AFI Dallas movie review and director interview: Crawford

by John P. Meyer

What happens when a president at war adopts a small Texas town? Everything you might expect - and then some.

First-time filmmaker David Modigliani's potent documentary, Crawford, tells the remarkable story of what happens to the people of a small Texas community when neophyte president George W. Bush buys a ranch outside town and designates it his personal Camp David.

Just as remarkable, as you'll discover from the audio interview, is the story behind the making of the film. As David reveals, he originally intended to mine the drama surrounding Bush's adopted hometown in order to construct a play about the place. Before beginning his research, he had no interest whatsoever in filmmaking.

But what he discovered (and what you will discover independently upon watching the film) is that the flesh-and-blood characters populating this one-horse - yet remarkably diverse - Central Texas community were too improbably fascinating on their own to support fictional interpretation. David decided he needed to tell it like it was, because the truth of the place (and its citizens) was stranger and far more wonderful than fiction.

Before Bush bought the ranch in 1999, Crawford appeared nowhere on the national radar. The good ol' boys at the domino hall traded tall tales and prognosticated about the weather and argued politics like the residents of every other burgh in the vast U.S. of A., unencumbered by glimmerings of the national spotlight. After Bush's seemingly arbitrary adoption of the place (which established his claim to cowboyish Texanhood), everything changed.

Charmingly, some of the conversations of locals recorded by the filmmakers have been subtitled for the convenience of filmgoers from - for instance - Connecticut, who might otherwise have difficulty penetrating the pronounced Texas drawl. Our cast of featured characters includes a Baptist minister with big hair; a rode hard/put away wet rancher; a fiercely conservative horse breeder with a flair for the dramatic; a school teacher with a dangerously open mind; a curio shop owner with a well-developed sense of commerce; and a young student named Tom Warlick who stands outside the mainstream at his own peril.

Assuming a major role as events in Iraq play themselves out is mad-and-not-taking-it-anymore Cindy Sheehan, who shepherds along in her wake a supporting cast of thousands. But even before Cindy's advent, a "Crawford Peace House" appears in town, and the local newspaper - the Lone Star Iconoclast - comes out against Bush in the 2004 elections, resulting in the loss of half of its circulation in a single week.

Surreal scenes become the norm, as a cavalcade of one-way-glass Suburbans zooms down main street and a massive tent city - populated by protesters from all over the country - appears on the outskirts of town. All the while, press photographers document the president whacking away at firewood with his trusty axe, while a hay bale out behind the local high school becomes the most photographed locality in the county. Per the fortunes of presidential approval ratings (and the war), so go the prospects of Crawfordians, riding the roller coaster of the town's boom-bust cycle - whether they like it or not.

By 2006, as one resident puts it, "the novelty's worn off." Businesses on main street close; people move away; media coverage diminishes. Crawford reverts to what it was before the invasion: just another one-horse Texas town.

The people of Crawford, on the other hand, are changed forever.

WHAT ABOUT SNAKES?: "You've got a tourist under every rock - and a lot of law dogs." - local horse breeder

NO FURTHER COMMENT REQUIRED: "God expects us to be truthful in the things we say." - pastor Mike Murphy, to church youth

EXORCISM: "Go away - we just want to be able to drive up our roads again." - high school student, regarding the whole dang mess

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I met with David Modigliani in the press lounge at AFI's Victory Park headquarters, where we were prepared to conduct our interview amidst the blare of sponsor-provided Musak (which we were prohibited from turning off - or even down). David - having just completed two-plus years of sometimes-guerrilla filmmaking - took it upon himself to crack open a door marked "Staff Only," and - discovering the comfortable digs to be entirely devoid of other folks - invited me to sneak on in. As a result, the audio quality of the appended podcast is far better than it otherwise would have been.

Thanks, David.