HENRY FONDA FOR PRESIDENT
(director/writer: Alexander Horwath; cinematographer: Michael Palm; editor: Michael Palm; cast: Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Ronald Reagan, Robert Redford; Runtime: 184; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Irene Hofer, Ralph Wieser, Andreas Schroth; Medea Film Factory/The Film Desk; 2024-Austria/Germany-in German, English)
“A fantastic unconventional documentary on the iconic movie actor Henry Fonda.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Austrian filmmaker Alexander Horwath makes his debut feature film a fantastic unconventional documentary on the iconic movie actor Henry Fonda that suggests in the filmmaker’s personal essay that he would fit the image of being America’s perfect president. Horwath’s is an author, curator, film historian and former Viennale and Austrian Film Museum Director. He connects Fonda with America’s past, his progressive politics, his everyman persona, and with his long list of films where he was known a great actor able to play a variety of parts. An abbreviated list of some of his greatest films include the following from the 100 films he made: The Lady Eve, My Darling Clementine, You Only Live Once, Once Upon A Time in the West, Jesse James, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Male Animal, Fort Apache, The Ox-Bow Incident, Jezebel, Young Mr. Lincoln, Daisy Kenyon, The Grapes of Wrath, The Wrong Man, The Best Man, My Name is Nobody, The Return of Frank James, The Tin Star, Firecreek, Sex and the Single Girl, The Longest Day, The Fugitive, The Boston Strangler, Welcome to Hard Times, Warlock, Madigan, War and Peace, Midway, Advise & Consent, Fail Safe, Mr. Roberts, 12 Angry Men, and his swan song, On Golden Pond.
Fonda was thought of by the public through his movie roles as the “typical American” and as “the conscience of America.”
Fonda’s ancestors came to America from the Netherlands in 1651. He was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, and lived from1905 to 1982. He was raised as a Christian Scientist, which he later abandoned. While growing up he witnessed the lynching of a Black man during the 1919 Omaha race riots, which he never forgot how horrible that was. He opposed McCarthy’s “Red scare” purge of Hollywood and would later back JFK for president.
A significant part of the film is Fonda’s last interview in 1981, in Paris, with the journalist Lawrence Grobel. In the interview, Fonda talks passionately about America going down a dark path electing Nixon and Reagan, a path that unfortunately takes us to Trump and his blatant attempt to rid America of its democracy.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 5/5/2025 GRADE: A-
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