Independents in Arkansas

INDEPENDENT FOR GOVERNOR: AN IDEALIST'S GRUELING RUN

(dir. Huixia Lu, 2010)

In 2006, homespun socialite, eco-savant, and rock musician Rod Bryan showed up at the Arkansas Secretary of State's office with a list of over 10,000 signatures in support of his dream: to run for governor of Arkansas. In a forthcoming documentary, INDEPENDENT FOR GOVERNOR: AN IDEALIST'S GRUELING RUN, University of Central Arkansas film professor Huixia Lu follows the thirty-seven-year-old Little Rock resident's wild bid for office, dutifully documenting Bryan's underdog run with charming brusqueness.

Bryan happens to be an aggressively engaging person, and this helps make watching his exhaustingly will-zapping DIY campaign less painful. Shots of Bryan shaking hands with people who don't want to talk to him, or bequeathing homemade campaign signs to folks who openly leave them on the floor are cringe-worthy—if not instructive—in the ways of what it takes to run a grassroots political campaign.

But as much as she's focused on Bryan, Lu's attention is devoted to the community, media, and public reception of Bryan's candidacy. Scenes of Bryan watching the debates from on-site TVs (having been barred from debating for arbitrary broadcast reasons) reveal his tendency to shout at the screen as if viewing a football game—though often with scathing insight. Then there's his visit to a small political-science class at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. After giving his spiel, he asks the students, "what percentage of the vote do you think I'll get?" Watch the earnest Bryan as he tries not to bat an eye at their brutally honest answers.

For further info, visit film's website. For further reading, check out John C. Williams's archive piece from 2006.