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Journeys with George

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Documentary account of George W. Bush's presidential campaign during the 2000 election.

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Journeys With George

  TV-PG | documentaries | 1 HR 16 MIN | 2002

This video diary captures Alexandra Pelosi's 18 months on the road covering the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush.

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: This video diary captures Alexandra Pelosi's 18 months on the road covering the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush.

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This video diary captures Alexandra Pelosi's 18 months on the road covering the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush.

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Journeys with George (2002) Stream and Watch Online

Yearning to watch ' Journeys with George ' on your TV, phone, or tablet? Discovering a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or view the Alexandra Pelosi-directed movie via subscription can be a challenge, so we here at Moviefone want to do the work for you. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'Journeys with George' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of how you can watch 'Journeys with George' right now, here are some specifics about the Purple Monkey Productions documentary flick. Released March 8th, 2002, 'Journeys with George' stars George W. Bush , Alexandra Pelosi , Karl Rove , Wayne Slater The movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 19 min, and received a user score of 69 (out of 100) on TMDb, which compiled reviews from 7 knowledgeable users. You probably already know what the movie's about, but just in case... Here's the plot: "Documentary account of George W Bushs presidential campaign during the 2000 election" 'Journeys with George' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on .

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• Cast & Crew

Journeys With George

• 48   Metascore
• 1 hr 16 mins
• Documentary

A lighthearted, candid look at George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Produced, written and directed by Alexandra Pelosi, who spent 18 months with the Republican candidate. Pelosi's mother, Nancy, became the first female speaker of the House in 2007.

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• 2003 - Emmy - Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming - nominated
• 2003 - Emmy - Outstanding Non-Fiction Special (Traditional) - nominated
• 2003 - Emmy - Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming - nominated

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George W. Bush

Alexandra Pelosi

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Journeys with George

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• Filmcritic.com Christopher Null All in all, an interesting look at the life of the campaign-trail press, especially ones that don't really care for the candidate they're forced to follow.
• FilmJerk.com Edward Havens A must see for all sides of the political spectrum
• Film Threat Merle Bertrand A chronicle not only of one man's quest to be president, but of how that man single-handedly turned a plane full of hard-bitten, cynical journalists into what was essentially, by campaign's end, an extended publicity department.
• New York Times Caryn James An amusing, breezily apolitical documentary about life on the campaign trail.
• Movie Views Ryan Cracknell Pelosi's willingness to open up and look into her own spot in the campaign frenzy makes this meta-documentary important the media and those who consume it.
• New York Post Linda Stasi It's a hoot and a half, and a great way for the American people to see what a candidate is like when he's not giving the same 15-cent stump speech.
• New York Magazine/Vulture John Leonard You'll like Alexandra.
• Village Voice J. Hoberman The movie is virtually without context -- journalistic or historical. What's worse is that Pelosi knows it.
• World Socialist Web Site David Walsh A serious work could have been made from the experience Pelosi underwent, but only if a filmmaker were capable of standing back from the day-to-day flow of events and asserting an independent and critical viewpoint.
• ReelTalk Movie Reviews Donald J. Levit Shaky close-ups of turkey-on-rolls, stubbly chins, liver spots, red noses and the filmmakers new bobbed do draw easy chuckles but lead nowhere.

Take Plex everywhere

Journeys With George

Cast & crew.

Alexandra Pelosi

Aaron Lubarsky

• DOCUMENTARY
• Average 6.6

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Journeys with George

A documentary about George W. Bush's 2000 campaign for the White House. A documentary about George W. Bush's 2000 campaign for the White House. A documentary about George W. Bush's 2000 campaign for the White House.

• Alexandra Pelosi
• Aaron Lubarsky
• George W. Bush
• R.G. Ratcliffe
• Wayne Slater
• 16 User reviews
• 9 Critic reviews
• 48 Metascore
• 1 win & 5 nominations total

• (archive footage)

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia At one point during filming, George W. Bush took the camera from Alexandra Pelosi and turned it on her. Pelosi included this moment in the finished film and gave Bush a credit for cinematography.

George W. Bush : I like a good bologna sandwich.

• Connections Followed by Diary of a Political Tourist (2004)
• Soundtracks Happy Birthday (uncredited) Written by Mildred J. Hill and Patty S. Hill [Sang at three different times for Pelosi's birthday]

User reviews 16

• bob the moo
• Jul 12, 2007
• March 14, 2003 (United States)
• United States
• Purple Monkey Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Mar 16, 2003

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 19 minutes

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Journeys with George (DVD)

Culled from countless hours of video and originally broadcast on HBO in November 2002, this Emmy-winning "home movie" purports to provide an "all-access pass" to George W. Bush during the 18-month haul of his 2000 presidential campaign, but it's more accurate to call this a revealing portrait of camaraderie among the campaign's roving press corps. Armed with a camcorder and her own charming personality, NBC news producer Alexandra Pelosi (youngest daughter of California Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi) captures a "Dubya" we don't often see: casual, charismatic, and (with a mouthful of junk food much of the time) rather lacking in table manners. History has turned Journeys with George into a horror film that looks like a road-trip buddy comedy. The terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent war in Iraq were more than two years in the future, so this amiable cross-country jaunt now looks like a stress-free postcard from a more innocent time, enjoyable for its candor about the seemingly endless cycle of photo-ops and repetitive campaign rhetoric. What you won't get from Pelosi's video diary is any deeper insight into George W. Bush or the nascent workings of his imminent administration. As a lighter-side companion to The War Room , however, Journeys with George is must-see viewing for anyone interested in the relationship between jaded journalists and the man who would become the 43rd President of the United States. It's unlikely we'll ever see another film quite like this. --Jeff Shannon

Product details

• Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.33:1
• Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)
• Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.25 x 5.25 x 0.75 inches; 4 ounces
• Director ‏ : ‎ Aaron Lubarsky
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ Multiple Formats, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 16 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ February 24, 2004
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Alexandra Pelosi
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
• Studio ‏ : ‎ HBO Studios
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0000YTOXU
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #8,904 in Documentary (Movies & TV)
• #30,705 in Drama DVDs

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Journeys With George

Documentary

1 hour 15 mins.

Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi follows George W. Bush on his presidential campaign trail in 2000.

Cast & Crew

Alexandra Pelosi Director

Where to Stream

2002 documentary.

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Journeys with George

Alexandria Pelosi talked about the documentary film she made of her year and an half following George W. Bush on the campaign trail for the … read more

Alexandria Pelosi talked about the documentary film she made of her year and an half following George W. Bush on the campaign trail for the 2000 presidential election. Besides showing a more personal portrait of the candidate, the film focused on the workings of the press corps. She responded to questions submitted by members of the audience. Ms. Shlain served as moderator. close

Javascript must be enabled in order to access C-SPAN videos.

• Text type Text People Graphical Timeline
• Filter by Speaker All Speakers Alexandra Pelosi Tiffany Shlain
• Search this text

*This text was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.

People in this video

Hosting Organization

• Commonwealth Club of California Commonwealth Club of California
• American Perspectives

Airing Details

• Dec 14, 2002 | 9:18pm EST | C-SPAN 1
• Dec 15, 2002 | 12:20am EST | C-SPAN 1
• Dec 16, 2002 | 8:04am EST | C-SPAN 2

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Watch Journeys with George

• 1 hr 19 min
• 6.8   (717)

Journeys with George is a 2002 documentary that follows the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. The film was shot by Alexandra Pelosi, a young NBC producer who was assigned to cover the campaign. Pelosi's access gave her an intimate look at the inner workings of the campaign and the personality of the candidate himself. She captures the everyday moments of the grueling campaign schedule, from the early-morning flights to the late-night rallies.

The film is shot in classic cinema verite style, which immerses the viewer in the action and makes them feel like a part of the campaign. Pelosi's camera is unobtrusive, allowing the subjects to forget they're being filmed and revealing candid moments that show the human side of the politicians.

The documentary also provides a fascinating look at how the media works. Pelosi's behind-the-scenes access shows the reporters who travel with the campaign, including the Texas political reporters R.G. Ratcliffe and Wayne Slater.

Pelosi captures the tension between the reporters and the Bush campaign, with both sides trying to spin the news in their favor. She also shows how the reporters, who are often stuck in the same airplane or bus for days on end, form relationships with the candidates and each other.

But the heart of the film is George W. Bush himself. Pelosi's access allows us to see the man behind the campaign persona. We see him interacting with reporters, voters, and even his own family members in unguarded moments.

Bush comes across as charming, funny, and personable. He seems to genuinely enjoy the campaign trail, and his enthusiasm is infectious. At the same time, Pelosi doesn't shy away from showing his flaws; we see him stumbling over his words and getting testy with reporters who ask tough questions.

The film also captures the excitement and drama of election night. We see the Bush camp celebrating their victory, while the Al Gore camp struggles to accept their defeat. Pelosi's camera is there as Bush gives his victory speech, and the emotion is palpable.

Overall, Journeys with George is a fascinating documentary that provides a unique glimpse into the world of presidential campaigns. Pelosi's access to the Bush campaign gives the viewer an intimate look at the candidate and the people who surrounded him on the trail.

The film is also a valuable historical document, as it captures a moment in time when the country was deeply divided and the outcome of the election was uncertain. Whether you're a political junkie or just someone interested in how campaigns work, Journeys with George is a must-see film.

Journeys with George is a 2003 documentary with a runtime of 1 hour and 19 minutes. It has received mostly poor reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.8 and a MetaScore of 48.

• Genres Documentary
• Cast George W. Bush R.G. Ratcliffe Wayne Slater
• Director Alexandra Pelosi Aaron Lubarsky
• Release Date 2003
• MPAA Rating TV-PG
• Runtime 1 hr 19 min
• IMDB Rating 6.8   (717)
• Metascore 48

Ten years, eight clubs, one dream: The story of Fa'amanu Brown, rugby league's ultimate journeyman

Analysis Sport Ten years, eight clubs, one dream: The story of Fa'amanu Brown, rugby league's ultimate journeyman

Fa'amanu Brown has had plenty of days to remember though his 10-year, eight-club career in rugby league, but the past week was something new, even for him.

After securing a release from Hull FC, he flew from England on Sunday, landed in Australia on Monday, signed with St George Illawarra on Tuesday, trained with them on Thursday and played in the club's 30-12 win over the Warriors on Friday.

"I didn't think I'd play on Friday but Flanno (coach Shane Flanagan) said he'd throw me in the deep end," Brown said.

"It was surreal to get a win against a quality side like the Warriors and it was the first time we won back-to-back in a couple of years, so that's important.

"Nobody is ever going to turn down an offer to play in the NRL, even if you're straight off the plane."

Brown's move is the latest chapter of a long, winding journey that started in Christchurch and has taken the 29-year-old from Cronulla, to Canterbury, to Featherstone Rovers in the English second division, to North Sydney Bears in NSW Cup, to Wests Tigers, back to Canterbury, then to Newcastle, Hull FC and finally the Dragons.

That's nine different stints at eight different clubs across two continents and four different leagues in 11 seasons, for those of you playing at home. The Dragons are the fourth team he's played for in 18 months.

Throw in his appearances for Samoa, his belated debut for New Zealand – where he played in last year's record Pacific Championship final belting of Australia – and the fact he overcame a leg injury that left doctors telling him he'd never walk again let alone play, and it's one of the most remarkable careers in modern rugby league.

Some players might take being described as a journeyman as disparaging. Brown uses it as a sign-off on Instagram and wears it as a badge of honour. Few can match his journey, on the field or off it.

Plenty of people who have faced Brown's hardships would have retired long ago. The uncertainty of life as a rugby league vagabond isn't for everyone but Brown has been making the very most of what he's got his whole life.

"It's from my upbringing. We all face adversity on our own journeys but I grew up in a three-bedroom state house as one of nine kids. We just had to deal with what we had," Brown said.

"It's the hardships I've had to go through. I grew up in a home with domestic violence. I grew up in a house where you had to deal with what you had and I've carried that with me.

"When you're chucked in the deep end it's swim or drown and I've been put in that position my whole life.

"That's what built my resilience and my character. I'm so lucky with my family and my support base, my fiance Jordan has been with me through everything. She's been right there on the rollercoaster with me.

"There have been plenty of times when I've wanted to retire but I'm so lucky."

Brown got his first shot at the top grade back in 2014 with Cronulla as the club struggled in the grip of the ASADA scandal.

The Sharks were outscored 56-0 in his first two matches. But, as he's done so many times, Brown kept at it and Cronulla, somehow, won their following two games – overturning 22-0 and 24-0 deficits in the process.

He stayed at the Sharks until the end of 2017 – that's where he worked with Flanagan, who was instrumental in bringing him to the Dragons this season — before he headed to Canterbury and began his wandering.

"It sounds like a cliché, but I love giving back. For me, the only way out of the hood was rugby league. That was all I knew. So I have to represent people who do it tough," Brown said. 

"There's a lot of kids, some kids who come from nothing, who might be unlucky with injuries or they're down and out and think there's no way back, that's who I represent. If I can do it then, bloody hell, anyone can.

"I never left a stone unturned. You can have all the achievements in the world, but you know in your heart if you gave it your all, if you never stopped fighting."

That attitude helped Brown the most during the toughest stretch of his career in 2020 when a succession of foot injuries put his career on the brink.

Five doctors told him he'd never play again. Some of them said he'd never run again. At the same time, he was nursing his mother through the final stages of her life as she battled lung cancer.

Amid everything, he found a way to keep going. He always does. He's realised he's more than his football career, a perspective that gives him the strength to carry on in the hardest times.

"Rugby league is a part of me, but it's not all of me. I still have so much away from the game and I'm still young in the real world. I had to learn that rugby league is so important to me but it isn't me," Brown said.

"So when you go through injuries, or when you're on a string of one-year deals or you lose yourself trying to train too hard or think about it too much, you have to remember that, and you only learn it through experiences."

Brown is still hopeful of having some experiences left. He'll play for the Dragons on Anzac Day against the Roosters in front of a sold out crowd at the Sydney Football Stadium, which is one of rugby league's great occasions, and with Flanagan's coaching beginning to take effect on the Red V, who knows where this season could end up?

"When you look at the Dragons you can see that when they face adversity they play for one another, they turn up. That's something they haven't had in recent years and that's what I think Flanno has bought, that winning mentality," Brown said. 

"He knows what he's doing and a lot of the boys are trusting him and what he's trying to do."

For the time being, Brown's goals are modest. He wants to earn more minutes as he re-acclimatises to the NRL. He wants to lock down a contract for next year, to get just a little bit of security.

He's taking his career year-by-year at this point, but the end isn't in sight yet. The man is still on his journey.

"Not many people get to do this, not many people get to be in our shoes, so I was always going to take it with both hands," Brown said.

"It doesn't matter if it's one minute or 80 minutes, you get to be out there in front of 20,000 fans.

"A normal person doesn't get to experience that, so I'm so grateful for everything, I'm so grateful to be at the elite level and I believe this is where I belong.

"I'm a full believer that everything happens for a reason. With my journey you can't really write a story like this."

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Art Seeks Enlightenment in Darkness

Many artists are dimming the lights of their museum shows, for a mix of symbolic and spiritual reasons.

Kehinde Wiley’s “An Archaeology of Silence” exhibition, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, addresses “the silence surrounding systemic violence and injustice.” Credit... The artist and Galerie Templon; photo MFA Houston

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By Jori Finkel

• April 24, 2024

This article is part of our Museums special section about how institutions are striving to offer their visitors more to see, do and feel.

To enter Kehinde Wiley’s show “An Archaeology of Silence” is to step into darkness, where only the art itself seems to emit light. The space feels somewhere between a crypt and a cathedral, featuring paintings and bronze sculptures of reclining Black bodies, spread out in repose or entombed like corpses, that appear to glow from within.

The show, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston , culminates with a monumental sculpture of a fallen man on horseback, draped over the horse as if he had just been shot, his Nikes dangling below the saddle. Made in the year after George Floyd was killed by the police in Minneapolis , this monument — and more broadly, the show as a whole — confronts the “legacy and scope of anti-Black violence,” according to Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation.

While his particular blend of the contemporary and historical is all his own, Wiley is just one of several artists working these days to stage dramatically dark exhibitions. Across the country, visual artists are plunging visitors into museum spaces where you can hardly make out the wall labels in front of you, and not just for film and video.

In Southern California, Betye Saar has powerfully dimmed the lights for a new installation at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, “Drifting Toward Twilight,” which simulates the stages of nightfall. And for his show “Elegy,” which recently closed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Dawoud Bey created a moody, nearly funereal environment for his black-and-white landscape photographs, taken on or near sites associated with the Underground Railroad and the Richmond Slave Trail.

Other examples appear on the commercial gallery front, from Anselm Kiefer’s brooding paintings in “Exodus ,” presented by Gagosian at the Marciano Art Foundation last year, to Tavares Strachan’s multipart racial excavation “Magnificent Darkness” at Marian Goodman this spring — both ambitious historical reckonings. Without going pitch black, which would create visitor accessibility and safety issues as well as obscure the artworks, these artists are finding ways to evoke darkness with a range of symbolic, psychological and spiritual overtones.

The most obvious implication of all these darkened exhibitions is that we are living in dark times, which is hard to refute. But artists and curators involved say it’s more nuanced than that, and these shows are not simply an expression of grief or mourning.

“What I wanted to do is create almost a kind of religious feeling,” Wiley wrote in the catalog for his “Archaeology” show. The lighting “compels you to encounter the works with a degree of devotion or reverence,” added Claudia Schmuckli, who curated a version of the exhibition at the de Young in San Francisco last year, following the works’ debut in Venice. (The American version will continue its tour after Houston to the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.) “It inscribes the artwork in a context of sacredness.”

As for the impression that Wiley’s artworks are lit from within, Schmuckli said that was just an illusion. In actuality, fixtures known as “framing projectors” are used to focus the light within the perimeter of a particular canvas and avoid spillage or shadows. Given their brilliant colors and this precise lighting, the paintings achieve some of the luminosity of stained glass.

Saar, too, used spiritual terms in discussing her installation, which occupies its own blue-tinted room deep in the American art building at the Huntington and runs through Nov. 30, 2025. It features a 17-foot-long wooden canoe from the 1940s, painted emerald green and set on a bed of branches and twigs that the artist made by collecting a dozen different plant species from the Huntington grounds. The boat carries a bizarre group of passengers: two carved wooden creatures sporting tall antlers and three metal bird cages containing antlers.

While the canoe doesn’t actually move, it takes a journey through time as the room’s lighting cycles every eight minutes through different hues, approximating the sun rising and setting. Most striking is the moment when the canoe is bathed in a dusky blue-violet glow, like a portal to another realm.

“Twilight is the magical time, we know that,” said the artist, who is 97 and compared her artwork’s lighting cycle to a human life cycle. “That’s when nothing is definite, it’s always changing, that’s the way life is.”

Yinshi Lerman-Tan, who co-curated this installation for the Huntington, explained that there were 27 lights in this room, 20 of which were programmed to change, and four different colors creating a gradient on the walls. She compares entering the room to walking into a James Whistler or J.M.W. Turner painting that delivers “this atmospheric space between ocean and sky.”

Betye is harnessing the other world of the cosmos and the other world of the ocean or sea,” she continued. “Those have both been career-long interests in her work.”

“My job is to create a space where the spirit can be aware,” said Saar, who has long used lighting to transport her viewers into different realms. She said she first learned “how important theatrical lighting is in setting the mood” when designing costumes for the theater in the late 1960s.

For Bey, controlling a room’s lighting offers a way of creating “emotional weight,” he said. The first time he dramatically transformed a space in this way was in 2021 for his survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, for both aesthetic and practical reasons, including a desire to play video alongside photography. “It was a revelation to me,” he said. “The whole thing looked good, and there was quietude in that space that resulted. It creates a more contemplative experience. It heightens the individual drama of the work and encourages you to linger longer.”

To achieve this effect, though, Bey typically does not have to adjust the museum lighting levels much at all. Rather, he has the walls painted a rich, inky black that absorbs light, a Benjamin Moore color called Black Panther. “Once the light is not bouncing around the room, you don’t have to fine-tune the lighting as much — it’s a lot easier for the lighting crew actually,” Bey said.

He did this most recently for part of his show “Elegy” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which culminated in the darkly toned, lushly printed gelatin-silver landscapes that make up “ Night Coming Tenderly, Black,” the series that imaginatively follows the path of the Underground Railroad, set against Black Panther. Valerie Cassel Oliver, the curator of “Elegy,” said there was an unintended visual effect in that gallery — the white photographic borders were reflected on the museum floors — but even that seemed richly symbolic. The visual echo, she said, “played into the sense that there was this glowing light of freedom, of self-emancipation, after the enslaved came through the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade into this laborious life under bondage on these plantations.”

The idea that an artist’s vision might extend beyond the picture frame to include lighting can be a challenge for the most traditional, or hierarchical, museums. “Museum spaces are usually the purview of the exhibition design team working with the curator, and the artist is seldom involved,” Bey said. “Generally speaking, they like everybody to stay in their own lane.”

But that much is changing, said Bey, who was also able to work with the Getty to darken walls for a joint show with Carrie Mae Weems in 2023 and who notes that museums have become “much more receptive to artists” in recent years. Cassel Oliver agreed: “We know that encyclopedic museums have been risk-averse, but they are evolving and becoming a wonderful platform for living artists as well.”

In effect, these museums are following in the footsteps of alternative institutions, which have a long history of ceding control to contemporary artists to remake a space, floor to ceiling. For instance, when the Colombia-based artist Delcy Morelos requested skylights be covered for the first room of her exhibition “El abrazo” at Dia Chelsea, running until July 20, it wasn’t a huge ask, she said. “Dia is a very special institution when it comes to supporting artists — they never put a limit on me creatively.”

Morelos also kept artificial light to a minimum, only to be used at the end of day in a space she covered with nutrient-rich soil.

Explaining the decision, she said through a translator: “Senses that are dormant when you have a lot of light will awaken, perhaps because of the sense of danger.”

“Seeds need darkness to germinate,” she added. Or, as James Baldwin once wrote, “One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light.”

This comment was published in a 1964 book that Baldwin made with the photographer Richard Avedon. It also appeared this year at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Los Angeles, spelled out in flickering neon by the artist Tavares Strachan and placed prominently at the entrance of a dimly lit gallery, where his paintings and sculptures look like beacons in the night.

Jori Finkel is a reporter who covers art from Los Angeles. She is also the West Coast contributing editor for The Art Newspaper and author of “It Speaks to Me: Art that Inspires Artists.” More about Jori Finkel

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