Prototype Issue
Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains
By Jeremy Cohen
(page 1 of 1)Demme's reverential Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains brings us into the swirling controversy surrounding the brave former President, but falls short of offering audiences a new inspiring message.
Call me a product of lowered expectations that an articulate and thoughtful president can come as a surprise. Jonathan Demme’s new documentary, Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains, joins An Inconvenient Truth in resurrecting politics as a viable career option for do-gooders. But where Al Gore’s political rejuvenation came from Truth’s direct, hushed-tone advocacy, Demme’s film is content to amble with Carter as it charts his 2006 book tour for his controversial Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Demme’s reverence for Carter is palpable, and Demme is keen on enumerating every way Carter should be sanctified: He’s a man of faith! He’s a Southerner! He brokered peace between Israel and Egypt! He flies coach with us plebeian! As silly as this mythologizing can get, Demme’s view of Carter as a living refutation of the Christian right’s mangled faith and our Commander-in-Chief’s warmongering carries weight in this political climate. Though Carter’s compassion and understanding is admirable, political puff pieces are the last thing that we need in the final years under the Bush administration. Fortunately, Man From Plains does not dwell on this suffocating hagiography, and is quick to move onto the book tour, the meat of the film.
It’s no secret that American media finds sound bites more appetizing than complexity and nuance. While Carter’s book fuels a massive controversy—not unexpected when you compare Israel to South Africa under apartheid—it’s not the type that furthers debate. The “apartheid” in the title draws the greatest fire, and as the tour continues, media outlets give up even the pretense of discussing the Israeli-Palestine issue in favor of talking about the controversy per se. The media’s reporting becomes increasingly reductive: CNN can’t even be bothered to discuss the book beyond its cover photo, and one outlet doesn’t even give Carter the dignity of remembering the book’s title. Jay Leno can be excused for this type of lax interviewing, but doesn’t CNN have interns to thumb through these books before interviews? Even the more self-aware hosts fail to escape this media cycle: Tavis Smiley, who frankly explains the shortcomings of the coverage of Carter when pressed by Demme, returns to the banal issue the book’s title when given the chance to talk with the former president on his show.
Man From Plains can be seen as the flip side of The Agronomist, Demme’s 2003 documentary about Haitian radio journalist Jean Dominique. But where The Agronomist is effusive in its enthusiasm for the democratizing possibilities of media, Man From Plains is considerably more bleak. The inanity of the media put on display here makes the otherwise gentle Man of Plains as demoralizing a document of life in the aughts as any of the other lefty documentaries that have emerged from the film festival circuit in recent years. Demme doesn’t have to prod hard to provide commentary about the decline of the fourth estate; the parade of talk shot hosts eager to hang themselves with their own words is enough.
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