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October 2006
Death Of A President: An Interview with Director Gabriel Range

Death Of A President: An Interview with Director Gabriel Range
by Kevin R. Scott

October 27, 2006

"The film is not what you think." ~ Gabriel Range, Director of "Death of a President"

One would hope that art doesn't imitate life, especially as prescribed in Gabriel Range's ("The Day Britain Stopped") new mockumentary "Death Of A President"; the controversial film which was conceived as a fictional television documentary set in Chicago in 2008 that reflects on the assassination of President George W. Bush.

Range's film, social critique, takes actual archival footage and pairs it with a credible yet fictional story intended to provide what Range hopes are the tools to provoke thought and ask questions of the current political administration about the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq using a medium this generation is most comfortable digesting.


Why was "Death Of A President" shown on British television?

Gabriel Range. - Why not?


I'd think you would want to put it in the theaters first?

G.B. - Oh, sure. Unfortunately (laughing). It will be in theaters here first. I think the fact that it was on British television first was a factor of the way it was funded.


"Fahrenheit 911" was passed around on the internet and now this film is as well. How do you feel about that? Are you upset that people are able to get the film on file sharing sites?

G.B. - I'm just thrilled for as many people to see the film as possible. And that it be thought provoking.


Is there a certain message you want out there?

G.B. - What I want the film to do is to provoke some thought. I hope the film shows that there is a common bond on the way the war on terror has been prosecuted and the climate that has been exploited by the administration. I wanted touch on the cost and the hurt that has been caused by the invasion of Iraq.


Describe how you were able to change the footage and what people said in the film.

G.B. - Those speeches in the film are all things that President Bush and Vice President Cheyney have said at various point. Obviously the eulogy that Cheyney delivers at Bush's funeral has been slightly adjusted and manipulated slightly to fit the scenario. What I tried to do was use archival footage in a way that I hope feel unusual and feels fresh to try and reinforce the realism of the piece. I wanted to make a film that I hope feels like a documentary about the world we live in. So it was important at every step to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction.


How were you able to get it to look so real, especially that eulogy?

G.B. - Well the editing was part of the process but there were also some special effects.


What kind of special effects?

G.B. -Well, all the archive in the film has been manipulated in some way. For example the addition of one of our characters. We added a character and in the case of Cheyney's speech his words have been changed ever so slightly. And the technical process involves call the 3D walk where we actually changed Cheyney's lip movements.


Was there a Bush double?

G.B. - Yes there was.


Especially when he gets shot, what was the process of doing that?

G.B. - That scene was about find a piece of archive of President Bush walking the red line which was actually taken from Georgia Tech in Atlanta. We story boarded the scene around the piece of archive so, what we were effectively doing was taking the archive as the master and then shooting around the other angles of that same scene. So that meant finding extras that looked liked the people who were greeting Bush and sort of imagining that sequence from other angles.


Were there any fail safes in place to ensure that this film was seen as just a social critique and not an insurgence?

G.B. - Well I think it was very important that the assassination was portrayed as a horrific event but also as a fleeting moment. I think the assassination is not gratuitous. It's really just the starting point of the film. I think in order for the film to be a social commentary rather than entertainment. I didn't go about imagining the assassination of president bush as a piece of entertainment, because I hope that it was a striking way of making a comment on the way the administration is handling some of those things; the way the war been prosecuted, the disconnect between civil liberties and security, the marginalization of defense, the effect of the war in Iraq. I think those are all things we should talk about. And I hope the film is thought provoking in that aspect.


How do feel about the abbreviation D.O.A.P., was that intentional?

G.B. - That was purely a coincidence. When we were filming in Chicago we referred to the film by its abbreviation and if we had gone around shouting that we were making a film about the assassination of President Bush at the time that we were filming it, I think it would have been hard to finish.


So you filmed this in secrecy, kinda?

G.B. - Well we weren't in secrecy, but we certainly didn't broadcast the filming.  When you see the strong reaction that there was to the film, it was clear that no American production company could have done this.


Have you responded to the critics, especially ones like Hilary Clinton, who haven't seen the film?

My response would be, the film is not what you think. I am delighted to engage and debate the film with anyone who has seen it, but until you have seen it, I don't understand how someone can judge it. It is not gratuitous, it's not sensational. See the film for yourself and make a judgment.


 

 

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