The Treasurer said money was a low priority, but admitted he could earn
many times his current salary in the private sector.
Mr Costello described himself as part professional politician, part
sports fanatic and part family man.
"There are many sides to me," he said. "There's the family
side which people don't see. I have three children, a beautiful wife, a
suburban house with barbecue.
"Nothing makes me happier than doing a barbecue on the
weekend."
Like his boss the Prime Minister, Mr Costello is a Bob Dylan fan, though
unlike Mr Howard he likes the words as well as the music.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6131310%255E662,00.html
When asked about the origin of the character of Bob Roberts, Robbins
refers to his hometown. "I used to live in Greenwich Village, and I
returned there after about an eight-year absence and had seen how my
neighborhood had shifted. A lot of the artists and bohemian iconoclasts
had just drifted away. I noticed a lot of franchises opening up. I
started thinking about what would happen if all of these businessmen
picked up guitars. So I wrote him [Roberts] as a businessman folk singer,
and as the eighties came his ambition grew, and by the nineties he was
running for office."
The campaign that Roberts launches shows more than a few similarities to
the campaigns of today's candidates, which is somewhat amazing
considering that the script was written six years ago. "Well, there
are some strange similarities," Robbins admits. "Just the other
day Bush, at a campaign stop, was asked what voters could do to help him
in November, and he said, I think jokingly, `Vote often.' And as you
know, Bob Roberts says something similar. It's strange to see. I guess
it's good for the movie but I don't know if it's good for the
country."
Robbins was then asked if he felt that any of today's problems were
caused not just by Bush, but by "the other side." "What
other side? That's the question. Where was that side during the Clarence
Thomas hearings? Where was that side during the war? I don't know if that
side exists in Washington. I think there are people who will occasionally
say things to make you happy enough so that there's an illusion created
that there is another side, but I think that there are an awful lot of
similarities between the two parties and not enough philosophical
differences in key issues."
Robbins rejected the idea, often promoted by the Bush administration
(particularly by Vice President Quayle), that there is another side to
the issues and that it manifests itself too often in television and film.
"I definitely don't buy the whole idea of Hollywood as being a
liberal town. I don't buy that at all. Yes, there are fund raisers thrown
and there is money raised for what could be called `liberal' causes; I
prefer to see them as humanist causes. But as far as the product that
comes out of Hollywood is concerned, it's mostly conservative and more
often than not reactionary. How many movies have you seen come out of
Hollywood that justify violence as a means for solving problems? This
certainly can't be a liberal concept."
Robbins hopes that most people will understand the concepts behind Bob
Roberts, although he admits that there may be those who read the film
as praising the right-wing rebel. "I suppose that there are people
like that. I hope that they're a minority, but I'm sure that we'll hear.
I can't be held responsible for that." Robbins is more afraid of
people misunderstanding the satirical music of the film as being genuine,
and as a result he refuses to release a soundtrack album. "I don't
think that in the context of the film they will [misread the songs]. I
think that in the context of the film they work, they're funny, and
they're entertaining. Out of context, I don't trust the songs. And I
personally don't want to be driving in my car five years from now and
hear that bile on the radio."
Bob Roberts, as an openly political film, is a rarity. Robbins
tried to explain this phenomenon. "Well, if you talk to someone in
Hollywood they'll tell you that political films don't work and that they
don't get enough box office. We'll see. I think that it's hard to do. In
Hollywood, if a `political' film does not succeed with incredible numbers
then everyone will point to the film and say, `We're not making any more
films like that. That one didn't do well.' However, they will not apply
that same standard to dumb movies about dogs. I personally put a lot of
pressure on myself all along to make this an entertaining film, and if it
raises some questions, great. If I were to describe this film to someone
as a political film, I don't think that that would be fair to what the
film is. It's about more than politics. It's about entertainment and the
co-opting of entertainment. I think that it's also about the news media
and its superficiality."
In fact, the portrayal of television news in Bob Roberts is very
harsh. `I asked a network anchor once why they weren't running any
stories about the connections between gun running and drug smuggling in
the Iran contra affair. He said, `Well, to do that we'd have to do a very
in-depth piece and people will turn their televisions off.' And what this
taught me was that they have really entered into journalism as
entertainment. A little while back the major networks started relying on
ratings for the nightly news."
"In doing this and entering this market where you have to serve the
needs of advertisers and where you have to serve the needs of the public
and their patience and their attention span, they have entered into the
same arena as sitcoms and game shows. So you can watch the evening news
and see how they've got the grabber up front just like a sitcom does.
They have the story that's reported in probably never over two minutes.
They keep the pace moving just as you would direct a film. And what
they've done is to abdicate their responsibility in this democracy, which
is to be a vigilant protector of our freedoms. Now, most Americans get
their news from these programs. I've read things in The Nation or
The Village Voice... and then I've read those same reports six
months or eight months later in the New York Times. Why does it
take so long for them to report it? Why did it take CBS until September
to report that there were 2000 people killed in the Panama invasion? I
read about that the week after it happened. Why did it take so long for
the major news outlets to report that we were supplying arms or
technology to Saddam Hussein when I read about that before the war
happened? Something's up."
Robbins expressed hope that Bob Roberts would generate debate
about the issues that he finds so important. "I don't know if a
movie can change anything. But this movie has resulted in people asking
questions. I hear reports from the lobbies of theaters about discussions
and arguments. This is healthy. This has to be healthy."
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V112/N44/robbins.44a.html
