North vs. Robb: A Relevant Campaign

The Hamptons International Film Festival’s 2016 Summerdocs series will conclude on Aug. 27 at Guild Hall with a 7 p.m. screening of “A Perfect Candidate,” a 1996 documentary by R.J. Cutler and David Van Taylor about the 1994 Virginia senatorial race between Oliver North, above, and Charles Robb.

Mr. Cutler had just finished producing “The War Room,” Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary about the 1992 Clinton campaign, when he ran into Mr. Van Taylor at a college reunion. “David said, ‘You know, the campaign that would make a great film is that Oliver North is going to run for the Senate.’ ”  

“It’s probably hard for people to remember, but there was a time that the notion that Oliver North would run for the Senate was as preposterous as the idea that Donald Trump might run for president.” Mr. North, a former marine lieutenent colonel, had been one of the principal players in the Iran-Contra affair that nearly took down the Reagan presidency in 1986. 

In testimony before Congress, Mr. North admitted to shredding documents and lying to Congress, the State Department, the C.I.A., and the National Security Council. “That scandal was quite masterfully turned by Oliver North into a political career,” said Mr. Cutler. “We were certain his eyes were on even bigger things than the Senate.”

The film opens with television clips related to Iran-Contra, then cuts to Mr. North on the campaign trail, where he repeatedly defends his participation in the affair as motivated by the desire to save American lives. He comes across as a relatively sincere candidate, an effective speaker who appeals to the patriotism and religious beliefs of his supporters.

Senator Robb, on the other hand, veers between awkwardness and ineptitude. Mr. Cutler cited two particularly revealing scenes: Mr. Robb standing outside a factory, unable to formulate an opinion about whether workers have the right to strike, and looking desperately for a hand to shake in a nearly empty supermarket.

While the filmmakers seem to have had complete access to the North campaign, it wasn’t always so. “Our access initially was limited to the same access that any of the reporters covering the campaign were given. But one of the things you do as a vérité filmmaker is demonstrate to them you can be trusted to make a truthful film. Over time they granted us more and more access.” 

While both candidates had earnest supporters, both had virulent detractors as well, much like today’s presidential candidates. But while today’s broadcast journalists focus on the candidates, the film spends a great deal of time with Mr. North’s campaign team, especially Mark Goodin, one of its consultants who, near the end of the film, when Mr. North’s prospects seem bleak, notes that “campaigning is not governing, campaigning is entertainment. We have to serve up the daily sideshow to keep the press off us.” 

While the race was tight until the end, Senator Robb won by three percentage points. Mr. Goodin calls the election the “triumph of negative politics” and laments having taken the high road, even though his version of the high road isn’t very lofty. Walking home after Mr. North’s concession, he says, “We should’ve kept pounding away.” 

Mr. Cutler noted that Mr. North, unlike Mr. Robb, came across as believing in something besides just getting elected. “Charisma makes a big difference, and in the film you see this ultracharismatic figure who was as engaging a candidate as I’ve ever encountered, with the exception of Bill Clinton. North had that politician’s gift of connecting with voters, and he was running against a man who couldn’t even connect with an elderly woman standing in front of him in a supermarket.”

“Donald Trump is similar in a way, except now Trump is clearly imploding in all sorts of extraordinary ways. Imagine if you had a Donald Trump who had the support of Fox News and the right and the Republican nomination and yet was also willing to do what it took to get elected, which this man clearly isn’t. If he would just play a role for 88 days, he could at least be in the race.”

At one point in the film, Mr. Goodin explains that the goal of a campaign is to shatter the opposition into its smallest possible pieces. According to Mr. Cutler, “If you get into a permanent campaign, in which you are constantly smashing your opposition, you end up with . . . a permanent stalemate, and that’s where our government is now. Nevertheless, the principles of campaigning that Goodin identifies and that you see in action in North’s campaign are entirely as relevant to a campaign run in 2016 as they were in 1800.”

Also relevant to the current campaign is the frenzied behavior of the voters on both sides, decked out in straw hats, waving signs, vilifying the opposition. All that seems to have changed are the names of the politicians; the distortions of the campaigns and the mob-like behavior of the electorate are all too familiar. 

“I think that those who find themselves endlessly engaged in the 2016 campaign as I am,” said Mr. Cutler, “will find ‘A Perfect Campaign’ to be extremely revealing not only about campaigns in general and not only about that remarkable one from 1994 but certainly about the campaign in 2016.”

After the screening, the film’s directors will join Alec Baldwin and David Nugent, the film festival’s artistic director, for a discussion.