Responding to Wag the Dog
Write about a favourite scene in the movie. Post your response here as a comment. (Maximum 250 words; minimum 150 words) Make a critical comment, modeling your answer on Ebert's writing. Be specific in your description and be clear on whether you think the scene was (or was not) effective. What were the filmmakers trying to say in the scene?
Script (by David Mamet) for the film, Wag the Dog.
Script (by David Mamet) for the film, Wag the Dog.
Bring your writing to class, word processed, next Wednesday.
Also, please view this video of the "wag the dog" technique being used on the public in 1991 (first Gulf War).
Congress Testimony of Nayirah (Read the description below the video before you watch.) Note your reaction to this information and bring to class, but do not post it at the blog)
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“Of course there’s a war. I’m watching it on television,” Conrad Brean asserts to the CIA man who has just told him that there is no war, based on spy satellite reports, the Canadian government (!) and the Albanians. Thus begins one of my favourite scenes in the film, Wag the Dog.
William H. Macey’s character, CIA Agent Charles Young, is adamant about what the spy satellites show, which doesn’t faze Brean in the least. In fact, he challenges the agent to a verbal duel about his (and Brean’s) true work for the government.
Beginning with “If there’s no threat, then what good are you?” Brean goes on to say that “The war of the future is nuclear terrorism.” He argues forcefully that, to protect the American way of life, a war (or enemy) is a necessity. Whether it is a truthful enemy matters less or not at all.
The film predicts the future of American government policy while, at the same time, making a satirical and essential point. To do so, the writers needed only look at the historical record. To my mind, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said it best, warning Americans in his farewell speech in 1961 of a “military-industrial complex” and that “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
The 2010 U.S. military budget took up 20% of American’s GDP and represents 40% of world defense spending! I think, alas, that Brean has a point.
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The movie “Wag the Dog” is an interesting reflection of what can go on behind closed doors, when it comes to Presidential issues. The scene I found most memorable was of Brean, Ames, and Mr. Young from the CIA. When Mr. Young tells Brean and Ames that there is no war based on satellite images of Canada and Albania, Brean responds with “Of course there’s a war, I’m watching it on Television”. Brean and Mr. Young continue to go back and forth about the issue until Brean spouts off this very long speech that no one can flow. Basically he says “that the future is nuclear terrorism and to protect America you have to have an enemy and that war is a way of life”. I found it amazing that he could do that. It’s very effective to use that when trying to convince someone that you’re telling the truth or that your way is right. Although it may not be the most honest way to do things, I think that it makes sense to divert from the negative attention by making something more important up (ex. A war). The movie really makes you think about reality and if some of the stories we see on the news are real or made up.
Wag the dog? Funny, but it is Barry Levinson’s film, starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. Robert De Niro’s character, Brean’s impressive talks with Motss in their first meeting scene is one of my favorites in the film.
"We remember the slogans, we can’t remember f’ wars!” When Brean convinces a producer, Motss (Dustin Hoffman), who doesn’t understand Brean’s visit, he coaxes Motss to create a fake war scene for Presidential election to evade the President’s sex scandal.
"It’s show business,” Brean continues to list the examples: “Naked girl, covered in Napalm…Churchill, V for Victory, Y'remember the Picture, fifty years from now, they'll have forgotten the war…War in the Balkans, don't mean nothing, till some G.I. flyer, went down, Eating Snakes for Ten days.” Motss is getting into Brean’s idea, “it’s pageant like the Oscars.”
"How the f’ do we know? You take my point?” Brean’s forceful talks finally convince Motss, yet he thinks “it’s producing” for his “credit.” Motss cooks up an Albanian young girl with a kitten, escaping from terrorists, but later, his tragic death is predicted.
The scene shows how to divert people’s attention away from the fact connoted, so it results how easy to trick people’s mind. Brean’s “wagging the dog” looks simple, but his perceptive strategy is crafty because he knows everything will be good if he could convince Motss. I keep reading Brean’s dialog. At one point, I wonder, “really?” It’s an alert for me to wag its tail, not the dog.
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“"Tracy," is, to start at that wall and, on my signal, “action” to run toward me, screaming…” A young girl named, Tracy Lime, who is in traditional Albanian dress is running through a war-torn Albanian village after being raped by Albanians Terrorists and is longing for the Americans to pull her out of the horror. This is the scene in the film, “Wag the Dog” that Conrad Brean and Stanley Motss, who are the powerful friends of the president, is producing a video to take people’s attention away from the presidential Firefly incident 12 days before the re-election. This scene is the one that I was most impressed in the film.
Originally, the scene was taken in empty studio, and there was a bag of Tostitos in Lime’s arm. However, without hesitation, Brean, Motss, and a technician are editing the scene adding some sounds of screaming, setting of war-torn, and a kitten in Lime’s arm to make up the scene into the one to appeal to America.
I was amazed by the scene that becomes totally a new and different story being edited by the fascinating techniques. Through the process of editing the scene, I found that the scene is showing effectively that so many deceptions could be made up by the power and exist behind our society and country, not revealing that the truthful meanings are distorted.
I think that the filmmakers are trying to say that some of the powerful people in the government misuse their authority to keep their power deceiving innocent people and also there are many untruthful stories, which could move people’s heart, flowing behind the power of country.
“Look at that, that is a complete fraud, and it looks 100% real!” Stanley Motts tells Conrad Brean when he gets angry because the media is crediting the president’s win to his campaign slogan of "Don't change horses in mid stream" rather than Motss's elaborate plans. “I produced it, and I want credits for it so I am going to make some phone calls” Motts continues telling Brean. To all of that, Brean responded with a warning “you are toying with your life” but Motts refuses to back down, and Brean has him killed and makes it look as if he had a heat attack. This might be a movie, but what this scene, made me realise is that real life events can be staged more easily than the hoaxes in the movie. It also made me realize that the power of the media is something not to be underestimated. It has a lot of influence on all of us no matter what culture or background. It is by observing the media that we learn how to behave, and how to think, what to feel, believe and fear of people from other cultures. So it is up to us (the public) to look deeper into the lines to get a better understanding of certain issues.
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"Tell them to knock it off...The war is over" Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) quickly reacting to the news that what was claimed to be a war is no longer ongoing.
This is my favorite scene from the film, Wag the Dog, because Spin doctor Brean managed to gather a number of people to support a song before executing to the public and had to stop because a plan fell through, instantly causing a new idea of direction. I thought it was funny to scrap a plan in motion and start back to point A again and it is also serious of how much of an extent he is willing to go through for his president.
luckily enough the writer of the song that was in process (Willie Nelson) was left with one other singer which perfectly fitted to the new plan that Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) figured out (from valuable experience as a producer) and came up with "Good Old Shoe" to represent a soldier lost and to someday come home again. Nelson and his co-singer sang about an old shoe and it was produced as an old record reestablishing a plan for the same outcome of distracting the public of other serious events.
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Just before the election the president of the United States is accused of having an affair with an underage girl. The movie “Wag the Dog” is very political orientated and is clearly showing us the power of politic. How a country can just improvise a whole scenario of war to win the election.
To redirect the attention of the American nation, Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), the President's right hand, calls in an experienced Hollywood producer named Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman), and the two end up producing an ultimate political-redirection.
The situation is getting heated up while the CIA is changing all the plans for the team of Conrad and Stanley. While they are recording a title song for the movie they hear on the news that the war just ended. Stanley can’t believe that someone just could stop his war. He says: “the war isn’t over, I say when it’s over, it’s my picture, it’s not CIA’s picture” that was the part I remember.
His new idea is to have a hero in that whole war situation, which will be a winning story. At the end he will succeed with his movie and the election will end in favor for the president. Although Stanley is not getting any rewards for what he has accomplished, it shows us that all he did was for his passion and his love which was making movies.
To see the reality for us is something impossible, the proof is “Wag the Dog.”
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“Responding to Wag the Dog”
“Why Albania”? Ames asked, “Nobody is sure where it is, nobody cares, and you can't get any news out of it. Nobody can even think of any Albanians”, replied Brean. This is the scene in the film, “Wag the Dog” that Conard Brean and Ames tries to handle the situation after president scandal news.
“We don’t need it to prove out. We need it to distract them for two weeks till the election”. The scene was effective because it is easy to manipulate people by creating the fake war conditions about Albanians Muslim fundamentalist. The movie takes amuse in satirizing the way politicians control the media.
Filmmaker is trying to say that the president’s visit has nothing to do with the deployment of the B-3 bomber. Brean creates this fake war news with the help of Motss to divert the public attention off the scandal.
This movie makes me think that politicians are not sincere with the public because they think public is just like hand puppets and they can mislead them whenever and wherever. In the end of the movie, when Motss saw he didn’t get any credit for his efforts. He tried to break this news in front of the media which Brean didn’t appreciate and ordered him taken away to be killed. This shows that politicians treat people the way they want. If the purpose is served and an individual is no longer required, they have them killed in the name of national security.
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One of my favorite scenes in the movie, wag the dog, is the fake news movie making scene. It all starts with Moss’signal, “Action”, and the young girl (Kirsten Dunst, an American actress), who is standing against the bare sweep on the back wall with a bag of potato chips, runs forward screaming, and ends up with the shocking news of an unfortunate Albanian girl fleeing from rapists with her kitten.
It is so magical and so easy for the technicians to produce the special effects in the movie, such as adding the background of the “Albanian Village” scene, adding flames to the scene or transforming the bag of potato chips hold by Dunst to a white kitten in a second. Faking the footage is done so simply and perfectly.
News should be real no matter it is good or bad. Most of us don’t question the truth of the news from the media such as TV and radio which can sometimes be used purposely by some people. We are usually affected by these media and it is hard to tell whether a piece of news is real or produced. We are just like the dogs which are less smart than the tails. “If the tail was smarter, it would wag the dog.”
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I found "Wag the Dog" to be a very funny and meaningful movie. Dustin Hoffman's Motss and Robert De Niro's Brean are hired by the President of the United States to save his reelection campaign. In order to distract the public's attention from the President's alleged indescretion with a Firefly Girl mere days before the election, the pair creates a multi-layered story centered around a fake war with Albania.
My favourite scene in this movie is the initial meeting between Brean and Motss. In this scene, Motss asks Brean just how close he is to the White House. In response, Brean asks Motss to create a few lines of dialog that he would like the White House press secretary to speak on the air. Brean, through his assistant Ms Ames, relays Motss' words to somebody on the phone. In less than a minute the exact words created by Motss are spoken on live television. This served as a powerful demonstration of the amazing power these people had to control the flow of information being fed to the public. How much of the news I have seen over the years was true, and how much of it is just a story created to convince me of something that the someone want me to believe?
With respect to the title of the movie, who is the tail, and who is the dog being wagged? I believe the dog to be the American public, and the tail to be the media. The media chooses how to relay the information it wants the people to hear. It can, and often does, construct an artifical reality that it uses to manipulate the thoughts and actions of the public. The public has no choice.
“Wag the dog” funny name for a brilliant movie. It shows us how easy the leaders of a country can manipulate the citizen so easily. Create a lie and it doesn’t matter if it was good or bad just create it. Support it with false witnesses and videos, air it on the news and almost everybody will believe it. That show how some people with power can turn black to white based on their own benefit.
In this movie I like the part when BREAN wanted a young Albanian girl to meet the president at the airport and tells him: “this is the Traditional Harvest offering, given to the Man who Ties the First Sheaf, the last sheaf, whatever the f##k it is.” And her grandmother will be with her to meet the president. It shows that these people will use anything even kids and old people to get to their goals. So they bring a young girl and an old woman to play her grandmother in front of the president. And they do the exact thing as they planned, and people believed it. It is so scary when we think about it. They create a war, a song and a hero out of nothing in a very short time, and they make it so believable and people believed it. Who knows what else they had been created. And how deceivers they are.
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There are many surprised scenes in the movie “Wag the Dog”, but the most
impressive one is that right after Motss shakes hands with Brean to congratulate
their success of producing the war and the hero to distract public attention, a TV
show causes the ending of Motss’ life. Within next few minutes, he becomes
angry, says something that is “playing with [his] life” and goes out of the room
into a car surrounded by several men; then, next scene, he is declared dead. The
change occurs so fast.
Motss is smart. When Brean enlists him for the emergency, he not only asks
many questions, but also requests Brean to prove how close he is with the White
House. After CIA announces that there is no war, he cooks up a hero at once to
continue the story, which sets off a nationwide patriotic enthusiasm. “Prouder of
this, than anything I ever did in my life,” Motss concludes himself.
He believes that he would “wag the dog” and really completes his job beautifully;
however, he is not smart enough to save his life. This reminds me of Brean’s
future. Will he be smart enough to keep himself safe all the way?
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“Dashes and Dots. And those dots spell out a message in the Morse code. And that message is, “Courage, Mom…” The President of United state of America holds up a photograph of Wiliam A. Schumann, during his speech to encourage people to show patriotism against Albanian Terrorists, was one of my favorite scenes in the film, Wag the Dog.
Conrad Brean, takes help of Stanley Motss, a Hollywood producer, to invent a story to distract people from president’s scandal. Motss cooks up “good old shoe,” a fake character of Sergeant in the United State Army, rescued from Albanians Terrorists, and this hoax works.
As the President ends his speech with these words, “I have informed the Albanian government and I inform you, that we will not rest until the safe return of Sergeant Schumann.” He inspires American and successfully takes their attention towards nationalism.
The film tries to expose the American political conspiracies to hide their weakness, and builds a scenario of a big war to defend their integrity. More importantly, it destroys the peace of the world and leaves hatred between the countries. As we can see the result of Iraq war, President George W. Bush's administration could not provide any evidence to the public to initiate the war against Iraq— it describes “Wag the Dog” clearly.
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How easy to be convinced we are by the new media.It happened around us everyday when we continue to believe what the news displays. Whatever they are supposititious because of political needs.I am disappointed with the new media after watching “Wag The Dog” directed by Barry Levinson.
“Wag The Tog”is an irony to American news media happens because of American president’s sex scandal. It shows us a vivid story about “put the cart before the horse” based on some real stories.It is successful because we believe what happens in the real world is the same with it.
Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), the main character of the story, who is the top notch spin-doctor needs a story to divert people’s attention from president’s sex scandal two weeks before the presidential election. He hires a Hollywood producer named Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) in order to come up with his “war”. Motss brings in a series of specialists who help construct a theme song, build up interest, and fake some footage of an orphan in Albania. When he is successful by directing one and another stories for the white house‘s needs, he is finally died because of their needs.It is a strong satire to the political world.
“Wag The Dog” happens because we are invited to be dogs as “ If the tail was smarter,it would wag the dog.” -242 words
“What is it?” Moss asks. Breen replied “Three-o-three...” while relaxing over the pool. And so begins my favourite scene in the film, “Wag the Dog.” This moment was crucial due to the fact that Moss impulsively chose this sequence of numbers to be the name of the US special fighting force in Albania, while not hesitating for a moment.
What is interesting is that the .303 cartridge originated from the UK, implying that the “Three-o-three” group had its origins in the British Army, like the leopard skin.
The filmmakers were trying to show us how unimpressive everyday things and occurrences we take for granted can be turned upside down by some quick thinkers into a legitimate appearing con. This mirrors a later scene when the CIA announces the war is over, but Moss cleverly uses the news to his advantage to create a war hero trapped in enemy territory, stirring up patriotism. Once a critical mass of believers has been reached, the “news” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (quite like the japan toilet paper shortage of 1973).
It was effective in sending the message, partly due to the random nature of name selection, coupled with the fact that it was unexpected, but memorable. The pure suddenness is what cemented the “Three-oh-three” scene as my favourite in “Wag the Dog.”
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Wag the dog is very disturbing. It is a movie that changes your perception of reality; a warning sent by whistle-blowers to wake up the people. In many ways “wag the dog” is a mind blowing movie such as Dr Strangelove,” "Network", “citizen Kane”, “Mr. Smith goes to Washington" or "Matrix'. The reality described in the movie is so unbelievably true it is almost unacceptable. Thankfully the humorous tone of the movie downplays the shocking revelation of the movie, with however the consequences of making “wag the dog” even more tragic. In that sense the scene where Mr. fix-it (alias Conrad Brean), in the house of the producer Stanley Motts, dictates to the representative of the white house, with the involvement of “false” journalists what to say to the media, is memorable. It shows perfectly the comic tragedy felt in the movie. Indeed Mr. fix-it seems all powerful, the media the public and the opinion subject to his will. Who is he where is he from and how can he have such a power are question that remains unanswered along the movie. We would like to know about this so call MR fix-it and make him accountable to us.However if the origin of Conrad Brean remained unanswered, he is certainly the representative of selfish powerful private group interest that work in the shadow. After all Conrad Brean said it all when he said” war is show business” meaning “war is show, for business”
My favourite scene in the movie, "Wag The Dog" is when Conard Brean and Ames are in the studio watching the director filming the scene with the young girl holding a white kitten.
The young beautiful girl expressed in a visual Albanian War setting, makes the false story even more captivating, and interesting because of the innocent beauty of the young girl being portrayed and the white colour of the white kitten, emphasizing the cuteness, and innocence of the animal also.
The imagery of the young girl desperately struggling for safety as she embraces her kitten as the Albanian War is shaking the village with numerous horrific effects influences and provides the audience with intense feeling of the story being provoked. Damaged vintage aged buildings, and broken shattered pieces lying dead everywhere, makes the viewer’s believe, that this area of Albania is composed of poverty while occurring in a dramatic war zone. No other human is exposed in the film, except the young girl. This simply conveys the audience to wonder if she was the only survivor.
This scripted delusional story produced in the film, makes it a top graphic story on a newscast describing depressing moments of the Albanian War.
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