Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: PLAYING POTUS [Tribeca Film Festival - New York, New York]
Offering perspective on impersonation and how far is too far beyond the context of satire is at the core of "Playing POTUS" [Spotlight+], director Josh Greenbaum's approach to adapting a book about how the aspect of portraying the president has both evolved and changed especially as the parties become more polarizing. Greenbaum understands his comedians. He directed a doc on "The Drew Carey Show" and did the feature "Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar" with Kristin Wiig. But this doc specifically starts off with discussing how the first presidential impersonator in modern times called Vaugh Meader who did stuff on JFK. However he never delved deeper to anything more controversial. Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford spoke about it but in the doc (like most) he doesn’t mince words. Dana Carvey, who has done multiple political figures, is the most specific in terms of his George Bush Sr. simply in how he glommed onto his hand gestures. Others didn’t fare so well. Will Ferrell is interesting in his play since his politics clashed greatly with George W. Bush and yet when another actor took it over when he left SNL it lost its ring. Farrell did usher it through 9/11 which all involved agree was tricky in how you lampoon. Darrell Hammond spoke to taking on Bill Clinton which affected in a different context in terms of how far into the personal life a comedian could go. Meader never took that step with JFK.
Obama was originally done by Fred Armisen on SNL but never quite nailed it. Key of Key and Peele seemed to find the right entrance point with his anger translator. Obama got the joke and even leaned into it at one of his press correspondents dinners. A really telling piece though was Seth Meyer making fun on Donald Trump at the same dinner (a different year) though Meyers says that the now POTUS was not laughing and his disdain for the process might have translated later. Jimmy Kimmel remembers having Trump on his show which is interesting considering the vitriol exchange in recent years. However as Alec Baldwin discusses his eventual Trump impersonation, he thought he was only going to do Trump for 3 shows on SNL before Trump lost. But Trump didn’t lose. Many of the comedians says it is because he does anecdotes so far out of left field that it is hard to lampoon it. Kate McKinnon speaks to impersonating Hilary Clinton who famously who was a good sport but her take she admits may of hurt Secretary Clinton's chances which is the last thing she wanted to do. But like Tina Fey with Sarah Palin or Maya Rudolph with Kamala Harris, one never knows how it is going to hit. The great thing is that Greenbaum got great access to archives. He gives a good overview but it can only scratch the surface or guess at its actual importance though its perspective is easily felt. B
By Tim Wassberg
