The Political Lens of Cinéma Vérité
One of the most influential styles of documentary filmmaking, and all of film in general, cinéma vérité, helped shape the course of the industry from its inception in the mid-20th century through to the present day. Lauded most significantly for its ability to display “life as it is,” cinéma vérité gleans images of subjects that are otherwise inaccessible to create a realism that avoids artificiality to the point of honest life. Early utilization of this style produced insightful and lasting documentaries that helped instigate what questions are and should be asked of documentary subjects while maintaining a deliberate distance. One of the more lasting sub-genres of cinéma vérité documentary is that of politics—following races, contentious moments in office, and general profiles of the candidates themselves. These films serve to illuminate an aspect of democratic life that is often left in shadow to the common citizen. A canonical documentary within this genre is the first of Drew Associates’ Kennedy Films, Primary (1960), setting an example for this style of political documentary that influenced many later projects. Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s The War Room (1993) and Rachel Lears’ Knock Down the House (2019) are two more contemporary iterations of a cinéma vérité political documentary which both exhibit and transcend the style precedence set by Drew. This collection of films posits US politicians in varying ways, depicting some as they rise to fame and assume a mystical role of celebrity, others working as a lifting-the-curtain glimpse at who and how campaigns are run, and some that question the very reason for our democratic system.
To begin, one of the most important catalysts for cinéma vérité as a new style of documentary was the development and utilization of new technologies that helped filmmakers move away from the traditional tripod, heavy machinery and slow film stock set-up and into versatility. These advancements allowed better and higher quality filming to take place outside of a set or scripted environment and into the “field” of where they wanted to capture. In fact, Drew convinced “Time-Life to invest roughly half a million dollars in the invention of new handheld gear” (Powers, 3) as an incentive for him to create and produce content for the company. They eventually “wound up with a shoulder-mounted Auricon 16mm camera and a portable Perfectone audio recorder suitable for a two-person crew” (Powers, 3) which helped propel Drew and his team to begin scouting for their first big project in 1960, ultimately deciding to follow a contentious Wisconsin presidential primary.
Primary opens to the sound of a pompous, high brass orchestration before quickly cutting to an older man complaining about a recent raise in his taxes. “I used to pay $300. You know what I pay now? $1408 bucks.” A man behind the camera then says, “Here he is now. What do you think of him?” and Hubert Humphrey emerges from a doorway out of frame. The two engage in light banter as the older man wishes Humphrey luck and success in the election, before the Senator leaves for his campaign bus. A close up of Humphrey’s press poster, duct taped to the front of the bus, zooms out to a tracking shot as he and his team continue their campaign. What seems to be his political anthem also plays in accompaniment; a bouncy and upbeat tune encouraging support from voters.
Our first glimpse of Humphrey’s opponent, JFK, is the very next shot and perhaps the most iconic sequence of the film. A high-angle shot tracks JFK as he wades through a crowd of cheering supporters, shaking hands and smiling proudly. The camera gets extremely close to the subject, the back of JFK’s head at moments taking up the entirety of the frame. There is no soundtrack or audible dialogue, only the roaring of the crowd as he emerges up a set of stairs and out onto a stage. The crowd begins to chant “Jack is on the right track/ Cause he’s got high hopes.” The camera maintains its closeness, shooting the crowd essentially from JFK’s perspective. The sequence then cuts to a side-stage view of JFK next to his wife, Jackie, as they stay facing the crowd. A distinct shift in focus places JFK’s and Jackie’s faces aligned with one another, first focusing on him before shifting to her. This moment is important because while the film does not necessarily delve into Jackie as a key subject, there are several of these more intimate shots of her that allude to an “understanding of the first lady position, its complex relationship to the United States presidency and its influence in American political culture” (Lehn, 673), specifically as the film posits JFK and Jackie as a couple.
These introductions, both very distinct in style and perspective are essentially how a majority of the film plays out. We view Humphrey through the eyes of everyday people—a traditional candidate running on ideas and face-to-face interactions, traveling across the country to galvanize as many votes as possible. His base seems full of farmers and rural citizens. He is an individual candidate running for a prestigious office by doing the groundwork of campaigning. JFK on the other hand is introduced as a wildly popular, star-status candidate surrounded by enthusiasm. By the time of this primary, JFK had “an alluring multi-faceted image as a war hero, man of letters, precocious politician, family symbol, and sex symbol” (White, 231). Thus the grandiosity of his introduction provokes us to believe him as a celebrity politician. Further, the inclusion, and at times centering, of Jackie hints to her importance as a public figure alongside her husband. She is equally as prominent within the context of not just the election, but of American culture at the time.
This juxtaposition in the method of presenting Humphrey and JFK was clearly Drew’s intention who saw documenting this primary race as an opportunity to present these two men as they were, through spontaneous moments that come across as candid and real on screen. A voiceover narrator (Joseph Julien) gives context to the details of the primary race and goals of the documentary. He begins with “The big handshake, the big rally, the wild race across the landscape searching out voters. All repeated for days and weeks and months. These are the ordeals and exhilarations of the US presidential candidate … You are about to see a candidate’s view of this frantic process and an intimate view of the candidates themselves.” Primary certainly follows through on this promise, maintaining an intimacy and closeness to both men that had never been captured through documentary filmmaking before.
There are moments that seem to both mythologize and humanize each candidate, balancing the task of making them seem relatable and qualified to assume the office of the presidency. In one of Humphrey’s town hall sequences, the camera stays largely on the audience (assumed farmers) as they watch and listen with intent. He speaks eloquently and passionately while making promises to support agricultural business and help maintain Wisconsin’s economy. He also distinguishes himself from JFK as a candidate for the people and not a millionaire who “you read about in Life magazine.” Framing the reactions of the audience as Humphrey makes these claims helps accentuate his power as a speaker and their attention to his platform. In a similarly set up scene, Kennedy again stands on a stage in front of a crowd of supporters, speaking to the key issues of his campaign and also emphasizing the importance of the election. The camera here is largely trained on JFK as he speaks, with various cuts to Jackie in the audience. These two sequences again help to illustrate how differently Humphrey and JFK were perceived by the public- one as a “salt of the Earth” candidate who focuses on the rural farmer and the other a prominent man of the culture who represents prestige and status.
In a later sequence of the film, Kennedy and his team are gathered together in a hotel room awaiting election results as they are reported throughout the night. This scene seems as a truly cinéma vérité stand-out moment; the camera is quiet and inconspicuous, simply recording events as they happen in real time. Neither the subjects or the documentarians knew what the outcome of the election would be, so this recording of the moment-by-moment results feel entirely real. While the audio is comprehensible, it is unclear exactly what the dialogue means, it is only understood that stakes and tensions are high.
After results are in, both Humphrey and JFK remain in essentially the same place they did before the primary. This being the case, the film ends on a beat of almost limbo. No clear winner means the campaigns, tours, speeches, and rallies continue. To help accentuate this, the film seems to end just as it begins—both candidates surrounded by supporters, explaining their strategies for the next step in their campaigns.
Throughout Primary, Humphrey and Kennedy essentially play off of each other as opponents, scenes cutting between their respective campaigns and capturing the moments both big and small that go into running as a presidential candidate. This film, helmed by Drew Associates, jump-started the documentary genre into the age of cinéma vérité by utilizing techniques such as synchronous sound, observational filming, and more accessible equipment. Primary also raised specifically cultural questions about the United States’ electoral process by reflecting how we tend to see our candidates. Primary’s portrayal of JFK indicates just how popular and celebrity-like certain political figures become.
In 1992, former member of Drew Associates D.A. Pennebaker and fellow documentarian Chis Hegedus requested access to film Bill Clinton’s Democratic presidential primary campaign. The campaign granted the team access, though only to Clinton’s communications director, George Stephanopoulos, and head strategist, James Carville. Pennebaker and Hegedus eventually followed the Clinton campaign all the way through the primaries and into the official general election where Clinton would beat incumbent Republican nominee, George H. W. Bush. As this film heavily follows lead campaign staff members and not the candidate himself, The War Room makes Clinton an almost intangible presence, only getting very brief and commercially polished glimpses of him. His behind-the-scenes team are who we see put out publicity fires, strategize on the campaign trail, stress about polling numbers, and ultimately revel in their victory. So while The War Room reflects similar cinéma vérité techniques developed by Primary three decades earlier, it also subverts some of the film’s prominent theme expectations by centering non-candidate figures.
Opening on a busy and snowy New Hampshire town square, fliers, bumper stickers, and huge campaign posters of various primary candidates line the streets to help contextualize the race and its scope. The film then focuses on the Clinton headquarters before zooming in and cutting to an interior shot of what is assumed to be a campaign strategy meeting. The staffers are energetic, vulgar, and a bit over-confident in their discussion of how the race is going, a theme that remains throughout the film. We see most of those who appear on screen in high intensity positions, clearly not at all concerned with how they may or may not be presented on-screen and solely focused on their task at hand. While this comes across as painting certain subjects as unlikable or cruel, it also reflects a true cinéma vérité style of simply pointing a camera and capturing what happens.
Our first look at Clinton is an extreme close-up of him in baseball cap and casual clothes, looking directly into the camera as he speaks on a telephone. He seems to be bantering with either a supporter or reporter, coming off as charming and warm before the camera zooms out to reveal Carville and Stephanopoulos in the same room. Clinton hangs up, and he and his aides continue in essentially the same manner as the previous campaign volunteers. This is one of the very few intimate looks at Clinton before the film retracts to portray him as a peripheral presence. Several shots show Clinton passing through crowds of supporters, exiting a private plane with Hillary (who, rather starkly from the perspective of a 2020 viewing, is also barely in the film), answering questions from reporters, and making speeches in front of large audiences. A few of these shots echo those of Primary as we stand essentially in the shadow of the candidate; however, there is a distinct distance maintained with Clinton that works to exacerbate the “politician as celebrity” theme started with JFK. In fact, Clinton isn’t even fully present on election night in the room awaiting results with campaign staff, another shift away from Primary when JFK iconically sat with his staffers in the limbo between closing polls and a called race. Instead, The War Room privileges the Clinton campaign’s head staffers in lieu of the candidate himself. Our only views of Clinton on election night are through inaudible telephone calls with Stephanopoulos or Carville, and later, an audience’s view of his victory speech.
The choice to primarily follow Carville and Stephanopoulos, who themselves became media personalities during this process, was probably largely due to Pennebaker and Hegedus’ restrictions on filming Clinton, though their footage and construction of events in turn helped document and visually ascribe a truly unique facet of politics that could arguably only have been captured through cinéma vérité. Much like several moments in Primary, a majority of The War Room doesn’t necessarily clarify what is going on on-screen, as many conversations are in the middle of meetings, under hushed breath, on the move. The tension built throughout the film is largely hinged on the curiosity of the camera and the attitudes and behaviors of the staffers it follows.
James Carville (nicknamed the Ragin’ Cajun) with his thick Southern accent and stern tone is, in my opinion, largely unlikable for a majority of the film. He is brash and direct when he speaks, again reflecting the larger tone of over-confidence to an almost absurd degree. Like the rest of the campaign staff, he is consistently irritated or upset in some way which works to heighten the intensity of the film and raise the stakes at hand. In one particular scene when the campaign staff is working to produce a TV spot attacking Bush’s famous “Read my lips: no new taxes” line, Carville is frustrated by a supposed lack of communicated expectations. His head is in his hands almost the entire time and the camera zooms in closely to track his every reaction. When the spot producer hangs up, Carville goes into a rant about how every time he suggests something “their first reaction is ‘we can’t do that,’” harping on this notion that nothing he wants ever gets done. Finally the rest of the staff point out his ridiculousness, and Carville concedes. Perhaps this attention to his short temper and sternness is not to deliberately make him unlikable, but to present a moment-by-moment look at a large scale campaign, temper tantrums and all.
Carville’s counterpart to the campaign, George Stephanopoulos, works as a younger, more optimistic weight of the operation. He is largely in high spirits and jokey while still maintaining a deep desire to win and do well, at some moments essentially leaping with joy. Not to say that Stephanopoulos is in any way an aloof tag-along, rather there are certainly moments that also frame him in an unideal, light. For example, in one of several scenes of Stephanopoulos on the phone with reporters, he essentially threatens the person on the other line into not reporting an alleged Bill Clinton affair. Unaffected by the presence of the camera, Stephanopoulos says “We’re not gonna lose, we are gonna win, and he is going to be president … I guarantee you that if you do this, you’ll never work in democratic politics again … No one will believe you.” The way that the filmmakers present this scene draws on notes of distasteful politics and the cut-throat nature of such an intense campaign, a clear departure from the high spirits and clean strategy presented in Primary. These notions are perhaps indicative of an inherent shift in how campaigns were run from the 60s to the 90s, as well as a shift in how these campaigns were presented on screen. The War Room, “builds a motif of politics as canny stage management … dropping, with passive-aggressive cool, a most unfortunate story that someone told you about the neighbors … [the camera] always looking for the next revealing gesture or line” (Ritchey) in this “men’s world” environment.
There are of course many lighter moments and scenes that help endear us to Carville and Stephanopoulos both on personal and professional levels. One of the most stand out non-campaign related narratives of the film is Carville’s relationship with Bush’s campaign manager, Marty Matalin. Their clear competition and political rivalry is noted through various interviews and casual conversations, praising their ability to maintain a relationship. In a radio interview Carville says “Mary, she loves the president. We just disagree on that … As long as it works, that’s all that matters to me.” Later in the final “War Room” meeting, Carville and Stephanopoulos give touching and emotional speeches to commemorate the time spent and work done by the entire campaign staff. This is arguably the greatest moment of the film as the life-or-death tone is stripped back to display real heart and gratitude. This scene is filmed behind a line of people, over shoulders and heads to create a sense of peeking in on a remarkable moment. After an introduction and thanks by Stephanopoulos, Carville stands as the room cheers for him. “There’s a simple doctrine, outside of a person’s love, the most sacred thing that they can give is their labor … Labor is a very precious thing that you have, and any time you can combine them—labor with love—you’ve made a merger.” These particular scenes help to flesh out the film as more than just a political strategist’s timeline and give nuance to the representations of real people.
Following various scandals, pit-falls, and dealings of the Clinton ‘92 campaign, The War Room is a fast paced and vivid documentation of one of the most transformative campaigns in modern politics. Pennebaker and Hegedus’ documentary style is both reflective of cinéma vérité’s origins in Primary while also further pushing the boundaries of the genre through technique and theme. It is an insightful iteration of how real-world political strategists, campaigns, and candidates function under pressure and as public figures in the midst of historically significant moments.
In Knock Down the House, documentarian Rachel Lears follows the 2018 primary campaigns for Congress of four progressive democrats—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Amy Vilela, Cory Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin. This film is a contemporary example of the way that cinéma vérité filmmaking can capture political figures and the process of a campaign race while also expanding the notions of the genre to include further techniques like interviews, news clips, and subject interaction. This film is also a departure from earlier iterations like Primary and The War Room by focusing on candidates that are generally unknown by the public during the time of their campaign, which in term removes the notion of “politician as celebrity” present in these earlier films. These campaigns are grassroots movements funded by modest, personal donations and built on small organizing techniques like block-walking and cold-call phone banks. Candidacy itself is democratized by presenting a much wider and disparate pool of candidates that had rarely been prioritized before. The candidates profiled here were recruited by “Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, grassroots organizations trying to bring progressive leadership into the halls of power” (Garber). This re-centering of political candidacy is certainly intentional as a way to call attention to the drastic increase of women running for office after the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump and a movement across the country to mobilize traditionally marginalized citizens into a viable and sustainable voting/ candidate body.
The opening scene shows AOC doing her own make-up in a small bathroom, her back to the camera, noting several challenges of being a woman in politics and the expectations of presenting yourself accordingly. No one else is in the shot, so it’s clear she is speaking to the filmmaker, or rather, the audience. This small moment immediately sets up an expectation of the documentary’s view of its subjects; an intimacy and comfortable closeness that not only follows the technicalities of running a political campaign, but the people and motivations behind them. The screen turns black to read several title cards giving larger contexts to the women and their campaigns. “In 2018, record numbers of women, people of color, and political outsiders set out to transform Congress. Many established Democrats face primary election challenges from other Democrats running for the first time.” The film then introduces, individually, each of the four candidates, all on location in their respective districts and from the perspective of both an observational lens and an interactively encouraging presence. Aside from that first moment with AOC, we meet all of the four candidates by way of their social media presence. Hand-held iPhone recordings explain their platform, why they have chosen to run, and how viewers can help support their race. This emphasis on personal, direct-to-camera video complicates the cinéma vérité methodology by drawing the audience in and essentially engaging with the subjects. For example, in addressing the economic disadvantages faced by her fellow West Virginians, Swearengin states, “We shouldn’t have to worry about self-serving politicians catering to coal barons instead of catering to our families and our communities … I’m asking you to stand with me.” AOC says “We are running to organize. We are running to redefine the political landscape of New York City ... We’re not running to pressure the incumbent to the left, we’re running to win.” The film continues to urge us to see these candidates not as far away figures to be elected, but members of a community working to better politics for the collective whole.
Another distinct way Knock Down the House re-centers candidacy as a demysticized position is showing environments outside of politics. These women are not bureaucratic, career democrats, but come from working-class backgrounds with hopes of transforming the political landscape if elected. An early scene of AOC shows her performing her duties as a bartender and waitress, collecting ice from a basement, mixing drinks, and cleaning counters. Cory Bush heads to work as a nurse in Missouri as voiceover narration recounts her decision to run; “I was not trying to become an activist. This is the district where Mike Brown was murdered … It was like a battle zone at home. I took to the streets to lend a hand as a nurse. What I was wanting to see was justice happen.” These shots are distinctly observational, presenting the subjects as we assume they were before they started their campaigns.
The film also works heavily to address problematically out-of-touch DNC and Republican incumbents. In a town hall meeting featuring AOC and incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley, AOC is the only candidate present as Crowley sent a surrogate in his place. AOC of course notes this rather blatant sign of apathy; “We are making excuses for absentee leadership. This is not a debate … I am the only one running for congress in this room.” In this vein, Knock Down the House seems to flip the notion of mythologizing created by The War Room and argues that a candidate should never be too inaccessible or unreachable for its constituents. Crowley is not a powerfully absent figure, like Clinton is portrayed, but a failure in governance. The only time Crowley physically appears in the documentary is at a Pride March in NYC with a group of his campaign staff touting rainbow flags and Crowley for Congress merchandise. This scene is another purely observational sequence, simply recording Crowley as he interacts with several people on the street. One man rather poignantly asks him “Re-election time?” and Crowley responds “Oh you know, every once in a while,” alluding to his almost vapid attitude in attending the march. Of course, the documentary is crafted to portray Crowley in a certain light, though with such deliberate interactions like this one, there is little room for interpretation. One of the most resonant moments of the film is just before one of AOC’s debates, where Crowley will actually be present, as she prepares her talking points on her couch. She sits in complete silence with her partner, no accompanying audio or soundtrack, taking deep and calming breaths. Repeating affirmations aloud she says “I need to take up space. I am here … I am experienced enough to do this. I am knowledgeable enough to do this. I am brave enough to do this.” A quiet and vulnerable moment like this is a wonderful representation of cinéma vérité in the sense of allowing life to happen as it is—AOC’s preparation is not performative for the camera but solely for herself.
Agency through vulnerability is a clear theme throughout the film, utilized as a strength rather than a weakness and captured through several still moments and contextualizing interviews. In a scene with Amy Vilela, she sits alone at her daughter’s grave and places flowers near the headstone. She goes on to explain that two years earlier, her daughter suffered a deadly pulmonary embolism at 22 after being refused proper healthcare due to lack of insurance. Vilela notes this tragedy as a major reason why she chose to run in the 2018 primaries, giving meaning to her daughter’s death and a drive to work so other families wouldn’t have to experience what she did. The film also ends on a similarly poignant note after AOC visits Washington D.C. five days after her upset win against Crowley. On the steps in front of the U.S. Capital building, she tells a story about her late father who was largely a reason behind her decision to run, and how he instilled in her the belief in a government for the people. “He said, ‘You know, all of this belongs to us.’” She is visibly crying, clearly moved by the remembrance of her father and the significance of her history-making victory. Lear's centering of the emotionality of her subjects helps articulate the reckoning of systemic power structures the film argues. For this final scene, “a woman politician, crying on camera (is) a striking way to conclude a film about insurgency. Women’s tears, after all, have been implicated in some of misogyny’s fondest lies [about women’s emotionality (Garber). For many of these reasons I would argue that Knock Down the House is an advocacy documentary as well as a modern cinéma vérité look at political candidacy.
The varied approaches by the three filmmakers examined here and juxtaposition in style of documentary is by no means a judgement call on any inherent value as forms of filmmaking but rather an exploration of how documentary, specifically cinéma vérité, has been shaped throughout decades, cultural shifts, and various political landscapes. Through this lineage, later works such as The War Room and Knock Down the House call back to original films of the genre like Primary which set the example for observational documentary filmmaking. Its themes have only been further examined through tools instigated by Drew Associates as boundaries of the genre continue to be pushed. From JFK to AOC, how political candidates are documented helps reveal our social standards for our elected officials and what filmmakers, viewers, and ultimately, voting bodies value in these images.
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