All The King's Men

Saw the new version of All the Kings Men with Sean Penn, Jude Law and Kate Winslet. The film was a colossal bore. I hated the over dramatic sound track. The main message seemed to be that there is no good, all politicians are corrupt; and you’re better off with your crook in office. I came across a review in Crisis Magazine and this interesting tidbit.

In 1949, John Wayne turned down the original role of Stark, writing a heated letter to his agent explaining why. Wayne felt that the script “smears the machinery of government for no purpose of humor or enlightenment” and “degrades all relationships,” being rife with “drunken mothers; conniving fathers; double-crossing sweethearts; bad, bad, rich people, and bad, bad, poor people.” To Wayne, the film demeaned not only the American system of government but “the American way of life.” These are very serious accusations that apply to the novel as well. Does the story of these two cynical men who fall deeper and deeper into nihilism—living in a world in which, as Stark explains, there’s no morality and “you just make it up as you go along”—have anything useful to say about corruption, apathy, betrayal, or cynicism? Not really, and this is the real problem at the source of Zaillian’s failed script and film.