“Hi. My name is Jason Reitman. I’m the co-writer and director of “The Front Runner.” And this is the opening shot of the film. We made a decision early on that we were going to do a long-spanning opening shot that would serve almost as a lesson for the audience in how to watch this film. You’re presented with a variety of characters, a lot of information. And we wanted to put the audience into 1987. Of course, here we’re actually in 1984. We’re three years before the core of the movie starts. And already the camera is moving through this outdoor location. You’re, as an audience, trying to figure out which characters you’re supposed to follow. Our mixer Steve Morrow did an amazing job of pointing your ears before the camera would even point your eyes. It is a movie where your ears tell you where to go before your eyes do. And you’re getting an innocuous story from these guys — a true story about Mike Stratton losing the tip of his finger trying to start up a golf cart — as you hear journalists around you who are giving you the background on Hart.” [chatter] “ — Walter Mondale’s campaign. Yeah, let’s try another one.” [chatter] “So not only are you getting this information about who Hart was for the majority of the audience, who probably won’t remember or will not have been alive at the time, but simultaneously, as a viewer, picking up this kind of guide of, all right, this is how this movie is going to look. This is how it’s going to feel. And I’m going to have to try to make these decisions in real time. As filmmakers, we made a decision early on that we only wanted to use technology that was available in the ‘80s. So as you can see, these monitors are playing back in real time. They’re not burn-ins. Everything had to be choreographed as though we did shoot this movie in the ‘80s, or maybe even in the ‘70s. The opening shot — the zoom bumps on the opening. And I was really excited about this, because we now have very fluid zoom remotes, but I wanted it to feel like a ‘70s shot in which they didn’t have that kind of control. And the first zoom kind of bumps. Even this kind of zoom into this character up here who throws his hat, gives up on the campaign, emulates a style of filmmaking that we associate from another era. And the last person, of course, that we reach is Gary Hart. This is a movie that looks from the outside in, not the inside out. So you have a variety of characters — campaign people, journalists, random pedestrians. And we’re all given a point of view on this character who we desperately want to understand in this film. Hart is an enigma. His family would tell you that. His friends would tell you that. And Hugh does this incredible thing in this performance, where he knows how desperately we want to understand him, and he brings us right to the edge but never lets us completely in.” “I’ll come with you back to Denver.” “You should stay.” “Senator, it’s time.” When you watch a movie about politics, I think there’s a presumption that the filmmaker is going to tell you, here’s the good guy. Here’s the bad guy. Here’s what the movie’s about. Here’s what you’re supposed to think. And “The Front Runner” is a movie that does not tell you who the good guys or bad guys — there are no heroes and villains in this story.” [music playing and chatter]