Get Me Roger Stone

Roger Stone has worked as a consultant in American politics for more than forty years. He began as a young operative on the Nixon campaign, his name came up in the Watergate investigation, and he then founded lobbying firms and worked on election campaigns. His method is open: attack the opponent's standing, set the agenda with rumour rather than event, and treat even bad coverage as a gain. The documentary interviews him at length and he describes all of it without concealment. Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme direct. It was released on Netflix in 2017. Its force comes from Stone himself; he boasts on camera and confirms what he did. The narrative ties into the presidential election of 2016. Stone had advocated that candidacy years earlier and worked on the campaign in its early period; the documentary makes the connection. Its second subject is the spread of the method: campaign tactics Stone applied forty years ago having become ordinary. It was criticised for giving Stone so much room; while exposing him the narrative also hands him a stage. Legal proceedings involving Stone followed the filming, and the documentary was completed before those developments. Who it is for: anyone interested in American politics and campaign methods. Who it is not for: it turns around one person, the other side is weakly represented, and the narrative informs without analysing.