10 impactful documentaries you should watch on Netflix
By Becky Kukla
Get Me Roger Stone (2017)
If Donald Trump is the marionette, then Roger Stone is the puppeteer pulling at the strings from above — strings that are becoming ever more visible to the public eye. Whether you are familiar with the Trump presidency or not (you lucky thing), Get Me Roger Stone is a damning and eye opening account of the political life of Roger Stone, political lobbyist, strategist and right-hand man to presidents over the years.
The documentary is in part a scathing commentary on the US political system and in part a biography of Stone’s coercion and control of various Republican presidents and nominees. From his beginnings with Nixon, right up to 2018, Get Me Roger Stone also outlines Donald’s Trump’s journey to presidency in 2016, giving Stone the credit for bringing Trump to the White House. Perhaps surprisingly, directors Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme conduct extensive interviews with Stone himself, many of which give an exclusive insight into the mind of someone who often resembles a caricature rather than a human being.
With filming beginning in 2011 and spanning up to 2016, much of the documentary focuses on Stone’s past accomplishments and his vice like grip on contemporary politics. Though Trump’s era is not depicted, the documentary illustrates exactly how Stone has groomed and prepared Trump for presidency from as far back as the 1980s.
Set out in chapters, titled by each of Stone’s ‘rules’ (“think big, go big”, “it’s better to be infamous than never famous at all”), Get Me Roger Stone is lively, fast-paced and hard to look away from. Though Stone might be persuasive, the film doesn’t stop questioning what Stone’s motivations are and even if we never quite get to the bottom of it, it’s still absolutely essential viewing.
Oh, and the Nixon tattoo? Perhaps the most terrifying thing that Stone has ever done…