“In the Face of Evil” appears in The New York Times
December 06, 2016 Tweet
"In the Face of Evil" Director Stephen Bannon has been the topic of news since his appointment as Donald Trump's Chief Strategist and Senior Counsel. Check out the deep dive into Stephen Bannon's past, including an interview with the film's Co-Director Tim Watkins.
An excerpt from the article is below. For the full article, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/us/politics/steve-bannon-white-house.html
Through films, Mr. Bannon was turning his attention back to politics. Tim Watkins, his co-director on the Reagan documentary, said Mr. Bannon worked from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. “I’ve never known him to, say, go to a ballgame,” he said. But Mr. Watkins found his collaborator’s combativeness wearying.
“Steve thinks everything has to be a fight,” he said. Once, an argument broke out when he told Mr. Bannon that the rough cut of the film, at two hours and 10 minutes, should be trimmed further. Angry, Mr. Bannon “actually flipped over the table,” Mr. Watkins said.
At first, he recalled, before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they intended to make a standard biopic. But the attacks “changed the film radically,” Mr. Watkins said. Mr. Reagan’s Cold War battles merged with the coda, which showed the hijacked airliners hitting the World Trade Center and people jumping to their deaths.
“Steve crafted a lot of the big ideas,” Mr. Watkins said, notably that “life is a battle of good and evil, and history repeats itself.”
Lou Cannon, a Reagan biographer, rejects comparisons of Mr. Reagan and Mr. Trump. He notes that Mr. Reagan had been governor of California before becoming president, never demonized opponents and signed a law giving amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants. Nonetheless, Mr. Watkins sees striking similarities and is sure Mr. Bannon does, too. In the Reagan memorabilia he accumulated while working on the film, Mr. Watkins said, he recently found some lapel stickers.
“Let’s Make America Great Again,” they read.