Alexandra Pelosi is a producer for NBC television. During the 2000 election, she followed then-Gov. George W. Bush for the news network. After the official cameras stopped rolling, Pelosi broke-out her hand-held and conducted a series of casual interviews with the candidate. Journeys with George was the result of that endeavor.
Q: Why are you a documentary filmmaker?
A: I'm not. This is not paying the rent.
Q: Did any particular documentary, film, or article help you shape the film?
A: I'm not a student of documentary film; I'm a home movie maker. Documentary makers pick a subject and then show you what they got. This is what I lived. No one acted differently because a camera was rolling.
Q: How did the final result compare to what you expected to record?
A: The final product is all the same video. I had a brilliant editor that helped craft it. But, basically it's reliving the campaign experience. It wasn't as if there was so much to choose from in the end. It's not as if there are so many different faces of George Bush. Originally, we had was a three-hour version, but it was a lot of the same thing.
Q: The President came up with the title, correct?
A: Yes. He asked me if I was serious, once. I told him I was. Then, at some point he said to me, "this is going to be a lousy documentary".... Later, we were on the bus, And he suggested calling it "Journeys with George." To me this says a lot about his personal psychology, he could either engage and be in on it or he could be the butt of it.
Q: Was it difficult to get access? You had so much access during the campaign, and yet this White House is one of the most secretive ever.
A: The campaign was a very tightly controlled organization. They always have been and they always will. That's what the movie is about, how they controlled the image. My movie is what never made it on television.
Q: What about the controversy? Some conservatives are already deriding your film because of your mother's position (Rep. Nancy Pelosi is the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives).
A: I think that conservatives haven't seen the movie. Liberals are making fun of me because they think I've been too nice to him. It's as if nobody is going to be happy. When the Republicans make fun of me, it makes my home movie into the film that Republicans don't want you to see. They criticize something they haven't seen and they don't even realize that I'm saying nice things about him. That's really just the whole Washington culture--everyone needs to criticize
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