Crawford is David Modigliani’s documentary focused on the small, conservative town of quiet Crawford, Texas. A tiny town at just 700 residents, it used to be nothing but unremarkable until George W. Bush’s relocation there shortly before his presidential campaign.
What makes Crawford so fascinating is that its subjects appear as the victims of historical chance: Bush’s celebrity ignites the tourism economy before his plummeting popularity extinguishes it. Crawford’s residents must also endure the loud, angry peaceniks that come from across the country to protest the Iraq War. As they cope with the strange company of visiting Saudi princes, frustrated hippies and curious tourists, it’s easy to identify with their plight, wishing right alongside them that they could be left damn well alone.
The film’s strength is derived from its honesty to its subjects, never stuffing them into easy stereotypes; there are several touching exchanges between characters on both sides of the political spectrum. And eventually, even Bush’s most ardent supporters capture a sense of melancholy and disenchantment so that the town becomes something of a metaphor for the troubled presidency America has endured.
Special screenings have occurred across the country, but the film is now currently available on Hulu.com (for free) or on DVD.
NYPress: I get the sense that you started with the intention of unmasking the folksy-narrative of the Bush presidency and wound up telling a different story. How did this change come about and what is the story you think you wound up with?
Modigliani: I think that’s right and well put. I did go in with the intention of unmasking the origin myth and the folksy image of Bush that his communication staff had created. Ultimately I found a much more compelling story in the people of Crawford. That shift happened because of just how colorful the people in Crawford were. They came across so well on camera and were so engaging that they began to interest me more than a political statement.
The biggest step away from a political essay and towards a people’s history of the Bush era was a realization that the story could be told from the point of view of the people of Crawford than a strong-armed, hand-of-the-filmmaker narrative. At the beginning we realized we really wanted to tell the story from the inside out. There’s no narrator, there’s no text slates, the whole film is told by these characters. We wound up in a different place than where we started and I think it’s for the better.
Your film certainly debunks some of the president’s mythmaking, particularly the media’s reaction to it. The McCain and Obama campaigns engaged in their own mythmaking to different degrees, but how far was the wool pulled over our eyes?
I think that political narratives are nothing new and, while Bush’s may have been particularly exaggerated and particularly well-executed, they have been around forever. Bill Clinton, for example, “the man from Hope, Arkansas”; it makes for a good story.
It seemed to me that the McCain campaign began with a narrative about a steely, strong warrior, a battle-tested leader. But as time went on their message varied a fair amount. The Obama campaign stuck fairly strongly to a message of change.
I think Obama’s narrative was particularly compelling: We heard [about] Obama’s parentage a lot. That was to explain who he was and to appeal to a wide demographic. It was to highlight how he, as a single person, contains many elements of American society: the grandson of a man who fought in Patton’s army, mother from Kansas, father from Kenya. His narrative was varied in a way that Bush’s and McCain’s really wasn’t. His narrative allowed different groups to tap into his story because of the many elements the story has.
After he left the White House, Bush arrived in Midland, Texas, and remarked: “Tonight I have the privilege of saying six words that I have been waiting to say for a while: It is good to be home.” What do you think about this statement in light of the film? Was Bush’s true home really this wealthier suburb and not the small town he moved into?
It is very interesting, and it certainly illustrates how much Crawford served as something specific to his candidacy and presidential image. He was born in Connecticut, spent time in Midland, lost a congressional race there (his first political campaign). And he lost because I think he was successfully painted as a carpetbagger. Kent Hance, his opponent later recalled Bush saying, “I will never be out-Christianed or out-good-ol-boyed again.” You can see how that links into the choice of Crawford. I found it strange he would turn from Midland and call Crawford home after six months. It would seem he calls home whatever place is convenient.
The film offers up a depiction of small-town America in a remarkably neutral light. When I think of other successful documentaries set in Middle America (Jesus Camp comes to mind,) more often than not I found the depiction frightening and alienating. How did you avoid this in Crawford?
It really came from being so engaged by the people of Crawford and finding them to be so warm and hospitable and generous such that I could have a conversation with someone for half an hour that I really enjoyed. They might say something that I really disagreed with politically but it didn’t diminish the connection we made. These people of Crawford might have conservative viewpoints but they were very kind to me.
Probably more importantly, I had a real intention of not judging the characters by way of editing. It would have been very easy to set these characters up. We tried to make most of the humor come directly from them not the editing, being careful that we weren’t making fun of them. It makes for a more interesting story when you can’t pigeonhole the characters.
I think a great example is Ricky Smith, the horse-breaker. I’ve heard a lot of people simultaneously love this guy and want to hear more of his stories and be repulsed by his notion that Cindy Sheehan should be hung for treason.
I think we’re drawn into a red-blue dichotomy and asking an audience to hold both at once is something I really wanted to do. I think I experienced that and that it really comes through in the film.
One of the most interesting sequences of the film depicts Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war mobs pulling into town and stirring things up. Despite my own anti-war feelings, I found myself sympathizing with the residents and wishing the protesters would leave. Has this been the typical reaction? What were your own feelings about the situation?
As best I can tell, when I’ve watched audiences respond, by that point in the film I think the audience has arrived at a certain level of empathy and identification with the residents of Crawford. These are the protagonists of the story. One sees the arrival of these protesters as outsiders in the same way that Bush is an outsider. Crawford becomes ground zero for this national conflict over the war.
On the one hand, I thought it was exciting stuff and going to make for a much stronger film. I think because we were filming before that happened—for example, getting the Crawford high school students’ response—allowed us to reinforce the inside-out narrative of the film.
Whereas my politics might line up with Cindy more than Bush, from the film’s point of view, they both come in as outsiders to use the town as a symbol. Bush used it to create his folksy image and Cindy arrived to say if you’re a folksy guy, lean over the fence to talk to me. But the people in Crawford are real people, not symbols.
Arguably, some of the residents of Crawford are themselves outsiders to their own town and this seems an important theme in your narrative: alienation versus fitting in. What do you think it says about Americans feeling like “outsiders” in the Bush era, alienated from their own country?
I worked very closely with my editor in this process and as we came to see Crawford as a microcosm for the country and the arc of experience in the country for the last eight years. We came to see how dissenters were ostracized. I think the notion of “you’re either with us or against us” was being played out in small towns across the country. You see people with more progressive viewpoints really ostracized.
In the film we tried to show what happened to the dissenters in Crawford. That builds from a kid whose teacher gets overreacted to, to the newspaper publisher that endorses Kerry and gets run out of town, to the progressive teacher who gets alienated to the point of leaving town, to Tom Warlick’s suicide. We tried very hard to show that his suicide was not the product of the town. But by the end of the film, three progressive-minded dissenters have left town, two have moved out and one is dead. I think that echoes how dissenters were marginalized to the point of disrespect in the Bush era.
What was Crawford’s reaction to having his suicide on screen?
We did talk to most of the characters in the film after screening in Crawford. I think you saw some of the people in town share in the tragic feeling that accompanied the suicide. I think you had others who were sad and shocked by the death and were thinking more about him as a troubled kid rather than the ways in which the town was creating an environment not supporting kids of all political viewpoints.
Hopefully the film brought that to light in a way that the news of his death around town had not.
One of the most interesting angles of the film is how the Bush’s arrival revitalizes industry within the town. But towards the end of the film, we see a store-owner moving out and closing shop. Was the economic boom short-lived? Has the recent financial crisis changed anything significantly for Crawford?
There’s absolutely been a financial boom and bust. The stores have closed down and tourist traffic has ebbed almost entirely. I think they anticipated it happening at the end of his presidency but the fact it happened years before he was out of office was a real shock. I think the boom had busted before the financial crisis occurred, so it had less of an effect.
I didn’t realize everything closed up so soon.
Norma Nelson-Crow closed up shop in Oct. 31, 2006. In a complete coincidence, that was the same day that Tom Warlick committed suicide. I think that Bush’s popularity declining was one major cause of that downturn. But also, that summer of protest which changed the tone of the town and made it less place of pastoral beauty and more one of conflict.
You think the protests also had an effect?
As the protests increased, it became a place with a sense of “We’re not going to take the kids there anymore.”
How have the Crawford residents reacted to your film? Were they pleased with the screening?
I always had as a goal this idea of screening the film in town because I knew that if we had to do that we would do a good job of respecting people in the film and portraying them fairly. Ricky Smith says on the DVD extra, “Well, I think you did a little bit of Bush bashing but it was pretty even all the way through.” That was pretty cool because I didn’t know how they would enjoy it.
The pastor Mike Murphy came to the premier at South By Southwest. Bill Holmes and Misti Tubeville, the progressive teacher, came. Leon Smith, the newspaper publisher came as well. So to have them there supporting the film was great because you’re really asking them for a lot of trust and letting yourself into their lives.
What has been the wider reaction to the film? Has the fleeting George Bush presidency hurt or heightened interest in it?
The film’s immediate window was this past year as a way of looking back at the Bush era through the eyes of Crawford. The audience reaction was often one of expecting a more partisan film and walking out with a real connection to the people of Crawford.
I even had a couple of people come up to me at festivals and whisper that they were Republicans but really liked the films. It was great having people has far as Brooklyn and Munich identify with the people in the film.
We had our 37 festivals, played nationally in Canada, had our 50-state screening party. I think it will stand up beyond this because it’s a character-driven story, not a partisan take. I hope the film will stand up for years to come as a unique way of looking back at the Bush era.
What are your thoughts on Oliver Stone’s recent W. and its reception? Many people lauded its sympathy to Bush’s plight whereas your film is sympathetic to those who elected him.
It’s hard to say. I thought the tone of the film was a bit scattered, and I was most interested in his depiction of Bush before he took office. I think it was hard to see moments of his administration be portrayed because he’s already been parodied so much; it’s already a very media-saturated experience. I thought some of the moments of his pre-presidency were interesting, but I don’t think it really holds together well.
What got you started on the idea of filming Crawford?
It really was just that I felt duped because I didn’t know that Bush wasn’t from Crawford. I had bought this narrative myth hook, line, and sinker. When I found out he had moved there just a few months before his candidacy I became really interested in what stagecraft went on. It seemed quite effective so it really piqued my curiosity.
What is your take on the Obama presidency? Any plans to do a story about him moving into Chicago’s south side to create his own narrative?
I’m certainly excited about the Obama administration and he’s already taking steps to rectify some of the damage that’s been wrought. I’m definitely interested in filmmaking at the intersection of the personal and the political. I hadn’t thought about an Obama-Chicago story but that’s an interesting one. I did get a lot of questions about going to Wasilla, Alaska, during Sarah Palin’s ascension, but I wasn’t going to make that sequel.
