By the People: The Election of Barack Obama

Movie Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: B

A good documentary is a can act as a nice departure from the sometimes mind-numbing movie experience. Not to say that there aren’t films that will get your mind working, but a documentary is a more direct approach to educating viewers whether it is a scientific trial in Supersize Me, a means of swaying political views like Fahrenheit 9/11, or just a standard educational piece like something on Animal Planet or The History Channel. By the People: The Election of Barack Obama falls in the last category, by showing the inner workings of the Obama campaign in the 2008 presidential election.

There is ultimately no plot as the film just follows the campaign around; showing Obama himself, as well as the campaign workers and supporters that helped him win the election. There are several things that make the Obama campaign significant over other campaigns: particularly that of John McCain‘s. Obama‘s campaign was not only successful because of its execution, but because of everything that is represented by him winning the presidency. Finally seeing an American President of non-white race is a breath taking moment in our countries history that truly proves anyone can accomplish anything in America.

Even though the film is moving and enlightening on the campaigning process, it doesn’t seem like something that should have been a feature length documentary. Despite being well put together and interesting, By the People becomes dry over its long duration. This is a story that is fit for an hour long documentary, because at ninety minutes, it begins to over stay its welcome. It is only so long that something like this can play out; being that it is extremely recent and hasn’t even panned out entirely. This may have been more suited for after the end of his presidency.

Since this is a documentary, having a ‘making of feature’ is one of the silliest things that I have ever seen on a DVD. Anyone can guess as to how this was all put together: a group of camera men followed the campaign and compiled all the footage they thought would best represent the image of the campaign they wanted to paint with this film. There are several bonus scenes, but cutting the film down for time restraints should have been acted upon several more times. The bonus scenes are more of the same and could have made the documentary a much longer piece, so it is god to have them cut out. There is also an Inaugural Speech Print, but that is only a DVD-Rom feature that I cannot access with my DVD player, so that one remains a mystery.

As I mentioned earlier, the two biggest issues with this documentary are the length and how fast it came out. The election was just over a

year ago and there is already a documentary about his campaign. It was undoubtedly an historic election, but that is nothing short of jumping the gun because of his popularity. If more of the scenes were jumped into the already ample bonus scene feature, this might have been easier to stay focused on, but don’t take this as too much of a deterrent. If the idea of a campaign documentary is appealing to you, this is definitely all you could want and more.

Movie Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: B