On Thursday, February 21, the comedy drama “Power” about the life and political career of the 46th US Vice President Dick Cheney will be released in Russia.
The tape describes the events of several decades of the life of one of the most influential politicians of the United States. The story begins in 1963, when 22-year-old cinema Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) drives around the roads of Wyoming drunk as a lanyard, and ends in the 2000s, when Cheney becomes the second person in the United States government to make key political decisions.
In a biopic with a non-linear plot, it describes how an ordinary electrician patiently makes his way, trying to embody, mainly, the ambitions of his wife Lynn (Amy Adams) and partly his own. The picture is generously diluted with inserts with humor, documentary chronicles and flashbacks.
The director's chair went to Adam Mackay, who became famous for his Oscar-winning "Short Game". The main role in the film was played by Christian Bale (Christopher Nolan's trilogy about Batman, “American Hustle”, “The Machinist”, “Fighter”). Also in the tape were Steve Carell (“The Game for the Fall”, “The Beautiful Boy”), Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards on the Border of Ebbing, Missouri”, “Seven Psychopaths”) and Amy Adams (“American Scam”, “Fighter ").
The film received eight nominations for the prestigious Academy Award, which will be presented on February 24th. In addition, in January, the comedy-dramatic biopic brought Bale the Golden Globe statuette for the best male role.
Become Dick Cheney
The figure of Dick Cheney is ambiguous, but his role in the political life of the United States in the late 1980s and early 2000s is difficult to overestimate. When the politician served as defense minister, the United States conducted military operations "Storm in the Desert" in Iraq and "Just Cause" in Panama, which not everyone supported even in America itself. In doing so, McKay and Bale worked to show Cheney on the positive side.
“This man played an incredible role in politics and had a real, impressive weight in the government. I told Adam (Mackay. - RT ) right from the start that I want to show Cheney in a positive way, because the story can be quite ambiguous. It was important to intrigue and surprise the audience, regardless of their personal political ideas. For this, it was necessary to approach the role of Cheney sincerely, with a soul, ”said Bale.
To transform into politics, Bale put a lot of effort. In addition to the obvious weight gain, the actor needed to get used to the image, studying archival videos, working with a speech therapist at pronunciation and with a choreographer at a pace. As a result, Christian Bale turned out to be almost indistinguishable from the present US Vice President under George W. Bush (in the film, Sam Rockwell).
Cheney Bale is at first a mediocre but purposeful young man who is ready to patiently knock on the thresholds of political "internships" in order to become the gray cardinal of American politics in the future. At the same time, in McKay's biopic, he is a caring and loving family man who places family relationships and personal privacy at the forefront.
"Shadow President"
Dick Cheney began his political career in 1969 in the office of Congressman William Steiger, and then became an assistant to Donald Rumsfeld, who headed the Bureau of Economic Situation under President Richard Nixon. In 1975, Cheney headed the White House, and from 1978 to 1989 he was elected to the US House of Representatives six times.
In 1989, George Bush, Sr. appointed Cheney as Secretary of Defense. It was under his command that the US military invaded Panama and took part in the Gulf War. At that time, Cheney was a popular politician among Americans, and as a result of the Gulf War he even won a special parade in New York in his honor.
- Christian Bale and Dick Cheney
- © Shot from the film "Power" (2018) / Wikimedia Commons
From 1995 to 2000, Cheney served as chairman of the board of directors of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies. Cheney left the corporation after George W. Bush suggested that he go to the polls as his vice president.
To make Cheney an even more powerful politician, film director and screenwriter Adam McKay made several historical inaccuracies. So, Dick Cheney appears as the architect of tax reform and the author of the idea of the famous speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN meeting, where the US invasion of Iraq was discussed. In fact, these decisions were individually made by George W. Bush.
During his vice-presidency, Dick Cheney advocated expanding the US military presence in the Middle East. In 2003, before the invasion of the American army in Iraq, Cheney was asked if he believed that the Americans were ready for a “protracted, expensive and bloody” war.
“I do not think that everything will turn out exactly that way. I sincerely believe that we will be greeted as liberators, ”the Vice-President said then.
Dick Cheney has actively advocated the expansion of presidential power in the United States — under his leadership, the Bush administration has actively challenged the laws of the times of the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal that limit this power. Cheney himself called it the restoration of the "prestige of the institution of the presidency."
Cheney also had a great influence on the decision-making on the development of the so-called extended interrogation methods - the torture of suspected terrorists in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
American political scientists and publicists have repeatedly called Dick Cheney the most influential vice president in US history. In 2007, The Washington Post described him as a “shadow president”, without whose advice Bush junior did not take a single important decision.