Is Al Franken ready for prime time, or what?
BY MARLI GUZZETTA INDEPENDENT ARTS EDITOR
The conduits for campaign messaging were as defined as the protocol for a candidate's tie color before the elections in 2004, which saw an increase in the attention paid to bloggers, Web sites and pundits.

Al Franken

Compared to your typical news article, spokesperson, debate or commercial, they were the political equivalent of business casual - more relaxed and accessible and a lot better to have on if things were going to get dirty. And things did get dirty. And in the wardrobe (not to be mistaken for "in the closet") was former "Saturday Night Live" player Al Franken, author of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and "The Truth (With Jokes)." Franken became a Democratic spokesperson (with jokes).

"I take what they say and use it against them," Franken once said. "What I do is jiu jitsu."

Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob tracked Franken's evolution through the 2004 election season in the documentary "Al Franken: God Spoke" - which includes some rabid debate footage between Franken and Ann Coulter and plays on Nantucket at the festival this week.

"It was an interesting time when we were making the film," said Hegedus. "It was an interesting time to follow an election, because of these other forces that were acting on it, like MoveOn.org to Michael Moore to John Stewart to Rev. Sharpton, and Al fit in there as well."

Doob attributes Franken's emerging popularity to his "insistence on being his own person" - a person so insistently unique that he has caused a Democratic drumbeat urging him to challenge Norm Coleman for a Minnesota Senate seat. (If he wins, that would be the best thing to happen to CSPAN since the backlash against network news personality chitchat during the presidential conventions.)

"He'd say a lot of politically incorrect things and act sort of silly at times, with his comic side coming out in ways that are nontraditional as a politician," Doob said. "You really wish that John Kerry had been that person."

NI: What was the genesis of the film?

Hegedus: We always kind of joke that we switched Als. The genesis started on a film we were doing with Al Sharpton and his campaign. We followed him around for seven months, and it became apparent that someone in his campaign wanted to do the same film, so we opted out, and it was very frustrating for us, because we had a great film. So we were looking around for project with the same energy for the election, because there was such fervor at the time, and Rebecca Marshall, our associate producer, suggested looking at Al Franken. We heard that he was going on a book tour. ...Crowds were coming that were so big they'd have to rent a second hall. There seemed to be a need to hear what he was saying. People wanted to find somebody to give them answers with what was happening in the Bush Administration and Right Wing Media, and he felt there was a change going on for him in his life.

NI: How is he transitioning from a comedian to a politician? Do people put him in the same category as a Jon Stewart or a Stephen Colbert?

Doob: I don't think he ever leaves his comedian self behind. His vehicle is humor so much of the time. But Al's been political ever since he started; it's something he got from his father. ...This thing of having a politician and comedian live inside him is a question of emphasis really. There is a difference between Al and Stewart and Colbert. He's further out on a limb and entering the world of politics in a way they aren't. "Air America" is different from Comedy Central, and Al is getting his feet wet in real politics.

NI: So what's the future for Al Franken?

Doob: I think he's figuring that out himself. Al's trying to figure out what this all means, but people are looking at him and trying to figure out if he's electable.

NI: Have you experienced any backlash with the film?

Hegedus: When we first showed it at SXSW, the Variety journalist said he was getting hate mail from writing a review, and that was in a publication like Variety.

Doob: People who hadn't even seen

the film began a blind trashing of Al as a

charlatan, a fake, super-liberal left-wing fool, and it's so vitriolic and mean spirited that I don't think they've even seen the film. Franny, Al's wife, took us aside and said, "You know, you better get used to this. Because he's outspoken and fearless about it."

NI: He does seem to incur a lot of conservative wrath.

Doob: You know, one thing about Al and Republicans - in his funny way, he likes Republicans. If you scratch a little below the surface, he has traditional American Republican values. He's not a conservative on things like abortion and gay rights, but he has this idea of family and conservation in the old-fashioned sense, and he's conservative economically, even though he believes in universal health care. Many of his core values are kind of conservative and he'd be willing to admit that. He has a comfort level with traditional Republican values ... Al does cross lines. Ben Stein is a real Republican and good friend and a big fan of Al's. Some conservative blogger said Republicans should see this as much as Democrats to see somebody who believes in what he does.

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