Stephen Bannon begins his Sarah Palin documentary, “The Undefeated,” with a Bible verse from Matthew about good trees and evil trees and the types of fruit they bear.
It’s intercut with images of Palin and a montage of entertainers (Madonna, Bill Maher and Roseanne Barr, to name an obvious few) mouthing off about the former governor of Alaska who was at the time of the diatribes and jibes the Republican nominee for vice president of the United States.
It’s an unsubtle and vexing bit of business. Because the riffs are foul and undisciplined. But also because the montage represents a style of documentary editing intended to gall and rally fresh troops.
Yet it would be too easy to treat the maker of conservative fest- circuit faves like “Generation Zero” (about the recent financial meltdown) and “Fire From the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman” as merely a partisan with a camera and some deep pockets.
It’s also wise to think of him as yet another indie filmmaker, honing a style, harboring big ambitions and acting on an inkling there’s an untapped audience for his wares.
After all, the question that got the garrulous 57-year-old, former Navy man and onetime investment banker (he worked for Goldman Sachs before starting his own firm and then selling it) most excited was one I often pose to documentary filmmakers: How many hours of footage did you begin with?
“Oh, I love that question” (Answer: 50 to 60 hours), Bannon replied while touring one of the 10 cities with AMC theaters where “The Undefeated” opened Friday. (It’s playing at the AMC Highlands Ranch 24.)
Here are five more we asked.
Q: What inspired you to make documentaries? Or is there a narrative feature in you we don’t know about?
A: No, I love the world of nonfiction film. I think the characters — people like Ronald Reagan and Gov. Palin, the people in “Generation Zero” and “Fires of the Heartland” — are fascinating. Documentary has been too stodgy. Whether you like it or hate it, “The Undefeated” is not a PBS documentary. Ken Burns did these sweeping epics.
But I think Michael Moore really did it. I know people try to rip them off or emulate them. But the real lesson I took away from Michael Moore is that film has a huge impact if you do it in a certain way.
Culture is upriver from politics, much more powerful than politics.
Q: Were there any ground rules?
A: I was approached by Rebecca Mansour, the governor’s communication director, and Tim Crawford, who ran her political action committee, after a screening. They wanted me to make these three- to five-minute vignettes that would be posted on YouTube. I said, “God Bless you, but I have no interest in doing that. I’m 57 years old. My focus is on a feature documentary. I said, “We’ll put up all the money. There’s no creative control. We don’t work for the PAC. We’ll be completely clear of each other.”
Q: Why isn’t the film opening in Alaska?
A: There aren’t any AMC theaters in Alaska. But I know people are going to want to see it, whether they love Sarah Palin or don’t love Sarah Palin. We certainly want to have a good opening, and then we’ll take it out to other areas. We’re definitely going to Alaska because I think there’s money to be made in Alaska.
Q: As a film person, I’m ambivalent about the tension between being moved and feeling manipulated by a movie. You chose to open the film very aggressively.
A: I think there’s a fine line between being manipulative and having a point of view. Go back to Michael Moore, for a second.
Q: I would be asking him the same question.
A: Here’s what I was trying to do, I was trying to shake people out of their complacency. I’m trying to talk to people who follow politics only when they have to. I thought, “Somehow I had to grab people by the throat and shake them awake.” When people say Palin’s picked on by the mainstream media, they usually mean Tina Fey, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann. And that’s what I try to show. It’s much more of a pop-culture beat-down.
Q: You live in L.A. Every once in a while I hear rumblings from L.A.- based filmmakers with conservative politics about how they feel in that town.
A: People don’t like when I say this, but I’m a free-market capitalist, and I despise people that really think about victimhood. We’re not victims.
The brutal reality is most conservative films, most Christian films, God bless them, they’re well intentioned, but they just aren’t very good. That’s the brutal reality, and the marketplace tells us that. They don’t do well in theaters. They don’t sell DVDs. They’re not watched on TV. We’ve just got to do better. And the only way to make them better is to keep making them and find an audience that will watch them, make your money back and go on and make another.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com; also on madmoviegoer
