Advise & Dissent
USA | 2009 | 87 min
Government’s least-understood "Third Branch" has a huge impact on our lives—from abortion to affirmative action, education to the environment, privacy to police action. So we must put our faith in the ideal chiseled on its façade: "Equal Justice Under Law." But in recent years the way we select Supreme Court justices has become dangerously politicized, threatening judicial impartiality. Advise & Dissent is the first documentary to go behind the lines and into the trenches of the judicial confirmation wars. The film tracks two opposing lobbyists and two lions of the Senate through several recent nominations, each of which inflames passions and provokes surprising conflicts and shifting alliances. The award-winning film weaves “you-are-there” scenes into an unexpectedly suspenseful narrative. Advise & Dissent subtly but inexorably reveals how honesty has succumbed to strategy, how politics have come to trump principle, and how partisanship is overwhelming judicial independence. Both timely and timeless, the film lays bare the collision of politics and justice that is re-shaping America’s future.
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DIR David Van Taylor
CAST Samuel Alito, George W. Bush, Patrick Leahy, Harriet Miers, Manny Miranda, Ralph Neas, John Roberts, Arlen Specter
Official site Spiced with a touch of John Grisham-style flavor and some Howard Zinn-style philosophy, Advise & Dissent brings to life the high-stakes drama of Supreme Court nominations and confirmations with significant behind-the-scenes access to real power players. The ghosts of three court confirmations past as conjured in this suspenseful documentary will haunt viewers today, as future, lifetime confirmations lurk ever on the horizon.
—Rahdi Taylor, Sundance Institute
