Peter Bart: In Films As In Reality, Mistakes At Political Conventions Can Portend Surprises
Peter Bart Editor-At-LargeThe Republican convention this week delivered cool optics, sharp reality television and an ominous threat to public health, in the opinion of most media critics.“A political convention is like a movie trailer; if a party messes up, it will likely mess up the election,” according to Franklin J. Schaffner, a politically savvy filmmaker (Patton) who was also a key adviser to the Democratic Party during its self-demolition in 1968.The Democratic convention that year is, in fact, the setting for a new movie from another filmmaker, Aaron Sorkin, who became fascinated by “The Year the Democrats Lost Their Mind” – a famous Washington Post headline.