Running an energetic if rather improvisatory campaign, an aging U.S. senator unexpectedly becomes a popular phenomenon with his stinging attacks on corporate greed, inequality and the bipartisan failure of political ambition. Bernie Sanders in 2016? No, the fictional Jay Bulworth in 1998.
Twenty-five years ago this week, May 15, 1998, “Bulworth” hit American theaters. Directed and co-written by and starring Warren Beatty, the movie is a strange, flawed, often riotously entertaining political satire that seeks to make sense of the 1990s and how that decade set the stage for the populist politics that have emerged since the 2008 financial crisis. Along the way, “Bulworth” even sets out to explain the increasingly precarious post-1970s economic system — characterized by the entwined phenomena of deindustrialization and globalization — that today we call the “neoliberal order.” “Bulworth” is concerned with mainstream politicians’ failure — even unwillingness — to address racial inequality. But for critics, the film’s outrageous spectacle — Beatty rapping, boogieing and hurling racial epithets — undermines its message.
