Beyond the Multiplex

"Al Franken: God Spoke": Entertainers go political, new-school version
Al Franken is no John Lennon, and wouldn't claim to be. Nonetheless, there are intriguing contrasts between Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus' vérité-style film, which follows Franken through the 2004 election and beyond, and "The U.S. vs. John Lennon." Haughty intellectual types like Gloria Emerson are nowhere to be seen; instead, Franken goes toe-to-toe with fellow radio host Sean Hannity, dukes it out with Ann Coulter on a panel discussion and performs his legendary Henry Kissinger impression -- for Henry Kissinger. (Sadly, the Coulter sequence has been removed from the completed film for legal reasons.)

I wrote about "Al Franken: God Spoke" after seeing it at the SXSW Film Festival last spring, and recently interviewed Franken for a Salon podcast. So let's just say that you probably know already whether you'd like to see this movie or not. Revisiting the up-and-down (and down, and down) emotions of the '04 election was tough for me, as was reflecting that all that angst and overconfidence was expended on behalf of the blow-dried, windsurfing nonentity known as John Kerry. But fans of Franken as a comedian and/or as an Air America radio host, will find plenty to enjoy.

For me, Franken is funniest at his least guarded and his most incorrect, and as he inches toward becoming a politician himself, we get less and less of that. Maybe I'm a closet right-winger, but Franken's best moment in "God Spoke" comes in his Dick Cheney impression, when he goes beyond telling Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself and directs various street-level crudities at Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton.

Based on my conversation with Franken two weeks ago, I'd be very surprised if he didn't end up running against Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) in 2008. Franken has moved his family and his radio show to the Twin Cities. He's made no formal announcement, and won't make one until after this fall's midterm elections. As he puts it, "I've done all the things that I should be doing if I were running. Sometimes I feel like I am running." He says that family considerations might still lead him to back away from the race -- being a senator "might be a great job," he says, "but not necessarily a great life" -- but he sure sounds like a candidate.

Franken says he's prepared for Republicans to scour his performing career looking for dirt, and that his college roommates are free to tell any stories about him they can remember. He says he's got nothing to hide from his years as a writer and performer on "Saturday Night Live" (news flash: They did drugs!). "I'm proud of the two substance-abuse films I've written," he tells me in a gravelly voice. And those would be, Al? "'When a Man Loves a Woman' and 'Stuart Saves His Family,'" he says.

When I mention a funny line in his film, he corrects my misunderstanding. When I wrote about "God Spoke" originally, I described Franken meeting with a group of Minnesota legislators and quipping that he'd be "the only New York Jew in the race." In fact, as Franken reminds me, Coleman is also Jewish, and also from New York. The full joke goes: "I'd be the only New York Jew in the race -- who was born in Minnesota."

"Al Franken: God Spoke" is now playing at the IFC Center in New York. National release begins Sept. 29.

Next page: Juliette Lewis proves herself a star