'The Way I See It' captures all the subleties of Pete Souza's job as the former official White House photographer
“The Way I See It” — ★ ★ ★ ½
Dawn Porter's subversively Gandhi-esque “The Way I See It” doesn't look like a political hit job on President Donald Trump.
It appears to be a standard-issue documentary about an official White House photographer reminiscing about all the wonderful, behind-the-scenes photos he shot during the Reagan and Obama administrations.
But during the opening scene, that photographer, former Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune shooter Pete Souza, announces that after remaining nonpolitical all his photojournalist life, he felt compelled to speak up as an American citizen.
He lets his camera do the talking.
And the camera delivers a soul-searing speech packed with poignancy, nostalgia, sadness, joy and occasional humor.
Souza very seldom mentions You-Know-Who.
He doesn't need to.
“The Way I See It” employs a remarkable form of judo persuasion, just like that martial arts discipline, built upon the principle that good technique can turn an opponent's own size and strength against him.
This doc presumes that the time-tested virtues of empathy, kindness, intelligence and restraint can win over lesser traits of self-indulgence and destructive behavior.
Souza shows us his treasure trove of photos from the second Reagan term. He talks about Reagan's ability to relate to people. But his pictures show it better in the faces of people beaming in the presence of the president and his devoted wife/personal adviser, Nancy Reagan.
Souza's work so impressed her, she asked him to photograph her husband's funeral.
“The Way I See It” devotes more attention to Obama, mostly because he gave Souza much greater access to his life in the Oval Office for two terms.
He wound up with a far more comprehensive visual record, with heart-ripping remembrances of a U.S. president comforting a crying mother at Sandy Hook. Or a husband and father emanating sheer adoration for his family during a snowball fight on the White House lawn.
Or the unfiltered reactions of the Obama staff gathered to witness the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Souza tells us that his primary subjects embodied the three most important qualities he hopes his photos capture: leadership, character and empathy.
The lack of those qualities in the current chief executive prompted Souza to produce two best-sellers — the basis for this movie — “Obama: An Intimate Portrait” in 2017 and “Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents” a year later.
Attorney/filmmaker Porter has a track record for directing sharply observed social justice documentaries dealing with hot-button topics such as segregation. Her anti-abortion-law-themed “Trapped” proved to be so incendiary that cops had to check viewers for weapons at theaters.
No need for that here.
“The Way I See It” supplements Sousa's work with carefully selected video footage that springboards off the themes in his pictures, all to remind us what grace in leadership looks like.
Some critics might mistake this movie for a form of propaganda. Propaganda films employ distorted information and downright lies. Real documentaries do not.
One thing I do know after 45 years of hanging around Sun-Times and Tribune photographers (some of them former Daily Herald employees), their cameras do not bow to ideology but strive to capture truth in still-life narratives.
As a once-staunch apolitical animal, Souza has stepped into the fray he once covered, and in the process, has provided a visual voice for the unsilent majority.
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With: Pete Souza, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan
A documentary directed by: Dawn Porter
Other: A Focus Features release in theaters. Rated PG-13 for language. 102 minutes