‘Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid’ Review: James Carville Doc Is a Punchy Portrait of a Political Provocateur

There is one problem with the lively new James Carville documentary, Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, premiering at Telluride: For much of the film, Carville worries about the dangers of having Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate.

Obviously, the movie (which was acquired by CNN Films) was conceived and filmed before Biden dropped out of the race. During the last year, long before the June debate with Trump, Carville was deeply concerned that Biden’s presence on the ballot could cost the Democrats the election. That all changed on July 21st, when Biden dropped out. But by then, the film was close to completion. A brief end title reports the news of Harris’ ascension, yet the film still seems skewed.

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Nevertheless, it provides some great background on Carville and certainly convinces us that he is one of the most colorful figures on the scene today — and still making noise. His background growing up in a tiny town in Louisiana with a large Black population clearly helped to shape him, and filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer visits the town with him. Memories of what his neighbors had to endure stayed with him. Tyrnauer, who made earlier documentaries on Roy Cohn, designer Valentino, and sociologist Jane Jacobs, has a fine eye for detail.

The event that put Carville on the map was the 1992 presidential campaign, when Carville helped to insure Bill Clinton’s victory. As one pundit observes, both Clinton and Carville had “a little bit of rogue in them.” Carville was able to neutralize much of the negative publicity about Clinton’s extramarital shenanigans, and he aided in highlighting Clinton’s intellect and fairly mainstream positions on many issues that concerned Americans at the time, especially the economy. (Carville’s famous line, “It’s the economy, stupid!” played a piquant role.)

Clinton himself provides valuable and fresh interview material to the director, as does Carville’s young assistant at the time, George Stephanopoulos. Other political operatives also give their assessments of Carville’s acumen.

As might be predicted, another crucial part of the doc concerns Carville’s 30-year marriage to Mary Matalin, who was working on the Bush campaign of 1992 when she crossed paths with Carville. Their romance of opposites has been highlighted before, even helping to inspire a fictional movie, 1994’s Speechless (starring Michael Keaton and Geena Davis). Both Matalin and Carville provide candid interviews to the director. They probably had their most significant conflict when Matalin went to work in the Bush-Cheney White House, while Carville vehemently opposed the Iraq War. Their on-camera byplay always seems piquant and unrehearsed.

As most people probably know, Carville was never a radical leftist. He rails against the “woke” left in the movie, which may help to explain that he and Matalin were never true polar opposites.

The film is smoothly edited, with present-day images of Carville often doing his daily walking exercise in hotel corridors, mixed expertly with footage from the Clinton campaign and other adventures. The talking heads, who also include Paul Begala, Donna Brazile and Al Sharpton, verify Carville’s iconoclasm.

Aside from the overemphasis on Joe Biden’s age (Carville is only a year or two younger) and stubbornness in remaining in the presidential race — until he didn’t — the film may be relevant in introducing young viewers to an experienced operative. And the portrait of a marriage of political contraries may inspire some people to believe in the possibility of finding common ground with someone whose views you mainly despise.