Why does a dog wag its tail?
Because a dog is smarter than its tail.
If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog.
The opening title cards “explaining” the film’s name really aren’t of much help. The idiomatic expression “wag the dog” is obliquely a reference to the idea that a dog begins manifesting a demonstration of emotion by first wagging its tail. Only after the tail starts wagging does the dog then perhaps rise from a reclining position, move its head in the direction of whatever is stimulating the wagging of the tail, start running or barking or any other physical movement. But it all begins with the tail wagging. The point is that only one small element of the dog begins reacting emotionally before the rest of its body.
“You want me to produce your war?”
There, in one single sublimely simply line, is the plot of the movie. A famous Hollywood producer is approached by the White House to produce footage from phony war for purposes best left understood by actually watching the film. The producer gets it immediately, but he doesn’t get it.
“It’s a pageant.”
This clarification is preceded by the gentle admonition, “Not a war.” Brean is a master of the political spin; a genius in the fine art of political propaganda. In other words: he is a master liar, this phrase becomes a repetitive motif which comes to define his character. Brean is not to vulgar as to lie straight out; he has specialized in the art of the euphemism and even more importantly, his delivery of the line—his very belief that the entirely constructed “war” really is just a pageant—is so drenched in veracity one could easily imagine him responding with the phrase and passing a lie detector.
“Albania’s hard to rhyme.”
Producing a staged, entirely fictional war meant to convince the world is really happening is not as easy as it seems. The hard part, however, turns out not to be the creating the visceral realism necessary to fire up the patriotic fervor, but rather writing a stirring anthem when the chosen enemy is a country with a name that does not lend itself easily to simplistic lyrical construction capable of turning a tune into an earworm.
