Death of a President, on More4, uses actors and computer effects to portray the president being shot dead during an anti-war rally in Chicago in 2007.
The makers of the 90-minute film said they used the event to explore the effects of the War on Terror on the US.
But John Beyer, of TV watchdog MediaWatch, said it was irresponsible.
He said it could even trigger a real assassination attempt and told the Daily Mirror: "There's a lot of feeling against President Bush and this may well put ideas into people's heads." A White House spokesman said of the programme: "We are not going to comment because it does not dignify a response."
Shot by sniper
The drama will have its world premiere at next month's Toronto Film Festival before a screening on UK digital channel More4.
In the drama Mr Bush is assassinated by a sniper after delivering a speech to business leaders.
He is confronted by a demonstration against the Iraq war when he arrives in the city and is shot as he leaves the venue.
| | There will be people who will be upset by it but when you watch it you realise what a sophisticated piece of work it is Peter Dale Head of More4 |
The ensuing investigation focuses on a Syrian-born man.
Peter Dale, head of More4, who made the drama, described it as a "thought-provoking critique" of contemporary US society.
He said: "It's an extraordinarily gripping and powerful piece of work, a drama constructed like a documentary that looks back at the assassination of George Bush as the starting point for a very gripping detective story.
"It's a pointed political examination of what the War on Terror did to the American body politic.
"I'm sure that there will be people who will be upset by it but when you watch it you realise what a sophisticated piece of work it is.
"It's not sensationalist or simplistic but a very thought-provoking, powerful drama. I hope people will see that the intention behind it is good."
| | I don't know if there are many people in America who would want to watch something like that Gretchen Essell Republican Party of Texas |
However, the Republican Party of Texas was not impressed with the film.
Spokesman Gretchen Essell said: "I cannot support a video that would dramatise the assassination of our president, real or imagined."
"The greater reality is that terrorism still exists in our world. It is obvious that the war on terror is not over.
She added: "I find this shocking, I find it disturbing. I don't know if there are many people in America who would want to watch something like that."
Saddam drama
Producers of the film, which is directed by Gabriel Range, hope to sell the broadcast rights to the US.
Death of a President will be shown on More4 on 9 October.
Other forthcoming More4 highlights include The Trial of Tony Blair, starring Robert Lindsay as the UK Prime Minister, and Ghosts, a drama inspired by the deaths of the Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecambe Bay in 2004.
British politicians Charles Kennedy and Michael Howard will join forces to present The 30 Greatest Political Comedies, while the drama Saddam's Tribe tells the story of the former Iraqi dictator's regime.
British TV Film to Depict Bush Assassination
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 1, 2006; 1:26 PM
LONDON, Sept. 1 -- Nearly every British newspaper on Friday carried photos of the assassination of President Bush -- or at least the eerily realistic depiction of it from a new documentary-style television film that is causing an uproar in Britain.
The film, Death of a President, has been alternatively derided as a tasteless publicity grab and defended as a serious look at a plausible event that could have dramatic ramifications for the world.
"It's a disturbing film," said Peter Dale, head of More4, the television channel that will broadcast the film next month, following its debut this month at the Toronto Film Festival.
"It raises questions about the affects of American foreign policy, and particularly the war on terror," said Dale, who denied criticism that the film made an anti-Bush or anti-American political statement. "It's a fairly attention-grabbing premise but behind that is a serious and thought-provoking film."
In the film, Bush is assassinated by a sniper after making a speech in Chicago in October 2007. The investigation immediately centers on a Syrian-born gunman and a shocked nation confronts the war on terror in the post-Bush era.
Dale said the assassination scene, which comes about ten minutes into the 90-minute film, is a glimpse rather than "a gratuitously lengthy gazing kind of scene." He said it was "very small in comparison to the blood and death we see daily in the news" from Iraq.
"We know some people are going to be offended," Dale said. "But you always risk offending people when you open people's eyes to the way the world is. Sometimes the truth is a bit unpalatable."
At the White House, spokesman Emily Lawrimore said of the film: "We are not commenting because it doesn't dignify a response."
Some critics in London scoffed at arguments that the film was a serious piece of film-making. Several said More4, which began broadcasting just ten months ago, was more interested in ratings than in exploring vital matters of public interest.
"It's about hype rather than a serious matter," said Roy Greenslade, a noted British media critic, who said the film "crossed the line" and was "obviously tasteless."
Britons awoke this morning to see their morning newspapers carrying a black-and-white promotional photo, with a sort of Dallas-in-1963 feel, showing a mortally wounded Bush dying in a Secret Service agent's arms. Other agents draw guns, cameras flash and people dive for cover in the photo, which was an actual filmed scene with Bush's head added later to an actor's body by computer.
Greenslade said the photos are so realistic that for a second he thought Bush had actually been assassinated. He said creating such a realistic image of Bush being killed "could convince crazy people that this might be a good idea."
"I'm sure they will cloak it by saying there's a serious point to be made," Greenslade said. "But isn't there another way? If it had been a fictional president wouldn't it have made the same point? It just beggars belief that this is the best way to make a serious point."
Dale defended the use of Bush himself, rather than a fictional president, because using a fictional character "wouldn't have the same kind of resonance."
"It's absolutely legitimate to deal with contemporary named figures," he said. "I would urge people to see the film and see if they think it is fair."
More4, which launched in October 2005, is one of three satellite channels affiliated with Channel 4, a major independent television channel in Britain. The other two affiliates are a children's channel and a movie channel, while Dale said More4 carries "serious, upmarket" programming aimed at adults.
The channel has made a name for itself with controversial films, such as last year's "A Very Social Secretary," a biting satire about former cabinet minister David Blunkett's affair with a British magazine editor.
Prime Minister Tony Blair will get a roasting of his own in November, when the channel plans to air the comedy, "The Trial of Tony Blair." Dale said the film was a satire depicting Blair's life after he leaves office, including an arrest on charges of waging an illegal war in Iraq.
The Bush film is directed by Gabriel Range, who used similar documentary-style techniques in his 2003 film, "The Day Britain Stopped," aired on BBC Two television, about a massive breakdown of Britain's transportation networks that results in national chaos.
Rod Liddle, a newspaper and magazine columnist who also makes documentaries for Channel 4, said he thought the Bush film gave voice to a common sentiment in Britain.
"You will never, ever be able to overestimate the degree to which the British people loathe George Bush," Liddle said. "It will be a free round of drinks in every pub for the person who plays the assassin."
Liddle said there was nothing wrong about making a documentary about the assassination of a U.S. president, even if it was difficult for some people to watch.
"I don't find it particularly objectionable, but then I'm not George Bush's family," he said. "It seems to me to be a reasonable premise, even if it is uncomfortable."
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Bush’s ‘assassination’ as entertainment
By Jules Crittenden
Boston Herald City Editor
Friday, September 1, 2006 - Updated: 09:34 AM EST
Raise your hand if you believe in freedom of speech and a lively public debate of important issues.
Now, raise your hand if you think a feature film depicting the assassination of President Bush sounds like a thought-provoking look at the important issues of the day. Educational entertainment. A good date flick, maybe, for that hot librarian, the one with the fading "Unelect Bush Again in ’O4" bumper sticker who goes for that deep-think Brit Masterpiece Theatre stuff.
The BBC thinks so.Perhaps enviously eyeing the millions and the acclaim that self-loathing American Michael Moore’s exercise in distortion brought him, BBC’s Channel Four and BBC Director Gabriel Range are producing a "shockingly real," "documentary-style" film that shows Bush being assassined by a Syrian at a large anti-war demonstration in Chicago.
The film is clearly highly fanciful, as anti-war demonstrations have had a hard time mustering more than a few hundred angry marchers at a time ever since their efforts to keep Saddam Hussein in power failed.
Here’s what Range told the Times of London: "The film is based on meticulous research and interviews with FBI agents and people on the other side of the war on terror."OK, we know that FBI agents have sometimes been on the other side of the war on crime, particularly in Boston. But the other side of the war on terror, if I’m not wrong, would be Al Qaeda.
Wait a minute.I think by the "other side" he means us. Those of us who believe Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the others who want to destroy us are evil.
"It is a serious and sensitive film. There is no way it would encourage anyone to assassinate Bush and usher in Cheney’s America," Range said.
Of course not.Not at a time when Bush is routinely called a murderer, and seemingly normal educated suburbanite Volvo drivers sport "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers, apparently believing grounds for such action exists.
But that "Cheney’s America" remark is interesting.I’m starting to get an Oliver Stone feel off this one.So Bush gets assassinated, and we are to learn the depths of depravity and dictatorship Vice President Dick Cheney is capable of.What left-thinking "Impeach Bush" t shirt-wearer would heed the clarion call to assassinate Bush when Range has soundly demonstrated what evil that act would inaugurate?
The Brits have very tough libel laws.Unlike America, where it is virtually impossible for a politician to sue for libel. Any British film that depicted Cheney engineering Bush’s assassination would land the limey fimmaker in court pretty quick.So I’m guessing a power-grab White House coup murder plot, if hinted at, is done so extremely obliquely.
And we are to understand this is actually a highly responsible call for Bush’s life to continue.Because it will demonstrate to all of those who would like to see him impeached or dead, how dangerous a course that is.Because that would usher in the true and unadulterated Rovian-Cheneyite nightmare. That is when the hood would be pulled off to reveal a true Gitmerica.
The BBC wants to hawk this revolting bucket of bile in the United States. It’s not clear to me what business foreign agents have advocating the murder of a sitting United States president, shouting fire in a crowded American theater.But America is a free country.
So I have an idea.How about a Hollywood blockbuster that depicts Britain under Sharia law?
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US networks offered UK drama on Bush assassination | |||
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It was the shot that echoed around the world - President Bush is assassinated by a fanatical sniper in the bowels of a Chicago hotel. At least that is how Channel 4 would like us to remember the key event of October 2007 in a "shockingly real" film which is already causing outrage among Americans. Death of a President uses digital trickery, archive footage and actors to imagine the murder of President Bush and the descent into national paranoia which follows. The feature-length drama will be screened on More4, Channel 4’s digital sister channel next month after receiving a big-screen premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Channel 4 hopes to sell the film to US broadcasters but Americans in London declared the film tasteless and feared it could encourage extremists in their home country. The film is set next autumn, when "US foreign and domestic policies have polarised the country’s electorate". Arriving in Chicago to make a speech to business leaders, the President is confronted by a large anti-war demonstration. Unperturbed, the President goes ahead with his visit. But as he leaves he is gunned down by a sniper. While a nation mourns, the "state apparatus" turns its attention to the hunt for his killer. A Syrian-born man is identified but the truth may lie closer to home. The assassination scene explicitly recalls the attempt on President Reagan’s life in 1981. John Hinckley fired six shots at close range as the President left the Washington Hilton hotel. Americans were appalled at the Bush film. Michelle Bowman, 35, a US consultant working at the Bowman Group in London, said: "Most American will find a film depicting the assassination of a sitting American President in very poor taste. I cannot imagine that any American broadcaster would show this film." The film is directed by Gabriel Range, who made the acclaimed BBC drama The Day Britain Stopped, which imagined a chain of events which could paralyse the UK’s transport infrastructure. Mr Range told The Times: "We studied hours and hours of footage of Bush. The scenes are created by a mixture of special effects, stock footage and digitally compositing our actors onto the archive of Bush." Mr Range secured permits to film the murder scene on location in a Chicago hotel. He denied charges of sensationalism. "The film is based on meticulous research and interviews with FBI agents and people on the other side of the war on terror," he said. "It is a serious and sensitive film. There is no way it would encourage anyone to assassinate Bush and usher in Cheney’s America." Peter Dale, head of More4, said the film combined a "gripping detective story" with a "thought-provoking critique" of contemporary US society. He said: "It’s a pointed political examination of what the war on terror did to the American body politic. I’m sure that there will be people who will be upset by it but when you watch it you realise what a sophisticated piece of work it is." More4, which competes with BBC Four for upmarket viewers, will also screen a sequel to A Very Social Secretary, its satire about David Blunkett’s affairs. Written by Alistair Beaton, the comedy shows Mr Blair seeking absolution from the Catholic Church as he seeks to evade a war crimes tribunal over his role in the Iraq invasion. Comic actor Alexander Armstrong plays David Cameron in the satire but Michael Howard appears in person alongside Charles Kennedy to present The 30 Greatest Political Comedies. The duo, described by Mr Dale as "the Morecambe and Wise of politics", present the result of a poll of MPs which ranges from Till Death Us Do Part to The Thick of It.
Robert Lindsay plays the lead role in The Trial of Tony Blair, which finds the Prime Minister struggling to adapt to life out of office after moving from Downing Street to Connaught Square.
British film killing off Bush outrages Americans Death of a President uses digital trickery, archive footage and actors to imagine the murder of Mr Bush and the descent into national paranoia that follows. The feature-length drama will have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival next month, before screening in Britain on More4, Channel 4's digital sister channel. Channel 4 hopes to sell the film to US broadcasters, but Americans yesterday declared it to be tasteless and shocking. The White House refused to comment on the film, which it said "did not dignify a response". In Texas, Mr Bush's home state, a Republican Party spokeswoman said: "I find this shocking, I find it disturbing. I don't know if there are many people in America who would want to watch something like that." A senior Republican official in Washington said: "It sounds like it's in very poor taste and in keeping with the tactics of liberal groups who have frequently tried to compare the President to Hitler and his policies to those of fascism." The film is set in October next year, when "US foreign and domestic policies have polarised the country's electorate". Arriving in Chicago to make a speech to business leaders, the President is confronted by a large anti-war demonstration. He continues with his visit but as he leaves he is shot dead by a sniper. The assassination scene explicitly recalls the attempt on president Ronald Reagan's life in 1981. John Hinckley fired six shots at close range as Reagan left a Washington hotel. The film is directed by Gabriel Range, who made the BBC drama The Day Britain Stopped, which imagined a chain of events that could paralyse the transport system. Range denied accusations of sensationalism. "The film is based on meticulous research and interviews with FBI agents and people on the other side of the war on terror," he said. "It's a serious, sensitive film. There is no way it would encourage anyone to assassinate Bush." Peter Dale, the head of More4, said the film combined a "gripping detective story" with a thought-provoking critique of contemporary US society. But John Beyer of Britain's TV watchdog MediaWatch, told the Daily Mirror: "There's a lot of feeling against President Bush and this may well put ideas into people's heads."
Adam Sherwin
02sep06
IT is a shot that echoes around the world - President George W. Bush being assassinated by a fanatical sniper in a Chicago hotel.
At least that is the story of a "shockingly real" British Channel 4 film that is causing outrage among Americans. 
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British TV Movie Imagines Assassination of Bush
LONDON, Sept. 1 — The time is October 2007, and America is in anguish, rent by the war in Iraq and by a combustive restiveness at home. Leaving a hotel in Chicago after making a speech while a huge antiwar protest rages nearby, President Bush is suddenly struck down, killed by a sniper’s bullet.
That is the arresting beginning of “Death of a President,” a 90-minute film that is to be broadcast here in October on More4, a British digital television station. And while depicting the assassination of a sitting president is provocative in itself, this film is doubly so because it has been made to look like a documentary.
Using archival film as well as computer-generated imagery that, for instance, attaches the president’s face to the body of the actor playing him, the film leaves no doubt that the victim is Mr. Bush rather than some generic president.
The movie has not yet been released; indeed, the filmmakers were still editing it today and were not available for comment, said Gavin Dawson, a spokesman for More4. But the station’s announcement this week that it planned to present “Death of a President” as part of its autumn season has raised something of a furor here.
“Whilst one is aware of other films that have shown assassinations, those have been in the realm of fantasy,” said John Beyer, the director of Mediawatch-UK, which campaigns against sex and violence on television. “To use the president of the United States, the real person, in some fictional presentation, I think that is wrong.”
The United States Embassy here directed calls to the White House, which said: “We won’t dignify this with a response.”
But Peter Dale, the head of More4, said the film was not sensationalistic and did not advocate the assassination of Mr. Bush.
“It has the combination of a gripping forensic narrative and also some very thought-provoking places where you are encouraged to think about the issues behind the narrative,” he said.
The film is to be shown publicly on Sept. 10 at the Toronto International Film Festival. After it is broadcast on More4, a digital channel that is free but only available to those with digital television, it will be shown on Channel 4, a nondigital channel that is the BBC’s main commercial competitor.
As part of its publicity campaign, More4 released a still from the film depicting the moment Mr. Bush is shot. The picture, which has been reprinted extensively in British newspapers, shows the stricken Mr. Bush slumping forward into an aide’s arms, in front of a shocked, panicking crowd; a bank of cameras flash behind. It evokes the photographs of the mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and also recalls John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981 outside Hilton hotel in Washington.
Mr. Dale said that the focus of the film is on the assassination’s aftermath, as the news media rush to judgment and as investigators plumb America’s fear and anger, particularly in communities with most cause to be angry at Mr. Bush. Suspicion soon focuses on Jamal Abu Zikri, a Syrian-born man.
The movie, Mr. Dale said, is “a very powerful examination of what changes are taking place in America” as a result of its foreign policy.”
“I believe that the effects of the wars that are being conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, “are being felt in many ways in the multiracial communities in America and Britain, in the number of soldiers who don’t come home, and that people are beginning to ask: ‘When will these body bags stop coming back? Why are we there? When will it stop?’ ”
Two well-regarded films by the same team have used the same pseudo-documentary style to imagine the ramifications of disastrous events, but set in Britain. One, “The Day Britain Stopped,” showed Britain’s overstretched transportation system in meltdown after a series of mishaps cripples first the trainsand then the roads, leading finally to the point when a passenger jet collides with a freight plane near Heathrow.
Few Britons have criticized “Death of a President,” perhaps wanting to see it before they comment on it. But the newspapers have been quoting upset expatriate Americans.
“It is an appalling way to treat the head of state of another country,” Eric Staal, a spokesman for Republicans Abroad in London, told The Evening Standard. “We’ve seen from early in his presidency the extremes the political left are willing to go to vilify him as an individual. This takes this vilification to a new and disturbing level.”
But The Daily Mirror, whose front-page headline today was “Bush Whacked,” said in an editorial that while the film was “treading a fine line in terms of taste, it nevertheless provides dramatic food for thought.”
It added: “The undoubted furor that this will spark across the U.S. and among the handful of Bush supporters in Europe must not obscure the real question facing us all: Where is the War on Terror going? And how bad does it have to get before it gets better?”
Bush 'Assassination' Film Makes Waves Across the Pond
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 2, 2006; C01
LONDON, Sept. 1 -- Nearly every British newspaper on Friday carried photos of the "assassination" of President Bush -- or, rather, the eerily realistic depiction of it from a new documentary-style television film that is causing an uproar in Britain.
The film, "Death of a President," has been alternatively derided as a tasteless publicity grab and defended as a serious look at a plausible event that could have dramatic ramifications for the world.
"It's a disturbing film," said Peter Dale, head of More4, the television channel that will telecast the film in England in October. It is scheduled to debut this month -- on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- at the Toronto Film Festival.
"It raises questions about the effects of American foreign policy and particularly the war on terror," said Dale, who denied criticism that the film made an anti-Bush or anti-American political statement. "It's a fairly attention-grabbing premise, but behind that is a serious and thought-provoking film."
In the film, Bush is assassinated by a sniper after making a speech in Chicago in October 2007. The investigation immediately centers on a Syrian-born gunman, and a shocked nation confronts the war on terror in the post-Bush era.
Dale said the assassination scene, which comes about 10 minutes into the 90-minute film, is a glimpse rather than "a gratuitously lengthy gazing kind of scene." He said it was "very small in comparison to the blood and death we see daily in the news" from Iraq.
"We know some people are going to be offended," Dale said. "But you always risk offending people when you open people's eyes to the way the world is. Sometimes the truth is a bit unpalatable."
At the White House, spokesman Emily Lawrimore said of the film: "We are not commenting because it doesn't dignify a response."
Some critics in London scoffed at arguments that the movie was a serious piece of filmmaking. Several said More4, which began broadcasting just 11 months ago, was more interested in ratings than in exploring vital matters of public interest.
"It's about hype rather than a serious matter," said Roy Greenslade, a noted British media critic, who said the film "crossed the line" and was "obviously tasteless."
Britons awoke this morning to see their morning newspapers carrying a black-and-white promotional photo, with a sort of Dallas-in-1963 feel, showing a mortally wounded Bush dying in a Secret Service agent's arms. Other agents draw guns, cameras flash and people dive for cover in the photo of a filmed scene in which Bush's head was added later to an actor's body by computer.
Greenslade said the photos are so realistic that for a second he thought Bush had actually been assassinated. He said creating such a realistic image of Bush being killed "could convince crazy people that this might be a good idea."
"I'm sure they will cloak it by saying there's a serious point to be made," Greenslade noted. "But isn't there another way? If it had been a fictional president, wouldn't it have made the same point? It just beggars belief that this is the best way to make a serious point."
Dale defended the use of Bush himself, rather than a fictional president, because using a fictional character "wouldn't have the same kind of resonance."
"It's absolutely legitimate to deal with contemporary named figures," he said. "I would urge people to see the film and see if they think it is fair."
More4, which launched in October, is one of three satellite channels affiliated with Channel 4, a major independent television channel in Britain. The other two affiliates are a children's channel and a movie channel. Dale said More4 carries "serious, upmarket" programming aimed at adults.
The channel has made a name for itself with controversial films, such as last year's "A Very Social Secretary," a biting satire about former cabinet minister David Blunkett's affair with a British magazine editor.
Prime Minister Tony Blair will get a roasting of his own in November, when the channel plans to air the comedy "The Trial of Tony Blair." Dale said the film was a satire depicting Blair's life after he leaves office, including an arrest on charges of waging an illegal war in Iraq.
The Bush film is directed by Gabriel Range, who used similar documentary-style techniques in his 2003 film, "The Day Britain Stopped." That movie, about a massive breakdown of Britain's transportation networks that created national chaos, aired on BBC Two television.
Rod Liddle, a newspaper and magazine columnist who also makes documentaries for Channel 4, said he thought the Bush film gave voice to a common sentiment in Britain.
"You will never, ever be able to overestimate the degree to which the British people loathe George Bush," Liddle said. "It will be a free round of drinks in every pub for the person who plays the assassin."
Liddle said there was nothing wrong about making a documentary about the assassination of a U.S. president, even if it was difficult for some people to watch.
"I don't find it particularly objectionable, but then I'm not George Bush's family," he said. "It seems to me to be a reasonable premise, even if it is uncomfortable."
