When Stephen Bannon came to Alaska last winter to film "The Undefeated," the glowing feature-length documentary about Sarah Palin, one of the first things that hit him was how far away from the rest of the country the state is. When he flew into Seattle, he looked at his watch, calculated the flight time, and told the agent at the counter, "You've got to be kidding me." Here at last, he was struck by the cold and the sense of scale.
He was struck by the level of integrity of those he interviewed -- namely former Department of Revenue Deputy Commissioner Marty Rutherford, and former Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin, both of whom walked out on their jobs in protest of the oil tax policies of former Gov. Frank Murkowski, and were then rehired by Palin. (And both of whom had enough integrity to stick to their promise to not talk about being interviewed for the movie, which had to be one of the best-kept secrets in Alaska history.)
And of course, Bannon was struck by the beauty.
"As an Outsider, I can tell you that it's all extraordinary. The state where you live is so overwhelming: the resource, the weather and beauty. And the high stakes involved," he said.
Bannon was talking about the billions of petrodollars that are pumped into Alaska, and the woman, Sarah Palin, who raised those stakes by extracting many more billions of dollars of oil money -- and who now could be, might be considering a new job for herself, as the next leader of the world's lone superpower.
High stakes indeed -- for Alaska, for Alaska's daughter, Sarah Palin -- and in a way, for Bannon himself, the writer, producer and director of the film.
Not only does he have about $1 million of his own cash invested in the film -- he didn't take SarahPAC money for it and wanted to keep enough of a distance between her and the film that he didn't even interview her for it -- but he happens to be a huge Sarah Palin fan. He wants her to run. He believes it's absolutely necessary that, at the very least, her "spirit infuse" the 2012 presidential race. That, he said, was one of the reasons he wrote, directed and produced the film, and why he needed to get it distributed this summer.
The fate of "The Undefeated" will likely be decided this coming Friday, where it will appear in commercial theaters in 10 states. If it bombs, it will probably go the way such films normally go, to art-house theaters or directly to DVD. And it just might put an end to her presidential aspirations.
But the documentary about Palin's time as governor is getting enough buzz across the country that those involved believe it will do well. And if it does well in the rest of the country, Bannon says they have plans to bring it to Alaska.
"We haven't forgotten about Alaska. We have plans to bring it up there," Bannon said. An independent film maker, Bannon is also a capitalist. And he first needs to make his money back. To that end, "The Undefeated" is opening in populous U.S. cities with a conservative streak, which tend to be more sympathetic to Sarah Palin than her own home state.
Here in Alaska, her recent poll numbers show only a 40 percent approval rating.
Trevor Drinkwater, from ARC Entertainment (the film's distributor), said they did a lot of research to see where the documentary would play best. According to that research, Orange County, Calif. is good for her. So is Houston, Phoenix and Kennesaw, Ga., to name a few.
Still, it's a crapshoot. Political documentaries tend not to draw huge audiences in the best of times, and summer might be the very worst time to release the movie, when Americans crave action and adventure.
The timing doesn't bother Drinkwater. "I've worked on a lot of films, but not any with this kind of built-in publicity. I'm very confident that we'll have a good weekend," he said.
There's some reason to believe that they may be right. "The Undefeated" will be shown in AMC theaters, the second largest movie chain in the country. The fact that a documentary, a political one at that, is being released by the chain is significant.
"This is not normally how documentaries are released," said Ariel Levy, head of production at the Los Angeles Film School. "It's clearly a stand-out."
Levy went so far as to compare the film's potential to that of an "Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore's documentary about global warming, which won two Academy Awards and grossed more than $23 million domestically.
Bannon, however, has his sights set even higher. He's shooting for the kind of crowds that Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" brought in. The most successful documentary of all time, "Fahrenheit 9/11" grossed more than $222 million internationally and won some 26 awards, including the prestigious Palm d'Or at Cannes.
Bannon's a former Naval officer, has a business degree from Harvard, and was an investment banker for Goldman Sachs. But he's also been around Hollywood a while and is among the most successful of a small but burgeoning group of conservative documentary makers who were inspired by Moore, a liberal lion, and others.
Variety said that Bannon has a "dealmaker's zeal," which he's used to build buzz for the film.
Lots of that buzz came from the movie's star, Palin herself, when she showed up in Pella, Iowa for the premier and followed up with a Facebook note urging people to see the movie. And of course, her fan sites are all agog over the movie, imploring fans to show up in mass on Friday.
The mixed reviews are coming in
Bannon said the film is divided into three parts. First, he chronicles the Exxon Valdez spill, Palin's time as a young mother living in Wasilla and she and Todd's years as professional fishermen in Dillingham. It then goes into her political career in Wasilla, her run against then-Gov. Frank Murkowski, her time in Juneau raising taxes and the passage of the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. Finally, he brings moviegoers out onto the 2008 presidential campaign trail and then her homecoming, back to a very different Alaska from the one she left.
Bannon said that Palin's resignation is the most "poignant" part of the movie.
For Alaskans -- many of whom believe that she quit her job as governor in July 2009 because she was thin skinned and had a book contract that would make her millions of dollars -- it might be the most infuriating part of the movie. The movie also avoids the fact that Palin's signature pieces of legislation are now slowly being undone. Gov. Sean Parnell, to whom Palin passed the reins when she resigned, is intent on tweaking her oil tax policies, and the fabled gas line is now looking increasingly unlikely to be built.
Still, Bannon believes that when Alaskans do see it, they'll recall a different version of the Palin drama than the one most of the state's voters have settled on. He thinks Alaskans might be too close to see that story in full.
But, ultimately, it might not matter much what Alaskans think. This is a film geared toward a national audience -- and national reviewers.
Some of those reviewers who were given advanced screenings of the film (not, it should be mentioned, Alaska Dispatch reporters) have brought their predictable East Coast snark to the film. New York Post film critic Kyle Smith, who saw a rough cut of the film in June, said that he'd rather watch a Michael Moore film than this one. He calls it "passionate." However, he wrote:
Apparently it wasn't bad enough to keep Smith away a second time. The film was screened on Thursday night to reviewers in New York -- a screening for which he was uninvited.
But still others have been more glowing. Variety called it "provocative." In a piece published at the Huffington Post, Amy Siskind said that film provides "such an important service, by finally introducing Sarah Palin." She continues:
That's the kind of review Bannon is hoping for. He didn't make the movie, he said, just for Palinistas. He made the movie that he thinks would appeal to those beyond her base.
Drinkwater, the distributor of the film, thinks that it succeeds: "Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, people are fed up with establishment and want to know that a real person can make a difference. That's why this film is so commercial."
Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com