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| Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Pedro Kos: The White House Effect (US 2024). |
Viewed at Le Pierre, Telluride Film Festival (TFF), 1 Sep 2024.
In person: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Pedro Kos.
David Wilson: "Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk and Pedro Kos’ urgent new work converts the history of U.S. climate-change policy into a high-stakes political thriller. Using an astounding array of archival footage, they tell the story— complete with White House intrigue and political one-upmanship—of the environmentalist-turned-EPA-head William Reilly, who finds himself at odds with George H. W. Bush’s Machiavellian chief of staff John Sununu. The outcomes of their clashes will have truly planetary repercussions. Brilliantly constructed, with a cinematically unsettling score by Ariel Marx, the film will grab the attention even of audiences who think they’ve seen it all when it comes to impending global disasters—it’s an unprecedented peek behind the doors of institutional power. And, if we can understand the mechanisms of obfuscation and delay, maybe we can counter them?" –David Wilson (U.S., 2024, 96 min)
EPA = United States Environmental Protection Agency.
AA: The White House Effect by Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk and Pedro Kos is a masterpiece of documentary cinema, a highlight of the film year 2024.
It is divided into chapters:
I Willing to Make Some Sacrifices
II Which George Bush?
III Is Science for Sale?
IV What Has the Nation Done to Us?
Out of a vast collection of material, the team decides to focus on a single period: the George H. W. Bush presidency in 1989-1993.
The oil millionaire and the former Director of Central Intelligence ran for President in 1988, when the topics of the year were global warming and the greenhouse effect. Record heat waves made headline news. It was the warmest year on record. Everybody agreed on the sense of urgency.
George H. W. Bush was the first American President and the first global leader that was elected to his position as an Environmental President. "It can be done. We must do it." “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect forget about the White House effect.”
He was truly committed to the calling and the challenge and appointed William K. Reilly (also a Republican) as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Reilly, a prominent authority and a man of high integrity, did play a leading role in ushering the US into a new era of environmental responsibility. In 1989, Reilly accompanied Bush to the Paris Economic Summit, the first environment minister to accompany a head of state to this meeting.
But John H. Sununu, White House Chief of Staff, turned into a formidable counterforce to Reilly, and their conflict grows into the main driving force of the film's dramaturgy. Sununu turned into "Bush's Bad Cop".
First running on the wave of a commitment to a big change, the Bush administration starts increasingly to listen to the concerns of the Big Oil. In 1989 Sununu prevented the US from signing the commitment to freeze carbon dioxide emissions. To the film-makers, this is the moment when the "U.S. relinquishes its role as a world leader".
Bush asked Sununu to resign as White House Chief of Staff in 1991. In the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992, Reilly led the U.S. delegation. The aerial shot of Christ the Redeemer acquires tremendous power in the context of the film.
The film provides a solid background of documentation, including from arctic observation centers with graphs from 1856 till 2024, the Mauna Loa Observatory and the long-term graphs of climatologist Stephen Schneider (1945-2010). Prognoses made decades ago prove accurate. The graphs do not grow steadily. They grow exponentially.
Scientists, industrialists, politicians and public personalities on record include also Ronald Reagan, Michael Oppenheimer, Tim Wirth, Jimmy Carter, Jack Bennett (Exxon), Al Gore, James Hansen, Alan Bromley, Patrick Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Rush Limbaugh, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Michael Young and Dan Rather.
Cohen, Shenk and Kos document a turning-point in American history before tribalism, when there was bipartisan concern for an issue with planetary repercussions. They even appear to record the very moments when a change takes place in the mind of George H. W. Bush.
The White House Effect is not a cheap propaganda film. The questions involved transcend the limits of everyday political understanding. The sincere drive is a reset of bipartisan commitment to save life on Earth.
...
Colin, Shenk and Kos give us the long perspective and reveal the turning-point in the U.S. environmental agenda. It was also the turning-point in the political history of bipartisan U.S.A. as a world leader.
I would add to the fabula the story of the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961). He was the first President who faced the truth about climate danger. It was the beginning of a period of high environmental awareness. Frank Capra co-produced and co-wrote the first movie about global warming, The Unchained Goddess (US 1958). Capra's movie is a bit silly but the concern for climate change is genuine.
In the 1950s we had the same basic knowledge as today. Why didn't we act? Because you don't win an election by telling the truth about the measures necessary to prevent climate change.
Colin, Shenk and Kos show George H. W. Bush in the moment of insight in this existential tragedy.
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