It was recently reported that director Kathryn Bigelow, who won the 2009 Academy Award for The Hurt Locker, has begun work on a movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It’s scheduled for release in October 2012. Chances are President Barack Obama will look good, and the movie could give him a boost in the campaign homestretch.
Naturally, there are those who are looking askance at the project. Specifically Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who thinks that the Obama Administration’s cooperation has security implications. He wants an investigation.
The Administration, via press secretary Jay Carney, dismissed such concerns and noted that no classified information was involved.
But let’s put this in context. This has happened before. There is precedent for the White House cooperating with movie directors–especially where a serious, contemporary issue was involved.
Recall that the Kennedy White House cooperated with John Frankenheimer, the director of Seven Days In May, in 1962. President John F. Kennedy even arranged to conveniently visit Hyannisport for the weekend when the film crew needed to shoot around the White House. He very much wanted the movie, whose screenplay was written by Rod Serling, to becompleted.
JFK’s cooperation was well motivated–even though the Pentagon strongly objected. The movie’s premise: a military coup.