Robert De Niro Dustin Hoffman Movies
| Wag the Dog | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Barry Levinson |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | American Hero by Larry Beinhart |
| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Edited by | Stu Linder |
| Music by | Marker Knopfler |
| Production |
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| Distributed by | New Line Movie theater |
| Release dates |
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| Running fourth dimension | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $xv meg[one] |
| Box office | $64.3 million[two] |
Wag the Domestic dog is a 1997 American political satire black one-act film produced and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.[1] The moving-picture show centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Republic of albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet was loosely adjusted from Larry Beinhart's 1993 novel, American Hero.
Wag the Dog was released one calendar month earlier the outbreak of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by the Clinton administration in August 1998, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality.[iii] The comparison was also made in December 1998 when the assistants initiated a bombing campaign of Republic of iraq during Clinton's impeachment trial over the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.[4] It was made again in the spring of 1999 when the administration intervened in the Kosovo State of war and initiated a bombing entrada against Yugoslavia, which coincidentally bordered Republic of albania and contained ethnic Albanians.[5] The film grossed $64.three million on a $15 million upkeep and was well received past critics, who praised the management, performances, themes, and sense of humor. Hoffman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance and screenwriters David Mamet and Hilary Henkin were both nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Plot [edit]
The president is caught making advances on an underage girl inside the Oval Office, less than two weeks before the election. Conrad Brean, a top spin doctor, is brought in by presidential aide Winifred Ames to take the public's attending abroad from the scandal. He decides to construct a fictional state of war in Republic of albania, hoping the media volition concentrate on this instead. Brean contacts Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to create the war, complete with a theme song and faux picture show footage of a fleeing orphan to agitate sympathy. The hoax is initially successful, with the president quickly gaining ground in the polls.
When the CIA learns of the plot, they send Amanuensis Young to confront Brean about the hoax. Brean convinces Young that revealing the deception is against his and the CIA's all-time interests. But when the CIA — in collusion with the president's rival candidate — reports that the state of war has ended, the media begins to focus back on the president's sexual corruption scandal. To counter this, Motss invents a hero who was left behind enemy lines in Albania. Inspired by the idea that he was "discarded like an old shoe", Brean and Motss ask the Pentagon to provide a special forces soldier with a matching proper noun (a sergeant named "Schumann" is identified) around whom a Pw narrative can be constructed. Equally part of the hoax, folk singer Johnny Dean records a song called "Old Shoe", which is pressed onto a 78 rpm record, prematurely anile so that listeners will call back information technology was recorded years earlier, and sent to the Library of Congress to be "found". Soon, big numbers of old pairs of shoes began appearing on phone and power lines, and a grassroots movement takes hold.
When the team goes to retrieve Schumann, they observe he is in fact a criminally-insane Army convict. On the way back, their plane crashes en route to Andrews Air Strength Base. The squad survives and is rescued by a farmer, an illegal alien who is given expedited citizenship for a better story. However, Schumann is killed later he attempts to rape a gas station possessor'due south daughter. Seizing the opportunity, Motss stages an elaborate armed services funeral for Schumann, challenge that he died from wounds sustained during his rescue.
While watching a political talk show, Motss gets frustrated that the media are crediting the president'due south upsurge in the polls to the bland campaign slogan of "Don't modify horses in mid-stream" rather than to Motss'southward hard work. Motss states that he wants credit and will reveal his involvement, despite Brean'south offering of an ambassadorship and the dire warning that he is "playing with his life". After Motss refuses to alter his mind, Brean reluctantly orders his security staff to kill him. A newscast reports that Motss has died of a center attack at home, the president was successfully re-elected, and an Albanian terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for a recent bombing.
Cast [edit]
- Robert De Niro every bit Conrad Brean
- Dustin Hoffman as Stanley Motss
- Anne Heche as Winifred Ames
- Denis Leary as 'Fad King'
- Willie Nelson as Johnny Dean
- Andrea Martin every bit Liz Butsky
- Kirsten Dunst equally Tracy Lime
- William H. Macy as CIA Agent Charles Immature
- Craig T. Nelson as Senator Neal
- George Gaynes equally Senator Cole
- John Michael Higgins as John Levy
- Sean Masterson as Bob Richardson
- Suzie Plakson as Grace
- Woody Harrelson as Sergeant William Schumann
- Suzanne Cryer every bit Amy Cain
- James Belushi every bit Himself
- Shirley Prestia as Herself
- Roebuck "Pops" Staples equally Himself
- Merle Haggard as Himself
Production [edit]
Title [edit]
The championship of the film comes from the idiomatic English language-linguistic communication expression "the tail wagging the dog",[half-dozen] which is referenced at the beginning of the moving-picture show past a caption that reads:
Why does the dog wag its tail?
Because a dog is smarter than its tail.
If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.
Motss and Evans [edit]
Hoffman's character, Stanley Motss, is said to have been based directly upon famed producer Robert Evans. Similarities accept been noted betwixt the grapheme and Evans' work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing manner, hairstyle, and big, square-framed eyeglasses; in fact, the real Evans is said to accept joked, "I'k magnificent in this film."[vii] Hoffman has never discussed any inspiration Evans may have provided for the role, and claims on the commentary track for the film's DVD release that much of Motss' label was based on Hoffman'southward male parent, Harry Hoffman, a erstwhile prop manager for Columbia Pictures.
Writing credits [edit]
The award of writing credits on the film became controversial at the time, due to objections by Barry Levinson. Subsequently Levinson became attached as director, David Mamet was hired to rewrite Hilary Henkin'due south screenplay, which was loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart's novel American Hero.
Given the close human relationship between Levinson and Mamet, New Line Cinema asked that Mamet exist given sole credit for the screenplay. Nonetheless, the Writers Lodge of America intervened on Henkin's behalf to ensure that Henkin received starting time-position shared screenplay credit, finding that—every bit the original screenwriter—Henkin had created the screenplay's structure as well every bit much of the screen story and dialogue.[eight]
Levinson thereafter threatened to (but did non) quit the Guild, claiming that Mamet had written all of the dialogue as well as creating the characters of Motss and Schumann, and had originated most of the scenes set up in Hollywood and all of the scenes set up in Nashville. Levinson attributed the numerous similarities between Henkin's original version and the eventual shooting script to Henkin and Mamet working from the same novel, only the WGA disagreed in its credit arbitration ruling.[ix]
Music [edit]
The film featured many songs created for the fictitious campaign waged past the protagonists; these songs include "Skilful Old Shoe", "The American Dream", and "The Men of the 303". However, none of these pieces made it onto the soundtrack CD. The CD featured simply the title track (past British guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler) and seven of Knopfler'south instrumentals.
Songs equally listed in the film'southward credits [edit]
- "Thank Heaven for Little Girls": written by Lerner and Lowe, performed by Maurice Chevalier
- "I Guard the Canadian Border": written past Tom Bähler and Willie Nelson, performed past Nelson
- "The American Dream": written past Bähler, performed by Bähler
- "Good Old Shoe": written by Edgar Winter, performed by Nelson and Pops Staples
- "Classical Allegro": written by Marc Ferrari and Nancy Hieronymous
- "Courage Mom": written past Merle Haggard and performed by Merle Haggard and the Strangers
- "Barracuda": written by Center, referenced by Woody Harrelson in graphic symbol
- "I Dearest the Nightlife": written by Alicia Bridges and Susan Hutcheson
- "God Bless the Men of the 303": written by Huey Lewis, performed by Lewis, Scott Mathews, and Johnny Colla
- "Wag the Canis familiaris": written and performed by Mark Knopfler
Reception [edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, Wag the Dog has an approval rating of 86% based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of vii.4/x. The site's critical consensus reads, "Smart, well-acted, and uncomfortably prescient political satire from director Barry Levinson and an all-star bandage."[10] On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating, the picture show has a score of 73 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[eleven]
Roger Ebert awarded the film 4 out of four stars and wrote in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, "The movie is a satire that contains simply plenty realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible; like Dr. Strangelove, it makes you laugh, and and so information technology makes yous wonder."[12] He ranked it as his tenth favorite moving picture of 1997.[13] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Postal service rated it at number 12 on her list of the all-time political movies ever fabricated.[14]
Accolades [edit]
Television set adaptation [edit]
On April 27, 2017, Borderline reported that Barry Levinson, Robert De Niro, and Tom Fontana were developing a television series based on the pic for HBO. De Niro's Tribeca Productions was to co-produce forth with Levinson and Fontana'southward visitor.[27]
"Wag the canis familiaris" term and usage [edit]
The political phrase wag the domestic dog is used to bespeak that attention is purposely being diverted from something of greater importance to something of lesser importance. The idiom stems from the 1870s. In a local newspaper, The Daily Republican: "Calling to heed Lord Dundreary's conundrum, the Baltimore American thinks that for the Cincinnati Convention to command the Autonomous party would be the 'tail wagging the dog'."[28]
The phrase, then and now, indicates a backwards situation in which a small and seemingly unimportant entity (the tail) controls a bigger, more than important one (the domestic dog). It was once more used in the 1960s. The picture became a "reality" the year subsequently it was released, due to the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. Days after the scandal broke, President Bill Clinton ordered missile strikes confronting 2 countries, Transitional islamic state of afghanistan and Sudan.[29] During his impeachment proceedings, Clinton likewise bombed Iraq, drawing further "wag the dog" accusations[30] and with the scandal still on the public's mind in March 1999, his administration launched a bombing entrada confronting Yugoslavia.[31]
Encounter also [edit]
- Astroturfing, a controversial public relations practise depicted in the film
- Canadian Salary and Wrong Is Correct, films about an American state of war started for similar reasons
References [edit]
- ^ a b Turan, Kenneth (December 24, 1997). "'Wag the Dog' Is a Comedy With Some Real Bite to Information technology". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved April xviii, 2017.
A gloriously cynical blackness comedy that functions every bit a wicked smart satire on the interlocking earth of politics and show business ...
- ^ "Wag the Dog (1997)". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved April 2, 2017.
- ^ "Wag the Domestic dog Back In Spotlight". CNN. August 20, 1998. Archived from the original on September 15, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
- ^ "Cohen criticizes 'wag the dog' characterization". CNN. March 23, 2004. Retrieved Oct eight, 2018.
- ^ Reed, Julia (April 11, 1999). "Welcome to Wag the Canis familiaris Iii". The Contained.
- ^ "Idiom: wag the dog". UsingEnglish.com. Retrieved May 22, 2011.
- ^ "Tiger Plays Information technology Cool Under Large-true cat Force per unit area". Orlando Sentinel. Apr 5, 1998. Retrieved April 5, 2013.
- ^ Welkos, Robert W. (May 11, 1998). "Giving Credit Where It's Due - Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ Byrne, Bridget (Dec 23, 1997). "Woof and Warp of "Domestic dog" Screen Credit". E! Online. Retrieved June one, 2011.
- ^ "Wag The Dog". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved June nine, 2021.
- ^ "Wag The Dog". Metacritic . Retrieved December 26, 2011.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (January 2, 1998). "Wag The Domestic dog". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved April 18, 2017.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (December 31, 1997). "The Best 10 Movies of 1997". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved Feb 22, 2019.
- ^ Ann Hornaday (January 23, 2020). "Perspective | The 34 all-time political movies ever fabricated". Washington Mail service.
- ^ "The 70th Academy Awards (1998) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion picture Arts and Sciences. AMPAS. Archived from the original on Nov ix, 2014. Retrieved November 19, 2011.
- ^ "Nominees/Winners". Casting Society of America. Retrieved Jan 6, 2019.
- ^ "Berlinale: 1998 Prize Winners". berlinale.de . Retrieved January 23, 2012.
- ^ "BAFTA Awards: Film in 1999". BAFTA. 1999. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
- ^ "The BFCA Critics' Choice Awards :: 1997". Broadcast Movie Critics Clan. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008. Retrieved January vii, 2014.
- ^ "Wag the Dog – Gold Globes". HFPA . Retrieved July 5, 2021.
- ^ "1997 Laurels Winners". National Lath of Review . Retrieved July five, 2021.
- ^ "Past Awards". National Order of Picture show Critics . Retrieved July 5, 2021.
- ^ "2nd Annual Motion picture Awards (1997)". Online Moving-picture show & Tv set Association . Retrieved May fifteen, 2021.
- ^ "1998 Satellite Awards". Satellite Awards . Retrieved Baronial 24, 2021.
- ^ "The fourth Almanac Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Club Awards. Archived from the original on November ane, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
- ^ "Writers Society Awards Winners". WGA. 2010. Archived from the original on May 25, 2012. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
- ^ Petski, Denise (April 27, 2017). "'Wag The Dog' One-act Serial In Works At HBO". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Business organization Media, LLC. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
- ^ Wei Kong, Wong (November 19, 2016). "A canis familiaris's life". The Business concern Times . Retrieved November xviii, 2019.
- ^ Dallek, Robert (August 21, 1998). "Are Clinton's Bombs Wagging the Canis familiaris?". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Saletan, William (December 20, 1998). "Wag the Doubt". Slate.com . Retrieved January 4, 2020.
- ^ Sciolino, Elaine; Bronner, Ethan (Apr 18, 1999). "How a President, Distracted by Scandal, Entered Balkan State of war". The New York Times.
External links [edit]
- Wag the Dog at IMDb
- Wag the Dog at AllMovie
- Wag the Canis familiaris at the TCM Movie Database
- Wag the Dog at Box Part Mojo
- Wag the Dog at Rotten Tomatoes
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog
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