Wag the Dog - When the tail wags the dog

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Movie
German title Wag the Dog - When the tail wags the dog
Original title Wag the dog
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1997
length 97 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Barry Levinson
script Larry Beinhart
Hilary Henkin
David Mamet
production Barry Levinson
Robert De Niro
Jane Rosenthal
music Tom Bähler
Mark Knopfler
camera Robert Richardson
cut Stu Linder
occupation

Wag the Dog - When the tail wags the dog ( Wag the Dog ) is an American movie from 1997. The satire is based very freely on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart .

action

When the US president is accused of having sexually molested an underage schoolgirl two weeks before re-election, his campaign team called Conrad “Mr. Fix-It “Brean to Save the Choice.

Brean sees the only way to draw media attention to a (fictional) war, which he stages with the help of the film producer Motss. The choice falls on Albania as an opponent because the public does not know anything about this country. Alleged eyewitness reports are produced in the studio, whereupon the news spread that the US was going to war against Albania after Albanian terrorists tried to smuggle an atomic bomb into the US hidden in a suitcase.

The CIA knows the story is a lie and arrests those responsible to avoid diplomatic conflict. However, Brean manages to get his head out of the loop. However, shortly afterwards it is said that the Albania war is over. Motss, who doesn't want to let the wind out of his sails, comes up with the idea of ​​inventing a lost hero named William Schumann "Old Shoe" as a media counterattack, who has stayed behind the enemy lines. A wave of sympathy for “Old Shoe” is sparked and culminates in the alleged liberation of Schumann shortly before election day.

However, Schumann's chosen actor is a convict who raped a nun and can only be kept under control with strong neuroleptics . On the way to his triumphant return as "Schumann", the plane gets caught in a storm and crashes. Brean, Motss, Shoe and the presidential advisor Winifred Ames arrive unharmed at a gas station, where Schumann harasses the tenant's daughter because his psychotropic drugs are no longer effective. Thereupon he is shot by the tenant. After the initial shock, this comes in handy for the Spin Doctors , as they no longer have to fear any public appearances by the convict; instead they are now staging his funeral on the airbase as a fallen veteran with full military honors.

Motss is very satisfied with his work. He is all the more annoyed that the success of the president's unimaginative television commercials is attributed on TV and is also outraged that no film producer has ever been awarded an Oscar. He decides to blow the whole thing. Brean warns him that he is playing with his life. Shortly afterwards, the news reports that Motss died of a heart attack while sunbathing.

Another news item at the end of the film speaks of a renewed terrorist attack in Albania, which is commented on by a senior military officer with the words that he has no doubt that more troops will now be sent to Albania.

Reviews

The Lexicon of International Films wrote: “A very enjoyable black comedy that deals with the power of the media and the manipulability of the public, whose fictional content has been overtaken by reality. Carried by good actors, the film stimulates thought about the power mechanisms of the present and an even more media-controlled future. "

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sums it up in its film review: "The film runs just as perfectly as this media war, whose downright insidious dramaturgy makes us co-conspirators from the start and shows that in the cinema nothing beats entertaining lies."

The Deutsche Depeschendienst stated in an agency report: “One can hardly believe that Barry Levinson's new film“ Wag the Dog ”was completed long before the Lewinsky affair . There are so many parallels between cinematic fiction and Bill Clinton's sex needs that one comes to the conclusion that screenwriter David Mamet has received insider information beforehand or has clairvoyant skills. "

The daily newspaper Die Welt says: "Wag the Dog is a pleasant reminder of our ability to manipulate the media, of the amalgamation of politics and business and of the power that technology gives small groups."

Awards

background

The film is a critical satire about how those in power deal with the media and the public, who want to save the power of the president through targeted media manipulation , and takes up the theory that the USA has waged wars for reasons of electoral tactics. In anticipation of reality, Wag the Dog is being traded in connection with the Lewinsky affair : US President Bill Clinton had Iraq bombed during the hearings on his affair in 1998 ( Operation Desert Fox ), which was viewed by some media as a diversionary maneuver.

Parallels can also be seen with the media-effective rescue operation by Jessica Lynch in the Iraq war in 2003 - years after the film was made - which was directed by a Hollywood cameraman.

In one of the diversionary maneuvers, Brean had the news of the possible use of the nonexistent B-3 bomber in the Albania war spread in the form of rumors, so that the White House spokesman could later deny this - hardly credibly - because there was no B-3 bomber. Such a bomber does not exist in reality either.

The soundtrack comes from Mark Knopfler , who also composed and sang the theme song Wag The Dog .

The film is similar to Michael Moore's Our Enemy Neighbors , except that in that film, Canada is the enemy.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wag the Dog - When the tail wags the dog. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Film review Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from March 20, 1998
  3. ^ Film review Deutscher Depeschendienst (ddp) of March 24, 1998
  4. ^ Film review Die Welt from March 26, 1998
  5. ↑ Rating of the German Film and Media Assessment
  6. ↑ Soldiers unmask heroic lies of the Pentagon. In: Spiegel Online from April 25, 2007

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