The irony of writing a piece for Variety’s Don’t Forget About series about an actor playing President James Garfield is not lost on me. Often relegated to a footnote in U.S. history, Garfield was president barely six months before he died after being shot by Charles Guiteau in 1881.
In the Netflix limited series “Death by Lightning,” Michael Shannon rips the oft-overlooked president from the history books and brings him to life in fine fashion. Shannon, who has delivered unforgettable performances in films like “Nocturnal Animals,” “The Shape of Water,” “Take Shelter” and “Revolutionary Road,” plays Garfield with quiet dignity and strength. At a time when many are clamoring for more civility in politics, Shannon sees Garfield as “wish fulfillment in the form of television.”
“That’s what everybody wants, isn’t it? A decent man?” says Shannon. “I hear all this bellyaching about these criminals and insane people that are running everything. Everybody’s fantasizing about having a decent person to call the shots, so here you go.”
Shannon says that he is grateful that Garfield’s story is being told, as the post-Civil War, pre-World War I period of American history is often overlooked. He also wants to see Garfield recognized for his accomplishments, like working to establish what would become the Dept. of Education.
“He got the ball rolling on that,” Shannon says. “He believed that to have a free and equal society, everyone had to have an education. It’s a beautiful thing. Now, unfortunately, we’re seeing it be dismantled.”
While he admits that “Death by Lightning” is a not a completely unbiased portrayal of Garfield, the actor believes that there is much to learn from the late president’s story, including the ideals of service and self-sacrifice.
“He started at the bottom. It’s not BS. It’s not some story somebody made up. It’s what happened,” he says. “When he met Crete, his wife, she was a student at a school where he was the janitor. A guy like that, I think he understands what’s important.”
“Death by Lightning” largely focuses on the struggles Garfield faced during his presidency in trying to overcome the influence of Senator Roscoe Conkling. It was a period marked by corruption, influence peddling and partisan infighting.
The similarities to today’s political environment are clear to Shannon.
“One of my favorite songs has a line in it that goes ‘Our president’s crazy. Did you hear what he said?’ The song was recorded in the early ’80s and it’s basically been true since before the song was recorded, when the song was recorded and now many years after the song was recorded,” he says. “This idea that the president is crazy — there are people who thought Garfield was crazy. It’s easy to forget that.”
Shannon is surrounded by a murderer’s row of talent in “Death by Lightning,” including Betty Gilpin, Nick Offerman and Shea Whigham.
But it’s the parallelism the show establishes between Garfield and Guiteau (played expertly by Matthew Macfadyen) that drives the narrative forward. While Garfield’s story — Civil War veteran, farmer, reluctant president — is the stuff of the American Dream, Guiteau’s penchant for delusion and self-aggrandizement is clearly an American Nightmare.
“That’s a fork in the road that a lot of people find themselves at,” Shannon says. “That’s where the self-sacrifice, dedication, the idea of service — I think people wind up heading toward the nightmare because they think too much about themselves and their own gratification. That can’t help but lead to a nightmare.”
Source: variety.com
