When "Wag the Dog" was nominated for three Golden Globe awards last month, no one was more surprised than the film's director, Barry Levinson.
"If you're basically setting out to do a satire of politics and show business, and to be cynical, you assume that you'll never be particularly accepted," Levinson said recently, calling from his home in Marin County, Calif. "I think that's historically the case. We put a lot on the table, and it's quite interesting, the reactions we're getting."
"Wag the Dog" is a wicked political satire in which Robert De Niro plays Conrad Brean, a Washington spin doctor who manufactures a television war with the help of Hollywood producer Stanley Motss, played by Dustin Hoffman. The film, which was adapted by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet from Larry Beinhart's novel "American Hero," has received nearly unanimous critical raves. Hoffman was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical; the screenplay was also nominated; and the film itself got a nod for best comedy or musical.
All this for a movie that was made, as Stanley Motss himself would say, "on a spit and a polish" just one year ago. Levinson was preparing to film "Sphere," a science-fiction thriller based on the Michael Crichton novel starring Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson, when Warner Bros. put the project on hold. Not one to waste valuable pre-production time, Levinson decided to make "Wag the Dog" during the five-week hiatus.
Putting actors together
Levinson had been talking to De Niro about the project for some time, after Hoffman and De Niro appeared briefly together in "Sleepers," Levinson's 1996 adaptation of the Lorenzo Carcaterra novel. "Dustin and De Niro wanted to work together ** again," Levinson explained. "So De Niro's company, Tribeca Productions, purchased the rights to 'American Hero' and commissioned Hilary Henkin to adapt the screenplay. They sent me the screenplay, and I wasn't that crazy about it. They said, 'Take a look at the book.' I read it and said, 'It just isn't my cup of tea.' "
But Levinson admitted that one thing got to him. "The only thing I responded to is the idea of faking, not a whole war, which is what the book gets into, but the idea that you could float out some visuals as a diversion."
