DR: Amy Rice and Alicia Sams’ By the People: The Election of Barack Obama

It’ll be a bittersweet viewing for plenty of folks who end up watching today’s Daily Recommendation, but for the avid docu fan in me, Amy Rice and Alicia Sams’ By the People: The Election of Barack Obama had me thinking of a pair of documentary films (Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker’s The War Room and Robert Drew’s Primary) that gave a far more gripping account of the campaign trail.

For the Obama family and for everyone who campaigned or voted for him, By the People is a feel good memory to add to the scrapbook. Considering that this is literally yesterday’s news and hasn’t yet aged, the Rice-Sams card still managed to carve out an easy watch and make an overly processed in the media road to the presidency, feel somewhat dynamic. Those that don’t receive enough screen time are the David Axelrods and David Plouffes of the operation, but then again, the approach doesn’t get into the trenches and unlike the president doesn’t think different, but what is does do is document the kind of rapport that the candidate wanted to have with the media and the public, and viewing it from this angle of those handing out the buttons and the bumper stickers isn’t off-putting. 

Here is a portion of the press notes and how the docu came about.

Rice conceived of the idea of making a documentary about Obama long before the Illinois senator announced his decision to run for president. Inspired by his oratorical skills and star appeal at the 2004 Democratic Convention, she set out to film his political career in 2006. Rice approached documentary producer Sams, who joined to co-direct and actor Edward Norton’s production company, Class 5, agreed to produce the project. After Norton approached Obama’s team with the idea, the senator agreed to grant the filmmakers what turned out to be unprecedented and exclusive access. Now imagine for just one second if someone had tapped into a Republican, Caribou hunting Governor from the North. Nearly a year before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the Presidency on February 10, 2007, filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams began to roll cameras on the young Senator. Over the next 19 months, they found themselves travelling all across the country, chronicling the daily ups and downs of the campaign trail as experienced by Obama, his family, his staff and volunteers. While Obama’s meteoric rise to the White House has been well documented in the press, few have seen the behind-the-scenes story of the passionate campaigners who helped a young African-American freshman Senator attain the nation’s highest office.