All The President's Minutes - Minute 41 with Michael McLennan
All The President's Minutes is a podcast where conversations about movies, journalism, politics and history meet. Each show we use the seminal and increasingly prescient 1976 film All The President's Men as a portal, to engage with the themes and the warnings of the film resonating since its release. For minute 41, I join Sydney-based writer/director/producer/editor, Michael McLennan. Michael and I discuss entering the paranoia genre with Oliver Stone's "Nixon" and "The X-Files," the intimidation of an offscreen and unseen antagonist, the burgeoning optimism in the text and always finding a way back to talking about Michael Mann.
Narration Excerpt:
“I'M THE GUY THEY CALLED DEEP THROAT”
About Michael McLennan
Michael McLennan is an Australian-based writer/director whose short films have played at film festivals around the world. These films include 'Standby', 'A Tea Party for Sad People', 'Go Quickly', 'Small Things', 'Magpie' and 'Why We Trade'. He was Head of Production and Head of Film at Sydney Film School, where he taught Screen Language, Writing, Post-Production and Creativity, and supervised over 400 short films made at the School. In 2009 he founded the Secret Film Society, producing ten short films over the subsequent two years. He has also worked as a producer, director of photography, editor, sound designer and music editor. He currently has three feature scripts in development and teaches film at the Academy of Film Theatre and Television and AIT.