A look inside the 1992 presidential race, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hedgus’ documentary The War Room explores the backstage side of national politics by examining the day-to-day operations of Bill Clinton’s campaign staff. The behind-the-scenes leader of the group is James Carville, the demonstrative, charismatic campaign manager who relies on a plain-speaking manner and emotional appeals to motivate his subordinates.

He is complemented by the quieter, smoother personality and photogenic looks of young press spokesman George Stephanopoulous. The filmmakers follow these two contrasting personalities from the January New Hampshire primary to Clinton’s eventual victory, as they attempt to cling to an overall strategic plan while dealing with unforeseen problems and negative press, as their candidate is saddled with accusations of adultery and draft-dodging.

Subplots include the rivalries between Democratic campaign staffs — which can become amusingly petty, as when they accuse each other of tearing down campaign posters — and the romantic relationship between Carville and Mary Matalin, chief strategist for George Bush’s campaign. Co-director D.A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop, Don’t Look Back, Primary) is renowned as an innovator in the use of cinema-verite, used here to show both the mundane complications and the emotional highlights of the modern political process. (Barnes & Noble)

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Documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back) and Chris Hegedus shot behind-the-scenes at command central for Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign and came up with this film. You won’t find the kind of daily damage-control and skirt-chasing indirectly alleged in Primary Colors, but the filmmakers do give us a strong sense of the uphill battle of a presidential campaign.

The center of the film is really James Carville, who steered the machine for Clinton’s ‘92 run and who comes across in this film as a deeply passionate, complex, and somehow timeless man who could have fit into any chapter of American history. The somewhat deranged charm of James Carville, the chief strategist of Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaign, dominates D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’s exhilarating documentary.

Although the film may not supply many new insights into the process of choosing a President, it gives us plenty of fresh data about the nature of political commitment and it does justice, too, to the sheer reckless pleasure of electoral gamesmanship. And Carville is the largest, most resonant character in recent American movies, someone whose work is such a complete expression of his personality that you can’t help laughing: the unity of this life and this art seems too good to be true. (Amazon)