Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Films

Death of a President

Terri Murray finds herself in a maze of mirrors, but has Jean Baudrillard as her guide.

Directed by Gabriel Range, Death of a President is a 2006 British mockumentary about the assassination of George W. Bush. By deploying all the formal conventions and stylistic techniques of television news and documentary, including interviews with ‘experts’ (played by actors) and archival footage (taken from unrelated events and then woven together into a cohesive tapestry), this film persuasively convinces the viewer of its content. So thorough is the mimesis that even the most confident viewer begins to doubt his own knowledge of historical events. It is not until over halfway through the film, when Dubya’s assassination unfolds on screen, that the viewer’s own background knowledge jars with what he is seeing.

…