From the Bay Area Reporter (11/8/2001)

"Captives of the Camera" By David Lamble
November 8, 2001 -- This weekend, the 17th edition of the Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema takes four days to celebrate 25 years of Northern California Filmmaking by four different venues.

Two years ago, Emily Morse decided to cash in on the chips she has earned in eight years of working behind the scenes in San Francisco city politics, what better idea for a first film than a documentary, See How They Run, about the reelection of America’s most prominent urban black public official – one Willie L. Brown, a politician who has shared the cover of Newsweek with New York City’s Rudy Guiliani (under the headline "City Slickers"), a man who had the ear of the President, and a man considered the best-dressed, most pro-gay mayor in America. The election itself might be little more than a formality – after all, "Da Mayor" had as his leading opponents the former mayor (whose 1995 campaign had almost literally gone down the drain when he appeared naked in a shower with two loudmouth radio DJs) and that hapless official’s former campaign manager, around whom nasty rumors had been circulating concerning a violently abusive domestic relationship.

At first glance, Morse had a collection of colorful characters starring in a drama that lacked a second act. While we all know what happened next, an 11th hour write-in campaign on behalf of gay Supervisor Tom Ammiano that turned the coronation into a rather testy election revealing the faultlines running beneath the city's liberal establishment, the resulting political vaudeville is well worth a look. With the cooperation and trust of all the parties she filmed, Morse is able to give us a glimpse at the kind of political jousting that is normally far off camera. She’s able to reveal the public and private sides of two ferociously competitive men, both claiming to represent armies of disenfranchised voters. Mayor Brown—perhaps the last man in America to appreciate the dual fashion and political statement of a properly worn fedora, while Ammiano is seen joking about a possible victory-night gown—comes across as an odd combination of regal sophisticate, with just the hint of a sore wonder peeking around the edges of the public mask.

Morse's deft editing of voter comments ultimately steals the show. One woman wished that Brown could be elected King, with Ammiano as his Queen; while a Hunters Point preacher pointedly tells his parishioners, "We need a kind, not a Queen." Morse subtly underscores the class divisions between the two camps – an angry gay man argues with a pro-Ammiano/anti-malling-of-the-Castro picket line, while Brown is seen basking in the ironic endorsement of one of the city’s smallest minorities, the Republican Party. See How They Run's as-yet unwritten third act is, of course, the 2003 mayoral election, with Brown barred from running for a third term.