Feed

The tedious but occasionally revealing underside of political campaigning is captured in filmmakers Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway's fly-on-the-wall documentary Feed, which focuses on the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary. Low-key contender Paul Tsongas won on the Democratic side, but Bill Clinton's campaign spun his own second place showing as a comeback victory after weathering a spate of scandals involving Gennifer Flowers and his avoidance of the draft. Among the Republicans, President George H.W. Bush, who tended to take the outcome for granted, was surprised by strong support for insurgent Pat Buchanan. The film follows the candidates—who also include Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin, and Jerry Brown on the Democratic side—as they engage in the often humiliating business of begging for votes at public events or enduring interviews with local television reporters. Much of the footage consists of broadcast “feeds”—with politicians (and in one instance, journalists) waiting for the camera to click on and being caught off-guard saying unrehearsed and sometimes embarrassing things or simply staring with a deer-in-the-headlights look into the lens. The footage is linked together by periodic inserts of Bush at his desk, sitting for what seems like an eternity waiting for the signal to begin a televised speech, while independent candidate Ross Perot shows up towards the end in a single clip that reveals his peculiar sense of humor. Feed offers some amusing moments, but at 15 years' remove it's not nearly as bracing an exposé as it might have once seemed, and is rather slow and repetitive by the standards of contemporary documentary filmmaking. Optional. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)