cover of episode ‘The Apprentice’: Donald Trump, Roy Cohn, and the Pursuit of Power

‘The Apprentice’: Donald Trump, Roy Cohn, and the Pursuit of Power

2024/10/16
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Brooke Gladstone
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Gabriel Sherman
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Brooke Gladstone: 本片回顾了70年代唐纳德·特朗普的早期生涯，以及他与臭名昭著的律师和政治操盘手罗伊·科恩结识的经过。电影虚构化地展现了真实事件，揭示了科恩如何将特朗普塑造成其门徒，并传授给他如何运用政治权力、操纵媒体和歪曲事实的策略。影片上映过程一波三折，经历了融资、发行和特朗普团队的法律威胁等诸多挑战，最终在10月11日在美国上映。特朗普本人则在Truth Social上批评该片为‘廉价的、诽谤性的和政治上令人厌恶的诋毁作品’。 Gabriel Sherman: 我作为一名政治记者和编剧，在撰写本片剧本的过程中，受到特朗普竞选集会上使用的措辞与罗伊·科恩相似这一事实的启发。我意识到，通过聚焦特朗普与科恩的关系，可以更深入地理解特朗普的许多行为。电影试图剥离政治因素，从人性角度刻画特朗普，并通过戏剧化的方式，更有效地传达其情感层面。影片展现了特朗普从一个说话谨慎、温和的人，逐渐转变为如今我们所熟知的形象的过程，旨在揭示‘怪物是制造出来的，而非天生如此’这一事实。同时，影片也探讨了纽约社会、媒体和八卦小报在特朗普崛起过程中所扮演的角色，以及政府和房地产行业腐败对特朗普成功的影响。科恩教导特朗普的成功法则包括：攻击、否认、宣称胜利；利用媒体曝光度；将法律作为武器；以及只关注胜利，不考虑道德和规则。电影也展现了特朗普对女性的暴力行为，以及他如何利用媒体的倾向性来传播自己的叙事。电影的上映时间并非刻意安排，而是恰逢特朗普竞选总统，这增加了电影的关注度。影片的制作过程也充满挑战，许多好莱坞主流公司由于担心被特朗普起诉而拒绝投资，最终由一家小型独立发行公司承担了发行风险。

Deep Dive

Chapters
The film 'The Apprentice' explores how Roy Cohn, a ruthless attorney, mentored Donald Trump, teaching him tactics to manipulate the media and bend the truth.
  • Roy Cohn was infamous for investigating suspected communists and securing the conviction of the Rosenbergs.
  • Cohn taught Trump strategies like attacking relentlessly, admitting nothing, and never admitting defeat.
  • Trump's rise in New York real estate was aided by powerful figures like Rupert Murdoch and George Steinbrenner.

Shownotes Transcript

The new film “The Apprentice),” takes us back to New York in the 1970s, to when Donald Trump was just starting to make a name for himself, and to his introduction to Roy Cohn, the ruthless attorney and political fixer. The fictionalized depiction of real events, shows how Cohn molded Trump into his protégé, imparting his political lessons on how to wield political power, manipulate the media, and bend the truth. The film was directed by Ali Abbasi and written and executive produced by Gabriel Sherman, with notable actors such as Jeremy Strong playing Roy Cohn, Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump, and Maria Bakalova as Trump’s first wife, Ivana.

 The team faced a complicated path to bringing “The Apprentice” to theater screens – struggling with procuring financing, searching for a distributor in the United States, and also facing legal threats from the Trump team – but it finally opened in theaters in the United States on October 11th. 

On Monday, Trump wrote) on Truth Social about the film: “It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country…”

Host Brooke Gladstone sat down with screenwriter and executive producer of the film, Gabriel Sherman), on Friday, October 11th.

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