Henry Fonda for President

A personal essay about the United States, viewed through the life and work of actor Henry Fonda. His roles merge into a dazzling and conflicted figure. A private man who thought he had “no good answers to anything” becomes the unlikely motor of a parallel history. His voice, recorded during his last interview in 1981, and his onscreen avatars guide us through America’s past and present—the village of Fonda across the Midwest to the Pacific; from 1651 to the 1980s and the presidency of another actor. Many places, times, and characters imagine an invisible republic—the United States of Fonda.