Art Hist Zoom: Presidential Movies

All the Presidents’ Movies: A Playfully Serious Examination
Four Zoom Sessions
Wed., Oct. 9, 16, 23, 30, 2024, 6:30-8:30 pm MT

As the wise and missed journalist Molly Ivins once stated, “The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not a spectator sport.” Yet, that’s precisely what you engage in during this four-week course: some entertaining, even wise spectatorship as cultural critic Lisa Kennedy helms this class about electoral politics onscreen. Sure, U.S. presidents have had their favorite films—The Godfather, High Noon, Patton, Birth of a Nation, Glory among them—and shown them in the White House. But this Kennedy-guided red, white and blue journey flags American feature films and their depiction of the fury and folly, vision and division, hope and reality of good ol’ American-style electoral politics. Among them: A Face in the Crowd and Primary Colors, Dave and The American President, Spielberg’s Lincoln (with a nod to John Ford’s Young Mister Lincoln) and, of course, the conspiracy-soaked drama of All the President’s Men, The Manchurian Candidate and The Contender. Plus, take a time-machine jaunt back to high school with Election and Napoleon Dynamite. Be prepared for a playfully serious examination of how Hollywood—itself an amalgam of the jaded and optimistic, the authentic and the hypocritical—has depicted U.S. electoral politics. So, let’s take a brief break from the 2024 elections to … watch movies about elections!

Lisa Kennedy has written for the New York Times, the Denver Post, Variety, American Theatre and has served on juries for the American Film Institute’s best movies of the year. She is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and the African American Film Critics Association.