Bush is depicted as foul-mouthed frat boy in new Oliver Stone movie
Wednesday 09 April 2008
Latest in Americas
On Facebook
From the blogs
Tyrannosaur and Drive: The difference between loneliness and being alone
The prospect of loneliness is probably one of the biggest fears that humans have to contend with. Mo...
The Woman in Black: From page, to stage, to film
Director James Watkins and screenwriter Jane Goldman discuss how they kept up the constant high leve...
The future of academic publishing
These are the most uncertain times in living memory for academic publishing. After decades of bumpin...
Books with soundtracks: no, really, this one works…
Books with soundtracks. The idea is so glaringly obvious, and so obviously feeble, that I hesitate t...
VIEW GALLERY
Oliver Stone's new film,W, portrays George Bush as a foul-mouthed, dried-out drunk with a baseball obsession and a difficult relationship with his father.
Filming is expected to begin any day in Louisiana. The movie should be in cinemas before Mr Bush leaves office next January.
Stone says the film won't be an anti-Bush polemic. Rather, as he told Daily Variety, it will be "a fair, true portrait of the man that asks the question: how did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?"
An early script describes Mr Bush as a party animal living in the shadow of his esteemed father before he uses religion to turn his life around. He finds a new purpose in life – which is to achieve the presidency ahead of his brother Jeb, who was being groomed for high office by his father.
The film will cover Mr Bush's obsession with invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein – which Stone suggests is to avenge the Iraqi leader's much ballyhooed assassination attempt on Bush Snr.
It will also look at Mr Bush's desperate hunt for WMDs in Iraq and his well known mangling of the English language. The script gives the impression that the White House is Mr Bush's very own fraternity house where discussions about going to war sound like the staff are betting on a football game.
The film will capture notorious episodes including his arrest for tearing down the goalposts at a college football game, his widely reported threat to get into a fistfight with his father when he came home drunk in the 1970s, and how he quit drinking after his 40th birthday when he woke up with a hangover and marching orders from his wife.
Mr Bush will be played by Josh Brolin, who starred in the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men. Laura Bush is being played by Elizabeth Banks, who starred in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
This is Stone's third film about a US president, following Nixon and JFK. The director has been an outspoken critic of President Bush's policy in Iraq.
W: the cast list so far
Josh Brolin George W Bush
Elizabeth Banks Laura Bush
James Cromwell George H Bush
Thandie Newton Condoleezza Rice
Ioan Gruffudd Tony Blair
Ellen Burstyn Barbara Bush
- 1 Eight arrests as Murdoch 'throws staff to the wolves'
- 2 Tributes pour in for tragic Whitney Houston
- 3 What really happened on the bridge when the Costa Concordia crashed
- 4 I was born to be a killer. Every night I see the Devil in my dreams
- 5 Lightning kills an entire football team
- 6 BBC to issue global apology for documentaries that broke rules
- 7 Are we really going to abandon the PM's new best friend?
- 1 I was born to be a killer. Every night I see the Devil in my dreams
- 2 Rothschild loses libel case, and reveals secret world of money and politics
- 3 Lightning kills an entire football team
- 4 BBC to issue global apology for documentaries that broke rules
- 5 The Top 50 Independent Schools at A-level*
- 6 Mona Lisa's 'twin sister' is discovered – 500 years late
- 7 The artist vandalising advertising with poetry
- 8 Younger Castro steers Cuba to a new revolution
- 9 Scottish town where green is beyond the pale
- 10 Cambridge students' twin tragedy
Free trial of new Independent iPad app
Get your daily dose of the best of British journalism, sponsored by American Airlines
Win a three-week coastal jaunt
Spend three weeks exploring every nook and cranny of gorgeous Atlantic Canada.
Amazing restaurant offers
Three glasses of free champagne and a special menu at 46 top London restaurants.
Latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Day In a Page
Silent revolution at the Baftas
The diva who had – and lost – it all
How Picasso won over (some of) the British


Comments