FILM FRENZY

A younger Pat Oliphant in A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant (Photos: Magnolia Pictures)

By Matt Brunson

A SAVAGE ART: THE LIFE & CARTOONS OF PAT OLIPHANT
★★★ (out of four)
DIRECTED BY Bill Banowsky
STARS Pat Oliphant, Ed Sorrel

Before Opus. Before Sparky. There was … Punk.

The name may not be familiar, but anyone who has ever read the editorial pages of a newspaper has almost certainly seen him. (And for those who’ve never ventured to peruse anything not on the Internet, Merriam-Webster defines “newspaper” as “a paper that is printed and distributed usually daily or weekly and that contains news, articles of opinion, features, and advertising”; you’re welcome, Generations Z and Alpha!) Punk is the wee penguin who appears in the margins of many a political cartoon, often offering a comment related to that specific drawing’s subject. He’s not as neurotic as Bloom County’s Opus the Penguin or as cynical as This Modern World’s Sparky the Wonder Penguin, and he can be found toiling in the editorial cartoons drawn by his creator, Pat Oliphant.

The origin of Punk (he was based on a real penguin) is one of the many tidbits of information parceled out in A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant, a documentary that not only examines the private and professional lives of the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist but also takes time out to discuss the history of the political cartoon as well as what currently feels like end of days for the form.

A Savage Art covers Oliphant’s humble beginnings, where he worked for a small conservative newspaper in his native Australia. In the mid-1960s, the Denver Post hired him to become their political cartoonist. It was during his tenure there that he became syndicated; it was also during this period when he won the Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon he submitted because he thought it was his weakest; the selection of this particular piece (topic: the Vietnam War) made him believe it was all a sham, and the Pulitzer committee itself was soon maligned in one of his cartoons.

After a brief stint at the Washington Star, Oliphant did something undreamed of — because of his popularity and his financial status, he was able to become the first cartoonist to work independently, without being tied to a specific newspaper and having an army of editors oversee his production. That’s not to say his career wasn’t rife with controversy, and although he could draw anything he wanted, newspapers also had the right to not run particular cartoons. Perhaps the most controversial was “The Annual Running of the Altar Boys,” addressing the fondness of many Catholic priests for the young lads in their care. (This brilliant cartoon, as well as a couple of other controversial ones, can be found at the end of this review.)

Perhaps Oliphant’s greatest claim to fame was his proclivity to focus heavily on U.S. Presidents in his artwork — he took particular pleasure in criticizing Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, but he went after every prez from Lyndon Johnson through Donald Trump.

Trump of course figures in the doc’s darkest moments, when its talking heads comment on how the media is being bullied or silenced by those in power. There’s a genuine fear among the participants that the so-called “freedom of the press” might become a thing of the past. At 90, Oliphant has been retired for just over a decade, but, never one to shy away from controversy — or expressing his opinions — he briefly returned to draw yet another cartoon, one more to add to the 10,000 editorial cartoons he published between 1955 and 2016. This one can readily be found online: Just Google “Pat Oliphant,” “Trump,” “Bannon,” and “Hitler.”