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Obama and America: The Movie

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As the enormity of Barack Obama’s win last night begins to sink in around the country, I’ve been hearing from friends -- some of them giddy, some of them in awe, some of them simply amazed that after so many decades of racial strife, that this country has freely elected an African American president. It’s hard to put it all in perspective, though I will try to give it a shot later today. However, my friend Howard Rodman, the screenwriter and USC film school guru, just passed along a wonderfully perceptive observation about America and how we symbolize the ideals of people all around the globe. It comes from the great filmmaker Sergio Leone, someone who admired America from afar, but who found a way to express many of our most potent myths and dreams in his movies. He says:

‘In my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life -- in jeeps -- and upset all my dreams. I admired the Americans on the screen a lot -- their style, their way of speaking, and their way of wearing hats. But after a while I began to realize that America is really the property of the world. America was something dreamed by philosophers, vagabonds and the wretched of the earth long before it was discovered by Spanish ships and populated by colonies of the world. The Americans have only rented it -- temporarily. If their movies don’t work, if the mythical level is lowered, if they don’t behave well -- then the contract can always be withheld. We can evict them. Or discover another America....’

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As Howard explains: ‘I always thought he was talking about tomorrow. But perhaps, just perhaps, he was talking about yesterday, Nov. 4, 2008.’

Obama poster by Shepard Fairey

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