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Stefan Forbes Explores the Boogie Man of American Politics
New documentary traces the impact of Republican strategist Harvey Leroy "Lee" Atwater
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MM: The amount of archival footage in Boogie Man is amazing. You had so many clips of Atwater that seemed cinematically appropriate, as if a director couldn’t have staged it better; shots of Atwater conspicuously lingering in the background of Bush’s press conferences, a great photo still of Atwater and Ed Rollins standing on either side of a half-closed doorway occupied by Ronald Reagan as Rollins describes the way in which Atwater stabbed him in the back. What was the process like of going through so much archival footage? How much did you go through and how long did it take?
SF: I had to go through mountains of unaired network master tapes and endless stacks of photographs to find that stuff. It took forever and often felt like a treasure hunt, peeking through the Bush family’s secret home movies. I kept finding fascinating moments in American political history that had never been told. I had two years to produce the film and I was mostly working alone.
MM: How did you decide which footage to use?
SF: Some things just leap off the screen, like Atwater introducing George W. Bush as “my number one soul mate” or Atwater denying to Leslie Stahl ["60 Minutes"] that he’s even seen the Willie Horton ad. You have to fit them in, even if it requires a detour. But you can’t add too many detours or you blunt the emotional experience of the film. Especially when I’m cutting by myself, I hold a rigorous series of focus groups where my producers and trusted friends rip scenes to shreds. It’s brutal, and you can’t take everyone’s advice, but the process always helps.
SF: The film exposes McCain’s strategy in amazing detail, as he’s hired Atwater disciples to run his campaign. Most Democratic strategists fell for Atwater’s ‘bad boy’ image and missed the enduring power of his culture war arguments. They let their party get painted as elitists and people who don’t put country first. Filmmakers will understand how Atwater did it because we know what Republican strategists have learned: Too much talking undercuts emotional impact. It’s like football—where the opposition will keep running a play until you figure out how to stop it. If we don’t learn from Atwater’s legacy, it will continue to rule American politics. I believe this film is urgent viewing for voters in both parties.
MM: Tucker Eskew, a senior McCain advisor, draws comparisons in the documentary between Atwater’s life and Greek tragedy. Do you think it’s safe to say that Atwater’s deus ex machina was his brain tumor? Then again, your film ends skeptically as to whether Atwater had changed at all. In your opinion, did he?
SF: People undergoing profound changes fascinate me; illness and catastrophe can spark that. I think he changed a lot. His friends say he was racked by guilt, terrified of going to hell and desperately searching for truth and meaning. But he never apologized for the things he’d done, as was reported. He still believed in politics as war.
MM: Then what does that mean for us? Do you believe we can move past the current dirty politics Atwater introduced and change or are we like him, trapped in them forever?
SF: Like Atwater in his final days, I think America’s deeply conflicted about truth and morality. We’ve always loved the gangster and the bad boy, especially when they’re scraping their way to the top. So much of our national mythology is about winning and being number one. Yet Atwater’s life shows the costs of that philosophy; his friends describe him as never satisfied, never at peace. In the end, the winner-take-all philosophy wasn’t enough.
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