Channel 4 courts controversy with mock Bush assassination
Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Friday September 1, 2006
The Guardian
Channel 4 is set to spark a furore in the US this month when it unveils
a documentary-style film in which George Bush is assassinated.
Set in October 2007, the 90-minute drama uses a mix of archive footage,
computer generated imagery and documentary techniques to portray Bush's
assassination and America's reaction to it. Death of a President, which
will also headline the Toronto film festival, will be seen first in this
country on sister channel More 4 before being repeated on the main channel.
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The film recreates the arrival of Mr Bush in Chicago to make a speech to
business leaders. Confronted by a huge anti-war demonstration, he goes
ahead with the visit but is gunned down by a sniper on leaving the venue.
Actors playing eyewitnesses and mock news footage are used to tell the
story of the hunt for the killer. The film is likely to prove
controversial, particularly among rightwing media pundits and with
conservative advertisers.
A White House spokeswoman said yesterday: "We are not going to comment,
because it does not dignify a response."
More4's chief, Peter Dale, said the headline-grabbing conceit was used
as the hook for an intelligent examination of American politics. "It's a
mixture of a gripping detective story and a political examination of
what the war on terror is doing to the American body politic," he said.
Gabriel Range, director of the film, said: "Inevitably there will be
people offended by the premise. But anyone who does see the film will
recognise that it's not a personal attack on Bush but an oblique way of
exploring the direction his foreign policies have taken us."
Channel 4 could also face a potential boycott from major US advertisers
nervous of being associated with the film. Mr Dale said: "I'm sure there
will be people who will be upset by it. But when you see it, it's not
sensationalist or exploitative. It's a very powerful and
thought-provoking drama." Mr Range was previously responsible for the
BBC film The Day Britain Stopped, a similar exercise in which
documentary-style techniques were used to recreate the aftermath of a
collision between two aeroplanes in the skies above London. Nor will
Tony Blair's political legacy escape examination on More4, the digital
channel launched almost a year ago as a "grown up" alternative to Channel 4.
Robert Lindsay, who played the prime minister in its satire of the David
Blunkett affair A Very Social Secretary, will reprise his role for The
Trial of Tony Blair. Also written by Alistair Beaton, the political
satire imagines a future in which Gordon Brown is in No 10 and Mr Blair
is put on trial for war crimes.
Elsewhere on the channel, celebrated documentary maker Nick Broomfield
will move into drama with Ghosts, a film about Britain's army of illegal
workers inspired by the Morecambe Bay tragedy of 2004. James Bolam,
Michael Gambon, Colin Firth and others will appear in a filmed version
of Harold Pinter's latest play, Celebration.
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