The President of the United States on Screen

Swiss graphic designer Lea Michel has chosen for her book the single most often impersonated figure in Western movie history: The President of the United States. Taking 164 fictitious presidents, male and female (for the first time in Curtis Bernhard’s comedy Kisses for my President of 1964), it charts the range of actions of the world’s formerly most powerful person – making statements or giving speeches, standing in front of or sitting behind the desk at the Oval Office, climbing out of or into limousines, wearing dressing gowns.

Six presidential typologies – Father and Husband, Villain, Alien, Clown, Hero, Lover – sorted by 241 sub-categories, such as Shaking Hands, Looking Shocked at a Screen, or In a Video Conference with a Terrorist. Taken from films and TV and online series, such as Dr. Strangelove, Independence Day, or House of Cards, as well as from many lesser known productions, they also highlight the intense relationship between fiction and reality in a time where the incumbent president exploits all media to an unprecedented extent to market himself and to increase his popularity.