John Kerry's Big Screen Test

[JI7]

<WITH the air-conditioning off to avoid extraneous sound as the camera rolled, George Butler and Max Cleland sat a scant three feet apart here in the sticky-hot party room of Mr. Cleland's apartment building, doing their bit to get their mutual friend John Kerry elected leader of the free world.

Mr. Cleland — a veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, then went on to share six years in the Senate with Mr. Kerry — expertly wove together lines from the candidate's stump speech, a tribute to Mr. Kerry's courage and his own war story. Mr. Butler, a photographer-filmmaker who has called Mr. Kerry a close friend since they met at a summer barbecue 40 years back, captured the whole thing on camera, silently rolling his hand in the air to encourage Mr. Cleland to keep the good words flowing.

After 90 minutes, the hot lights went dark. "Thank you for casting the spotlight on an incredible guy," Mr. Cleland said. "John loves you, and he trusts you implicitly."

"There are those on the boat, and those off the boat," he added, looping Mr. Butler, who escaped the draft as a Vista volunteer in Detroit, into the closeness Mr. Kerry feels for his Navy crew. "You're on the boat."

And so unfolded a scene from the newly crowded nexus of film and politics, where instead of trying to compete with summer movies, politicians seem to be starring in them.>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/movies/27WILG.html


From George Butler's documentary about John Kerry: Mr. Kerry at the 1972 Democratic National Convention; marrying his first wife, Julia Thorne; attending a meeting of veterans against the Vietnam War.