Film Review - Divide and Conquer : The Story of Roger Ailes

Television viewers have an appetite to watch people on T.V. talking about subjects they find interesting. We have a desperate need to return to the basics. The New York and California elites don't understand the people who grew up with values.  When I was young in Warren, Ohio. I slept in the top bunk with my brother in the bottom. My father came into the room and told me to jump into his arms when I did he moved back and I fell on the floor.  These group of paraphrased statements plus a childhood diagnosis of hemophilia are the vision and the fear that drove Roger Ailes throughout his life.  His talk of midwest values rings false as director Alexis Bloom points out over and over. The first sobering account from Kellie Boyle a marketing consultant building career momentum until she rebuffed Ailes in the back of a limo to find herself on a no hire list effectively ending her career.

Ailes first foray into television came in 1965 when he obtained a job as a production assistant on the Mike Douglas show. He rose quickly through the ranks rising to assistant producer then lobbying for the producer role landing it before anyone know what was going on. It was here where he met Richard Nixon the first man he would make King.  He told Nixon he needed a media consultant to avoid a repeat of the debacle with JFK in 1960 inventing the position for himself. He framed Nixon in close-ups angles that he admired from Leni Riefenstahl's 1935 Hitler propaganda film Triumph of The Will starting the forerunner of today's town hall.  A series of televised events that featured Nixon speaking in the round answering questions that were billed as spontaneous but in reality orchestrated by Ailes.  Nixon appeared warm, a regular guy or your next door neighbour that you talked to in the driveway or over the back fence. Nixon swept to victory, Ailes became big daddy leading to a hand in electing Ronald Reagan, Bush the First and of course setting the stage for Donald Trump.

Ailes turn toward the politics of fear first took hold during the George H.W. Bush 1988 campaign. Bush was losing by double digits to Michael Dukakis until Ailes latched onto the fact that Dukakis had given convicted murderers weekend passes.  One of these prisoners Wille Horton a black man killed a man and raped his wife repeatedly while out on the pass. Ailes spun it to mean that a vote for Dukakis will lead to violent black men raping your wives. He also helped many a struggling senator get elected as well including a sniveling trailing little known Mitch McConnell back in 1983 who he gave a backbone and is Senate majority leader today.

Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, tells the story of a Republican political whisperer who saw every threat as a lethal one whether it was Bill Gates buying N.B.C.'s America's Talking (MSNBC) out from under him a breeding ground for many of today's leading media personalities or the sleepy local Putnam New York Newspaper where he threatened and surveilled those that opposed his views. Director Bloom keeps a steady stream of opposing voices present including many that he assaulted often telling stories with similar patterns. Come sit next to me, turn around so I can see you better or we have to have some quality alone time for your career to advance. His fingerprints are all over today's Cable News Network formula and unfortunately the politics of division that are so pervasive today.

*** Out of 4.

Divide and Conquer : The Story of Roger Ailes | Alexis Bloom | U.S.A. | 2018 | 107 Minutes.

Tags:  Warren, Ohio, Mike Douglas Show, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, America's Talking, N.B.C. Fox News, Fox & Friends, Gretchen Carlson, Sexual Harassment, Lawsuit, Putnam New York, Republican Party.