer, and my daughter is serving as an officer with the 101st Airborne Division. I’ve had the chance at Goldman to work with some smart people and earn some money, but I have a very strong populist background.”
Palin, meanwhile, rises to become Alaska’s first female governor, and, at 42, the youngest in state history. She places a picture of her favorite film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in her governor’s office, and continues her platform of clean government, passing a bipartisan ethics-reform bill, and going toe to toe with the Republican establishment on a number of issues. Again, Palin’s controversial incidents in and out of office—Troopergate, and later, her “blood libel” statement and public demand of Obama’s birth certificate, are omitted entirely. “Look dude, Troopergate has been talked about and kind of dismissed,” said Bannon. “In a two-hour film, there’s so much meat you need to get to. Troopergate is such a non-event. I just think it’s part of the media’s false narrative.”
When Palin is selected as John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, and the small-town girl is besieged on all sides, the film loses its grip entirely. In a classic film-propaganda tactic, personal attacks on Palin by media pundits correspond with shocking videos of avalanches, packs of lions feeding on zebras, people being buried alive in sand on the beach, and medieval knights with arrows in their backs. At times, the viewer feels like he or she is playing out the iconic scene in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, where criminal Alex DeLarge is strapped to a chair, eyes spread wide, and subjected to a series of violent images as a brainwashing technique. “I had to cut some of the profanity and violent images to get it from an R to a PG-13,” confesses Bannon. The failed campaign is largely glossed over, and her infamous Katie Couric interview isn’t included. Conservative pundit Andrew Breitbart then makes a cameo, decrying the lack of “chivalry” Palin critics displayed, and labeling the Republican establishment (namely, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell) “eunuchs” for not sticking up for her.
The film then goes on two tangents—positing Palin as a populist leader/outsider à la Ronald Reagan, and crowning her as the de facto founding mother of the revolutionary Tea Party movement in America—also chronicled by Bannon in the documentaries Generation Zero and Fire From the Heartland, the latter of which devoted a great deal of time to the rise of Michele Bachmann. When asked about the 2012 presidential election, Bannon said he believes that Bachmann and Palin can coexist as “two totally different candidates”—before hinting that he himself has something special in store: “I’ve got something that I’m working on that I think is going to be even more controversial than this film,” he said. “If everything goes according to plan, I intend to drop this exactly 30 days before the Iowa caucus. It’s definitely timed for 2012.” He pauses, before adding, “There are forces brewing right beneath the surface, that I try to show in these films, that are going to have a tectonic plate shift in the culture of American politics. I think the paradigm is shifting, and it’s going to shift dramatically.”
@AndrewBreitbart AndrewBreitbart
Between now & end of year massive federal CORRUPTION will be major BIGs focus. There will be GOP scalps. Developing...
What about Dem scalps? Their corruption is completely public.
Cindie
That could be very interesting. I've long suspected that a number of the RINO's who appear so squishy and unreliable to us are in fact owned and operated by the leftists - via bribery, blackmail and threats. After all, why would the Left only try to subvert one party?
Announcing your running mate before winning the nomination???
Personally a Palin/Bachmann ticket is off the table..after what MB did to Gov Palin.
These 2 are not going to be friends period.
MB took the first shot..Gov Palin has made it VERY CLEAR...ie Thankfully the current group is not final..I paraphrase from memory.
Multiple times she has said there is nobody in yet that would get her support, must have executive experience etc.
Any hope of MB getting the nod from Sarah as her running mate is really out of the question/off the table as far as I am concerned.
Sorry just my opinion
Bachmann for WH kitchen staff
groupies??? What a foolish and insulting response. Of course, PDSers are all unhinged.
I have all of Ayn Rand's works. Sarah's view of Capitalism matches Rand's belief that "Capitalism is the Unknown Ideal." If one compares the positions of the Rep candidates (and potential candidates) on the government's role and the free market role in society, they would find Sarah's view most in line with Rand's.
You should change your tag from "Gone Galt" to Gone of the PDS deep end."
Have a nice day :)
Could the bombshell be a a factual based movie about Obama? Only Bannon the Phantom knows for sure.
I agree on Palin/Minnie-me ticket - note my tagline (PALIN/West 2012).
Minnie-me is a shell of what Sarah is and MM has an ultra-thin resume. No accomploshments, no successful fighting of corruption, etc. Add her associations with Rollins and Tokyo Rove, she is a non-starter for any serious consideration.
Just a strange comment from Bannon - especially after mentioning Minnie-me.
Her book is not good for the ankle biting PDS crowd, it is written above their level of comprhenesion.
I’ve long suspected that a number of the RINO’s who appear so squishy and unreliable to us are in fact owned and operated by the leftists - via bribery, blackmail and threats.
///
agreed! ...that would explain things like McCain and Graham acting all “GOP leaders” most of the time,
but on every really important issue...
they toe the Obama line.
A Bachmann / Palin ticket would be pure genius..
Brilliant actually..
Heads would explode.. would eat up ALL the sound bites and free advertising of Obama..
Too early for that I think... but a sneaky leak.. could raise the rumor mills..
With coy denials this could sap sound bite energy for a good while..
Did I say this would be good strategy?..
Sarah Palin saw Republican officials involved in corruption in the oil and gas conservation commission mainly involving Randy Ruedrich.
1.She complained to the ethics chief, he did nothing
2. She went to the Chief of Staff of Mukowski, he did nothing
3. She then sent a letter to the Governor himself and he did nothing
She by law could not publicly discuss what was going on in the commission, but she was warning everybody in the Administration on what was going on and that the news agencies were asking questions
She then resigned in frustration that nothing was being done involving the violations and that the public wasn’t properly being notified of the corruption case
The Daily News and KTUU-Channel 2 sued in February to force open the evidence. On April 6, while those lawsuits were pending, Palin’s lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, gave an ultimatum: move to a public resolution of the ethics case in 10 days or Palin would call a press conference “for the purpose of setting forth, publicly, what she knows about this entire matter and why she chose to resign from the Commission.”
State Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat and former prosecutor, had called for an independent investigation from the beginning. When the case was made public, French wasn’t satisfied
French said he came to respect Palin and got to know her as she attempted to bring forward the facts of the case.
“Sarah has been tortured by this for a long time,” French said. “I feel she has never had a chance to let her story out.”
Thanks for the info.
That comment alone is exciting and intriguing. I've sensed that same coming of a paradigm shift. It all hinges on electing Palin as president and sending more tea party patriots to DC. We, the People, are crucial in bringing about this shift. This isn't a movement of only one personality.
No. Bachmann for Republican leadership, then House Majority Leader, then next Speaker of the House when current crew is finished.
- or -
Bachmann for Junior Senator from Minnesota (replacing Al Franken).
Yes I noticed your tag line before I posted, was just joining the conversation:)
In fact The very moment that West finished speaking at CPAC, everybody in my household looked at each other and said simultaneously ...Sarah needs to pick this guy as her running mate. I posted that very thing immediately here at FR.
Was not trying to take credit for the idea, I know thousands upon thousands thought the very same thing.
I liked that he was a Pro life/pro family Christian(the only kind of Christian) but I also saw the political angle I must confess...I thought about 20 something % of the black vote...on top of the fact that he was a good man.
I briefly was a little miffed at him for not heaping any praise on Gov Palin when he was asked about her on a couple occasions, but Sarah did not hold it against him and neither will I
It`s not like her hired Ed Rollins to go after her.
I just hope his bombshell is going to be good for Sarah!!!
Sorry but I have to say this...To suggest Palin be on the bottom of any ticket is insulting to Gov Palin!
To suggest Sarah be on the bottom of a Bachmann ticket is over the top offensive beyond words.
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