Mark Reviews Movies: THE WAY I SEE IT

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 17, 2020

Access to a government's leaders is vital for a democracy. We have to see them. We have to know what they're doing. We have to possess some notion of them as people, beyond the speeches and the political maneuvers, if only to know whether or not there's reason to trust them. Unlike his successor and more than perhaps any other President, Barrack Obama appears to have understood the importance of access. That's the impression we get from Pete Souza, the man who served as the chief official White House photographer under Obama (having previously been an official photographer for Ronald Reagan), and it's communicated and shown in director Dawn Porter's documentary The Way I See It.

The film is ostensibly about Souza. The narrative revolves around a recent book he arranged, which sets jarring juxtapositions between the current President's social media posts and photographs of Obama seeming to counter those posts from the past, and briefly offers a biography of the photographer's career (from a late-comer to photography in college, to little newspapers, to bigger ones, to Reagan's administration, to more photojournalism, to returning to the White House, and, finally, to his recent fame online and in print). Souza has something to say, though, and while Porter frames this documentary as a sort of career highlights reel, the film's real purpose is to, as they say, "throw shade" at the sitting President.

That was the purpose of Souza's book, aptly entitled Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents and strategically published just before the 2018 midterm elections. Whoever made the decision to make a documentary about Souza's career, his book, and his evolution toward becoming a harsh, if kind of jokey, critic of the sitting President at this point in history surely had a similar strategy in mind.

Is it a political maneuver? Of course, it is. Is it an effective one? It is also that.

For here, we get a few stories. One is about Souza, the man who briefly put journalism aside to work under a Republican President—despite some serious disagreements about politics and policy with the man—and later helped a Democrat create the most transparent photographic archive of a presidential administration we've ever had. He's forthright about his critiques of Reagan—the Iran-Contra affair and his slow response to the AIDS crisis being at the top of his list.

Souza, though, also spent time with the man. He believes Reagan was a decent person, especially in the late President's relationship with his wife (There are photos of him visiting her, as he always did after finishing work for the day, when she was in the hospital, recovering from breast cancer surgery). In such fair critiques and real praise, Souza provides his bona fides. He may have personal political beliefs, but they never got in the way of the job or caused him to speak out in a public manner.

He is speaking now and quite publicly—in books and on social media. Something is very different in this country and with this current administration, and Souza isn't going to stand by and watch any longer.

The major narrative through line, apart from Souza's biography, is the photographer's time in the White House under Obama. Despite the film being about him, Souza steps aside to let his photographs, members of the administration, and the previous President do the talking.

There is some fantastic stuff here, as the documentary shifts gears to follow Obama political career. We see him as a state senator in Illinois running to become a United States senator, become a rising star in the Democratic Party, announce his candidacy on a bitterly cold day in Springfield, and win the presidential election.

Souza was covering Obama for a Chicago newspaper for some of this rise, and when the call came for him to become the official White House photographer, he had one stipulation: He had to have complete access. Obama understood and gave it to him.

Using photographs (obviously) and archival footage, the film proceeds with a generalized account of the highlights of Obama's administration, some low points for the country, and some personal anecdotes about Souza's time there and how he came to see Obama beyond his role as the President. There's nothing we haven't seen—save, perhaps, for some photos of Obama spending time with his daughters (They were, as is tradition, mostly kept out of the limelight). With Souza's critical book and opinions on the current President in mind, though, all of these images take on a different meaning.

We see Obama under pressure and working to get a health insurance reform bill passed. We get the story behind the famous photograph during the raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. We see him visiting multiple sites where natural disasters hit, talking to and embracing people who may have lost everything. We hear stories about him traveling to comfort the families whose children were murdered during the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Porter and Souza present all of these images, and the occasionally spoken thing behind them is how little we see in contrast to the current President. The few comparisons we do have aren't flattering to this administration (Souza dissects a different Situation Room photo, where everyone, trying to look tough, is looking in different directions and has their view blocked by the photographer). Indeed, the obvious lack of access, save for some staged moments, is the most damning thing here.

The Way I See It shows what we've been missing in this country—not a single man, but an attitude, a belief system, a sense of humanity and empathy, and some basic decency. We see it in one President, and then, there's the other guy.

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