Clooney: Obama ‘having an almost impossible time governing’

 “The Ides of March” director, writer and actor George Clooney (second from left) arrives in Venice on Tuesday with co-writer Grant Heslov (left). The political drama, which also stars Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei, opened the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.

VENICE, Italy — Idealism loses out to cynicism in George Clooney’s political drama “The Ides of March,” which opened the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.

Mr. Clooney directed, wrote and acted in the political drama that features Ryan Gosling as a gung-ho press secretary swept into a sex scandal in the final days of a Democratic presidential primary in Ohio. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are rival campaign managers who use loyalty as a weapon in their epic battle for victory.

Marisa Tomei plays a New York Times reporter angling for scoops on the campaign trail. And Evan Rachel Wood, a pretty campaign volunteer eager to play in the big leagues, is yet another figure giving female political interns a bad rap.

Mr. Clooney’s idealistic presidential candidate, Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Morris, has a straightforward platform: He’s nonreligious but defends the freedom of religion. He also opposes the death penalty and wants to phase out internal combustion engines to reduce American dependence on foreign oil.
Mr. Clooney plays the presidential candidate but told reporters at the festival he is not looking to be one in real life.

“As for running for president, look, there’s a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who’s nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know. And he’s having an almost impossible time governing. Why would anybody volunteer for that job?” Mr. Clooney told a news conference.

“I have a really good job. I get to hang out with very seductive people. So I have no interest.”
For Mr. Clooney, the film wasn’t so much a political movie as a morality tale, exploring the question of whether the ends justify the means. The political arena “raised the stakes,” a relaxed and jocular Clooney said, but the questions the film poses reside in many areas of life.

“You could literally put this in Wall Street, or you could put it pretty much anywhere,” Mr. Clooney said. “It’s all the same sort of issues. It’s issues of morality. It’s issues of whether or not you are willing to trade your soul for an outcome.”
In the film, many characters use seduction to get what they want: to get closer to power, to undermine the other campaign, to win political backing.

Mr. Giamatti called his character “an unabashedly seductive guy.” His play to recruit Mr. Gosling’s character to the rival campaign opens the film’s exploration of loyalty and friendship in politics.
“My character is all about seduction … the whole game of politics is a kind of sexy game in America, and I think [the movie] portrays it really well,” Mr. Giamatt said.

And while Mr. Clooney and his fellow actors are willing to concede that Washington and Hollywood may share seduction and power as common currency, that doesn’t mean the stakes are the same. Hollywood, they suggested, commands a disproportionate amount of popular attention.
“I do think there is a huge difference between Hollywood and Washington and what we are responsible for and what influence we wield,” Mr. Hoffman said. “I think sometimes it gets forgotten, that the people who are governing us have a much more important position.”

The film’s title — “The Ides of March” — highlights its undercurrent of betrayal. In Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar,” a soothsayer warns the leader of imminent betrayal with the line “beware the ides of March.”

[Source : washingtontimes.com]