‘The Brink’ A Different View of Steve Bannon
By Sydney Levine & Peter Belsito
The film follows Steve Bannon from when he left his Trump affiliation in summer 2017 to recent months.
Much gentler than the Erroll Morris’ picture American Dharma which nobody wanted to pick up for distribution because his insane brilliance is there for everyone to cringe upon seeing, this fly on the wall portrayal of Bannon sometimes is spread too thin with activities of a dangerous man constantly on the move and whose entire being is dedicated to pushing forward his vision.
Producer of The Brink, Marie Therese Guirgis, worked with Steve Bannon when he was head of the US film distribution company Wellspring. They kept in touch and over many years and requests, she finally persuaded him to make this movie.
Review by Peter Belsito:
The director/ cinematographer, Alison Klayman, had seemingly free access to the man and his meetings.
I think a film about a character such as Bannon — a man who has floated through the halls of power and is trying to get back to spread extreme nationalism globally — is of natural interest.
First about him. This next NOT in film.
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy for seven years in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
After his military service, he worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker, and left as vice president.
In 1993, he became acting director of the research project Biosphere 2. In the 1990s, he became an executive producer in Hollywood, and produced 18 films between 1991 and 2016.
He took Robbie Little’s international sales company public under the banner Overseas Film Group and then was CEO of Wellspring Media.
In 2007, he co-founded Breitbart News, a far-right website which he described in 2016 as “the platform for the alt-right”.
In August 2016, Bannon was named the chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.
Appointed Chief Strategist in the Trump administration, he left this position on August 18, 2017 and rejoined Breitbart.
After leaving the White House, Bannon opposed the establishment Republican Party and supported insurgent candidates in Republican primaries.
After the far right Roy Moore, supported by Bannon, lost the 2017 United States Senate election in Alabama by 1.7%, Bannon’s reputation as a political strategist was questioned.
In January 2018, Bannon was disavowed by Trump for critical comments reported in the book Fire and Fury and he then left Breitbart.
Now the film.
The film mostly follows him from summer 2017 to the 2018 election route for the Republicans.
So we watch as he moves in various right-wing circles, endless meetings, rallies, etc.
The film tracks him in the ultra-right world.
I have to say I thought his discussions and observations were interesting. The deep ultra-right is hardly (for me at least) a familiar topic and I found it quite fascinating.
Almost exclusively showing older white males (like Bannon) the film climaxes in the November 2018 congressional election which was seen as a repudiation of Republican right-wing politics, Trump and Bannon as well. One might recall the Democrats took over the House and many women and minorities were elected.
The filmmaker follows Bannon through endless meetings and even to rallies where Bannon addresses and sometimes even taunts the crowd.
It gets very interesting when Bannon connects with European ultra-rightists.
The feeling of the film is that Bannon and his ultra-right colleagues represent a social minority and, while dedicated to their extreme views, seem isolated. It feels sometimes they are organizing small businesses as opposed to a movement to transform society and deport millions. I found the blandness fascinating, curious. I always think of the far right as violent lunatics. Here they seem to be boring small business types. Including Bannon. No magnetic leader here.
The thought also occurs to me as a filmmaker that for anything — meetings etc. — where there was conflict or ??? the film crew might have been purposely excluded. Bannon might have agreed to doing a film for vanity reasons.
But Bannon for me nonetheless is an interesting figure digging on the far right to come up with ‘something’ interesting, bigger and, well let’s say it, more disruptive.
In a political and social manner. He seems to hunger for the ‘big show’. As the film demonstrates he’s not there yet — or maybe never. Once upon a time, he was a ‘bigger shot’ — or more important — and now he’s a guy going through the paces.
I liked seeing his struggles and frustrations. Like him or not he’s an interesting and kind of important character. And so it seems here — a real loser.
The 90 minute documentary film is Directed by Alison Klayman.
U.S. distributor is Magnolia.
