Directed by: Dawn Porter
Produced By: Evan Hayes (Free Solo), Laura Dern, Jayme Lemons and Dawn Porter
Running Time: 1 hour and 41 minutes

by Liz Wiest

A picture is worth a thousand words, and if those pictures were captured by former White House photographer Pete Souza, a great deal more than that. The Way I See It, based on the New York Times Bestseller of the same title, is the latest documentary from Focus Features that follows the esteemed photojournalist who served as the White House Photographer for both the Reagan Era and Obama administration. The film follows the progression of Souza’s career and personal political growth, all while providing viewers with an authentic account of what it’s like to be an omnipresent onlooker to the most powerful person on Earth.

Souza became a household name after his documentation of Ronald Reagan through all of the good, the bad and the ugly. But despite his proximity to “The Great Communicator”, he always identified as apolitical. This all changed upon his introduction to Barack Obama, the new, trailblazing 2012 presidential candidate at the time. Noting the country’s fervent response to his charismatic “Yes We Can!” attitude, Souza made it his new goal to create the “best photographic archive of a president that had ever been done”. And regardless of political affiliation, the film documents visual proof of this indisputable achievement. From start to finish, the film embodies a striking “breaking the fourth wall” effect that allows the audience to consider who the man was that captured the life-changing moments we collectively experienced as a country. Throughout his career, Pete Souza was adamant about being “the man who disappeared” into a room in order to make his work more authentic. However, following January 20, 2017, he broke his neutrality and shifted into using his photography to speak out against growing injustice in the United States through his use of calculated “shade”.

From a storytelling perspective, The Way I See It strings together a breathtaking, visually compelling narrative (nothing produced by Laura Dern could be anything less, right?) through dynamic footage that is unique to the time it was captured. The eroded, sepia-style film of candid moments with Reagan draws viewers into the Golden Era that Reaganites celebrate to this day, while also bringing out the darkness from those years that many suffer collective amnesia over. However, all things considered, Souza himself remains steadfast in his neutral stance on him. Interestingly enough, the Venn diagram of the shots he took of Reagan overlaps greatly with those of Obama, even though the man behind the camera changed greatly as time went on.

Undoubtedly, the most fascinating element of the story at hand was Souza’s personal relationship to President Obama. With Reagan, his job was nothing more than a “cool” job. However, post-2012, it became apparent that, although his knack for photojournalism spoke volumes on its own, the very existence of the photos of the Obama family in their most fleeting moments was due in part to the unbreakable trust between the two men. Souza described working for Barack Obama as “trying to take a sip from a fire hose that never shuts off”, and by becoming his friend, this plight to capture the true essence of an American icon became easier to overcome- and the result was iconic.

Although the film packs a great deal into its near two-hour timeframe, pacing-wise, the narrative feels imbalanced. The segment on Reagan seems like a footnote, while the main brunt of the story fixates on Obama then wraps up with the contrasting segment of Trump. When not detailing Souza’s life and career, the tone is that of a Ted Talk, which is undoubtedly intentional given the MSNBC branding. This wouldn’t be entirely inappropriate, except for it feeling out of place with some of the specific topics at hand. For example, the portion that explores Obama’s profound impact on the black community- but did not include any interviews with people of color. This choice feels noteworthy given our current climate, and because of this, the references to current events without delving into their roots, felt very disjointed. That being said, a significant theme that continuously circles back was that of empathy. Granted, given who currently holds office, comparing any other person in terms of empathy isn’t necessarily a huge badge of honor. But even without the comparison to Trump, The Way I See It shines a lot on the critical need for empathy in the job description of the President, and how drastically it is currently lacking.

At one point in the film, when analyzing a photo of Trump and his cabinet, Souza remarks that: “If you’re going to release a photo like that, you have to be truthful about what’s taking place.” It is our due diligence as viewers to consider where a story belongs in our current timeline. While nothing in The Way I See It was false or untruthful, there were certainly omitted elements (most notably: Occupy Wall Street, the Ferguson Riots, US intervention in Libya to name a few) that, had they been included, could have contributed to painting a more nuanced picture of the Obama Era. Nonetheless, the culmination of the story, which presents a great deal of footage of current events and exploration of our current plight in America, provides viewers with the chilling reminder of how high our stakes are. In the words of William Shakespeare: “What’s past is prologue”, and while The Way I See It is a film all about stark reminders and romanticization of the past, the sharp reality is that the next part of the narrative can only be determined by ourselves and our actions this November.

In select theaters and airs on MSNBC October 9, 2020.