The November Men

Following the 1992 Bush/Clinton presidential campaign with an unauthorised (and undetected) camera, Paul Williams' thriller draws on the legacy of 1960s assassinations, fusing conspiracy fact and fiction. An egotistical guerilla film-maker (Andronica) recruits a seriously disaffected band of citizens to film a fake assassination attempt on a very real George Bush. The stakes appear to be raised when individual factions emerge and are incorporated into an ever-changing script, to the point where the camerawoman (Bevis) alerts the Secret Service. Shot as low-budget realism with an improvised air, the film unsettles, using dreams and shifting narrators, while exploring the reality behind the 'seeing is believing' myth. A multi-layered, twisting denouement supports Lyndon Johnson's belief that there's no need to worry about the left, they'll never pick up a gun - 'It's the right you have to worry about; it they don't get what they want, they'll blow you fucking head off.'