Television, Movies & The Presidency: All The Way (2016)

 

Written  by Robert Schenkkan

Directed by Jay Roach

“Everybody wants power. Everybody. And if they say they don’t, they’re lying. But they all think it ought to be given out free, like Mardi Gras beads. Cause they’re gonna do good with it. Nothing comes free. Not even good.”

 

By January of 2014 I already knew what an extraordinary actor Bryan Cranston was; he had already won the Golden Globe and SAG award for what would be his fourth and final Emmy for his iconic performance as Walter White on Breaking Bad’s magnificent final season which officially put among the echelon of one of the greatest shows in the history of television. As longtime readers of my column are aware, I had come very late to acknowledging both him and the series part in TV’s pantheon but it didn’t make me realize its greatness any less.

That still didn’t prepare me for the initial TV ads for All The Way on Broadway which began with an announcement saying: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States and a slow closeup of a television with Lyndon Johnson speaking. To be clear it was Bryan Cranston – I knew that was his next role – but as someone who has seen so many pictures of the 36^th President in books and media, Cranston might as well have been Johnson both in appearance and accent. When the ad finished with him saying: “It’s not personal. It’s just politics” with a drawl remarkably close to his, I knew I had to see this play which was running in a limited engagement.

I managed to that spring, in the very cheap seats. But even from a great distance it was impossible not to have your attention commanded by Cranston as he played Johnson during the first tumultuous year of his Presidency, from the assassination of JFK to his determination to get the landmark Civil Rights Act through Congress through his doubts on the eve of the Democratic convention to his electoral landslide in November. The play ended on election night, the height of his power.

It was a superb play on every respect with a cast of 20 all playing critical characters in the orbit of Johnson during that incredible period but Cranston absolutely carried the day in every way. Deservedly he won the Best Dramatic Actor Tony that year.

In the next year he would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for playing the title role in the remarkable Trumbo and by that time – in the midst of that watershed political year – it had been announced HBO was going to adapt the play for television. By that point HBO was more invested in the incredible original series it made then the TV movies that had first put in on the map for Emmys. But it was still capable of putting out exceptional TV movies: such films as Behind the Candelabra and Bessie had been powerhouses for the past two years and that same year they would make Confirmation a docudrama on Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill’s testimony. (Greg Kinnear portrayed Joe Biden in that film, by the way.) Nor was this the first time that they had done a TV movie about LBJ as President; in 2003 Michael Gambon had played Johnson in John Frankenheimer’s Path to War, in what turned out to be the legendary directors final movie before his passing. (I will probably get to that film later on.)

All The Way debuted on HBO on May 21, just on the cusp of eligibility for the 2016 Emmys. As I’ve mentioned in different articles on the subject the Emmys was on the verge of changing its process of giving the bulk of its nominations in the TV Movie/Limited Series category almost exclusively to the latter starting with 2015-2016 season. All The Way was one of the last TV movies to receive the kind of treatment from the Emmys and other award shows when it came to nominations: it was nominated for 8 Emmys, including Best TV Movie, Best Actor in a TV Movie/Limited Series for Cranston and Best Supporting Actress for Melissa Leo as Lady Bird Johnson. The film didn’t win a single award - Cranston would lose to Courtney B. Vance for The People Vs. OJ Simpson while Leo lost to Regina King for the second season of American Crime – and I can’t fault the Emmys for either of the choices there.

Shenkman adapted his own play for television and just as with Peter Morgan for his version of Frost/Nixon he expanded the world to the limits of film while keeping the fundamental story essentially the same. There are frequent cuts to meetings between groups of political leaders and the floor of Congress as well as various members of the civil rights movement. There is also an expansion on the TV news coverage of historic events that was there in some form in the play with some expansions: we see footage of George Wallace campaigning in primaries, Barry Goldwater giving his notorious acceptance speech at the Republican convention, and a fair amount of results from various election night coverage. But Shenkman by and large does nothing to change the scope of his masterpiece for public consumption and he’s allowed to expand Johnson’s world a bit more than the White House.

The tag line for All The Way when it first came out on Broadway as ‘Hero. Bully. President.” Shenkman does nothing to hide the second part of that phrase, arguing that it was that part of Johnson’s personality that allowed him to be a hero and made him one of the best Presidents in history. At the same time, Shenkman does nothing to hide how that part of his nature could make Johnson frequently crude and monstrous and how he could turn on people when he felt he was being betrayed. Most bullies do have a deep-seated sense of inadequacy and Johnson clearly had it.

In fairness, considering how so many of his contemporaries and later historians have blamed him for so much of what happened in his second term, even going so far as to accusing him of being behind JFK’s assassination, it is hard not to blame Johnson for the feeling of persecution. Shenkman makes this clear in the opening by having the film begin in Dallas in the minutes after Kennedy’s assassination. We see him flying back on Air Force One, dealing with the shock of what has happened as much as anyone else. He looks back at Jackie Kennedy (seen wearing the clothes stained with the blood of her husband) and clearly knows the implication. We see him walk into the Oval Office for the first time. Lady Bird calls him Mr. President. “They’ll call me the accidental President,” he says sadly. “Well, we’ll have to change that next November.”

We hear Johnson walking through the halls of Congress on that historic day, thinking of the knives being out and the recurring nightmares of being trapped. When he utters those legendary words: “All that I have I would gladly give to not be standing here today,” we don’t doubt the sincerity and he builds from it. But that is not the point of his address. “For 100 years we have talked about civil rights,” he tells the audience. “The time for talking is done.” As he advocates for the civil rights act whose passage will be the first act of the drama, we see the footage of the various figures and even with knowing nothing about them we know what they think: Hubert Humphrey (Bradley Whitford) standing and applauding vigorously. Richard Russell (Frank Langella) frozen in his tracks, J. Edgar Hoover (Stephen Root) clearly stunned but rising and applauding knowing appearances matter. And Martin Luther King (Anthony Mackie) standing and vigorously clapping.

The next scene establishes Johnson going out of his way to take charge in the Oval Office, telling Humphrey he believes fully in civil rights on the phone, telling Uncle Dick, he’s just posturing, telling J. Edgar Hoover, that he welcomes his support but doesn’t need it. There’s a bit of charm, a lot of crude humor, and quite a bit of rage, all often within seconds of each other. We get a clear sense of Johnson right away: he will say whatever he needs to in order to get people to work with him.

Eventually he has a conversation with King and he makes it very clear how much he cares about civil rights, including voting rights. It’s clear from the start of the talk that Johnson is equivocating on voting rights in front of King because he knows that part of the act will be the dealbreaker in Congress, something he makes clear to Humphrey when the two meet on his ranch. (This scene illustrates how Johnson had a car/boat hybrid something he doesn’t tell Hubert until they drive into the lake.) Johnson tells Humphrey that he can read the political winds: they have eight months to get the bill passed before the convention, and if they don’t the opportunity will dry up. He also knows from the start what this will cost him, not just in terms of his friendship with Russell but politically. “I knew that it was gonna take a Southern President to drag the South into the twentieth century. They’re sure as hell not gonna thank me for it.”

All The Way makes clear the obstruction Johnson is facing on both flanks: the right of America “the Dixiecrats”, which Russell is the dean of, and the left wing which King has influence of. In the cuts between both groups we see how both Russell and King try to advocate for patience and we know historically that’s not going to work.

Russell is magnificently played by Langella, in a performance that earned him a Supporting Actor nomination from the Critics Choice Award. Russell is initially convinced that LBJ is just posturing to give red meat to the liberals. He argues in favor of having a Southern Democrat President and Democratic control of Congress. Russell is clearly not as much a firebreather as Strom Thurmond is (we see him briefly and the movie notes his official change of parties during the course) but it is clear he believes in the old order. This is illustrated subtly by the fact that African-Americans are seen serving drinks and shining his shoes, and he clearly thinks his politeness to them is all that the ‘Negro’ deserves.

King’s problem is more difficult as we see the more activist parts of his flank, most notably Stokely Carmichael and Bob Moses arguing that the best bill they’ve ever gotten as well as Johnson’s promises on the war on poverty are posturing. “40 acres and a mule’, Carmichael says glibly. During this the plan for Freedom Summer is launched, something that clearly alarms Roy Wilkins (Joe Morton in a small but critical role) We can see the fractures in the movement in many of the meetings, particularly when Wilkins learns of the plans to recruit white students to go with African-Americans. Wilkins is terrified about what will happen to the movement if white students are injured or killed; Carmichael seems sanguine about it. “Whereas if a black person gets beaten…”  We can see the divide: King and Wilkins are about winning rights for their people; Carmichael and Moses seem to care more about sending a message to the White House, whether or not that hurts their cause.

Shenkman shows Johnson somewhat more involved in the nuts and bolts of getting the votes needed than he was in reality but that’s a necessary tool for the story he’s trying to tell. What’s also clear is Johnson sincere devotion to civil rights and equality, something that he makes clear in anecdotes he tells to King and to the press. In the latter he says his famous statement: “If a President can’t use his office to do what he knows is right, then what’s a Presidency for?” This was not a view truly shared by his predecessor who by and large thought the Presidency was an extension of the Kennedy name and who spent as much time of his term with lofty rhetoric rarely matched by actual legislation.

The two most important influences on Johnson during this period who aren’t portrayed in the film are Bobby Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, though both are referred to repeatedly and frequently derogatorily by Johnson. It is worth noting he knows the menace that both have but he tries to downplay both. When asked if Kennedy will get in the race, he says to Russell. “He doesn’t have his brother’s balls.” “He’s got his daddy’s money,” Russell reminds him. Shenkman almost certainly exaggerates the threat Johnson sees from Goldwater as opposed to his actual political problem. Humphrey continuous argues that point and men like King dismiss him as a lightweight if not a racist. This is also likely done for the same effect: we need to see how Johnson’s insecurities will play out during the fall campaign and lead him to make some morally questionable decisions – including most critically the decision to expand our involve in Vietnam.

We see Johnson using every possible legislative trick in the book to get the Civil Rights Act through Congress, out of the hold that James Eastland of Mississippi holds on the bill, permanently damaging his relationship with Russell. We then see him wooing Everett Dirksen (Ray Wise in a small but critical role) minority leader – and an old friend of Johnson’s – in order to get Republican votes on the Act without any concession. Then we see him giving the Johnson treatment on William Fulbright, demanding a Senator with a brain tumor come in (“If he’s conscious, he can vote!”) and imploring the necessary Senators on the phone to invoke cloture. But when the bill is signed into law, he knows all too well the cost. His delivery of the famous line, to a jubilant Humphrey, is different: “The Democratic Party just lost the South for the rest of my lifetime. And yours too, most likely. What the f--- are you so happy about?” This is a man who is mourning the loss of the Democratic Party’s strength for nearly a century, not the attitude of the left who seem to think “we’re better off without them”

The second act basically follows more historic events. First we see the disappearance and murders of the three civil rights workers in Mississippi and how Johnson manipulates both the governor and Hoover into investigating. We also see the fallout among the movement and the way that Carmichael and Moses don’t seem sufficiently upset not just at the murders but all the damage to property and the movement for 1200 new voters. Indeed Moses and Carmichael seem more determined to use this as leverage for the Mississippi Freedom Party and demanding political recognition.

This incident at Atlantic City may be portrayed to favor Johnson more than the movement, but it is very much what actually happened. Johnson knew that if the South walked out of the convention because of the placement of the MDFP his chances for being elected in his own right would dissolve on national television. His efforts to work out a compromise clearly don’t please the movement and Mississippi walks out even with the measures of those compromises. At the end of the day this incident did much to further divide the Civil Rights movement but it’s clear that the movement was interested in shocking the consciousness of the nation temporarily, even if that meant the man who voted against the Civil Right Act became President as a result. Johnson clearly turns against King during this period (we see him authorize the wiretapping of the movement) but in hindsight, it’s clear Johnson was more aware of reality then the people on the ground.

Much of the second act does much to show how deep the insecurity of Johnson truly was during this period: while the convention is going on he makes it clear to Russell and Lady Bird that the pressure has become to much for him and he wants to step down. (Historical records prove this was true, even on the days before he was to be nominated.) Johnson is willing to be talked down but we know the threat is there and Cranston makes us feel it every step of the way.

Just as on stage Cranston makes you feel every bit of the personality of LBJ, the good, the bad and the very ugly. (Literally in the last case: we see him conducting strategy sessions on the toilet while an uncomfortable Humphrey tries to avert his eyes.) You never doubt the sincerity of Johnson in anything he says, even though he is more than capable of turning on people in a moment’s notice when he feels insecure. But he is more than willing to make it clear that he may not look like the smartest person in the room but he knows far more than he says. This is particular true in his scenes with Hoover. When Hoover tells LBJ that he doesn’t have a warrant to wiretap, Johnson says meaningfully: “Well, when has that ever stopped you?” And in a later scene when Johnson’s chief aide Walter Jenkins is arrested for deviant behavior, Johnson asks Hoover if he knows of any signs. “You would know,” he says. “In your line of work, of course.”

Melissa Leo’s role as Lady Bird is subtle but clear: she knows the fragility of her husband’s physical and mental health and is always trying to boost both. She knows her role as First Lady and clearly knows her husband’s mercurial moods: late in the film when he turns on her, she walks off and Walter follows her. In a monologue she makes it clear that she knows her husband better than he thinks – including his purported infidelities. “He always comes back to me,” she says. “and he always will.”

The rest of the cast is all superb, some surprisingly so. Those who only know Anthony Mackie for his work in the MCU will be surprised by how nuanced and subtle he is playing one of the most famous men of the 20^th century. Many have played his role over the years  but I prefer his interpretation even to David Oywelyo’s work in Selma two years earlier. Duvernay did too much to make King look like a saint; Mackie makes it very clear that he was more complicated and less revered in his lifetime even among his own followers.

Bradley Whitford inhabits Hubert Humphrey in a performance that shows a man trying to walk a line between his ideals and his ambitions, a road that was never appreciated in his lifetime and ended up costing him the White House. Perhaps, as Johnson said, he cared too much about being nice and didn’t have the ruthless touch. Stephen Root adds another mannered portrayal to his work as Hoover; unlike DiCaprio’s work five years earlier he goes for subtlety and nuance. And Langella is superb as a man who believed very much about principles and unity, even if those principles were so thoroughly wrong to outsiders. When we see him in the final scene, alone and away from the victory celebration, we see a man whose hour on the political stage has passed and he knows it.

In a few short subtitles at the end All The Way tells us how Johnson’s first term ended, the good (The Great Society) and the bad (Vietnam), forcing him to not seek reelection and to die just four years later, fulfilling his prophecy that all men in his family die young. History (perhaps mostly in the works of Robert Caro and Doris Kearns Goodwin) have done much to rehabilitate Johnson’s reputation: the most recent poll of Presidents by historians ranks him 9^th all time.

Perhaps there’s a lesson here. Throughout All The Way we see that Johnson wants to be loved – the same way they clearly loved his predecessor. He never got that when he was alive, and there’s a good reason for that. Kennedy thought respect and love were defined far more image than accomplishment. Johnson thought that accomplishment would bring love. But being beloved in the Oval Office is fleeting compared to what you get done while you’re holding the office. By that standard the reason so many people love Lyndon Johnson now is because of what he accomplished and because these days Presidents care more about their popularity then what they actually do.