Taking ‘Conan’ seriously

“He has learned to defend himself in every kind of situation,” Arnold Schwarzenegger said, looking at me very hard. “In his world, if you take time to think, it will be too late. No one else gives him a break; he has to do everything himself. I find him very inspirational.”

Though his words sound like praise for a savvy political mentor and though I remember that piercing gaze like it was yesterday, in fact my afternoon with Arnold took place not amid the current gubernatorial campaign but almost a quarter of a century ago, when the erstwhile Austrian Oak was preparing for the role that would be his Hollywood box-office breakthrough, “Conan the Barbarian.”

I have strong memories of that interview because of the vivid impression Schwarzenegger made on me, the way he was different than I expected: shrewd, pungent, disarmingly single-minded where his career was concerned as well as prescient about what the Barbarian was going to mean for his future.

“I’ve never been wrong yet with my instincts, and they tell me this is going to be a really big film, a whole new phenomenon,” he said with surprising fervor. “I don’t care what it takes; I don’t care if I have to take one year out of my life and be an animal. I know this film is going to be unbelievable for me.”

Now that he’s Conan the Candidate, not Arnold the Barbarian, Schwarzenegger has been on my mind a good deal. Not because of that long-ago meeting, and not even because he’s the first movie star of my generation to seriously run for public office. Not the firebrand Jane Fonda, not the vacillating Warren Beatty but Arnold, the man who knows “if you take time to think it will be too late.”

Rather I’ve been fascinated with the Schwarzenegger phenomenon because of how much his candidacy is a product not just of his stardom but also of American movie culture, of the ways Hollywood has gotten us to think about politics and politicians, the process and the people who take part in it. If you’re looking for something to blame, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is a good place to start.

The citizen politician

As devotees will recall, this 1939 Frank Capra-Sidney Buchman movie starred James Stewart as idealistic Jefferson Smith, a political novice who turns out to be twice the U.S. senator -- more honest, more principled, more human -- than the oily politicians who usually inhabit that august chamber. Though the film was a bit controversial in its day (Capra liked to claim a few senators walked out of the Washington screening), by this point in time it’s been next door to sanctified as a celluloid civics lesson.

The message the culture has taken from “Mr. Smith” is not just that anybody can run for public office but that we’re better off as a nation with pure-hearted albeit woefully inexperienced naifs than cynical veterans who actually know how things work. Though the notion of the citizen politician is a venerable one in this country and predates cinema itself, films like “Mr. Smith” and its relentless successors (Eddie Murphy’s “Distinguished Gentleman,” Chris Rock’s “Head of State,” even “Billy Jack Goes to Washington”) have carved it into stone.

The result is a preposterous situation where hundreds of Californians, with the connivance of their amused friends and neighbors, feel perfectly qualified to oversee one of the world’s largest economies. The notion that politics and governance are skills that require both aptitude and experience does not fit the “Mr. Smith” model.

While no sane person would show up at a hospital and say that a group of his friends have signed a document insisting he be allowed to operate, movies have conditioned us to think that having a gentleman’s interest and being willing to serve is all the qualifications a politician needs.

Schwarzenegger, obviously, has a lot more than his friends and neighbors behind him. Here he benefits from another offshoot of movie culture, the way that his numerous roles have made the public comfortable with him, given them the illusion -- for that’s what it is -- that they know the kind of person he is.

I first noticed the high comfort level people have with Schwarzenegger while teaching a class in film criticism at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. When I assigned foreign-language films or unusual American independents, the students were tentative in their writing, unsure of how they should be responding. But when I assigned one of Arnold’s adventure epics (“Collateral Damage,” if memory serves), all hesitancy vanished. Everyone felt relaxed and at home with this star.

For Schwarzenegger has been around for so long, and so distinctively, that he’s like a member of the family to moviegoers. He’s the indestructible action hero whose most serious wound is a nick while shaving, the killing machine who enjoys amusing audiences with one-liners like “I’ll be back” and “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Schwarzenegger’s action presence, albeit enjoyable, is so monolithic that the studios periodically attempt to humanize him into what producers dutifully claim is “a significantly different Arnold.” In “The 6th Day,” they even had his character worriedly scanning his face for wrinkles. Endorsement opportunities for Oil of Olay did not follow.

As for Schwarzenegger’s Austrian accent, it’s not only become as much of a trademark as his bulked-up body, it’s given domestic audiences, always ready to associate an accent with comedy, a chance to invest his onscreen persona with a trace of the unconsciously buffoonish. This makes him, perhaps alone of action heroes, someone we feel slightly superior to despite his prowess. It’s almost as if Schwarzenegger is inviting audiences to feel about his acting the way producers and directors sometimes feel about screenwriting: They could do it themselves if they could just carve out the time.

Anyone who’s watched the ascendancy of our current president doesn’t have to be told how invaluable an asset to a politician Schwarzenegger’s high comfort level is. Though it seems counterintuitive, Americans don’t necessarily want to vote for policy wonks whose superior knowledge and intelligence make the general population feel ill at ease. What we want is a president -- and quite possibly a governor -- whom we can imagine splitting a six-pack with. Now that’s a leader.

The irony of this situation -- that the person we think we know may be the person we know least of all -- proved to be true in the case of George W. Bush (who said he wanted the United States to be humble in world affairs and went in the opposite direction as president) and may be even more so with Schwarzenegger. The man I met then and have heard about from friends since is not at all the Arnold everyone gets such a kick out of at the multiplex. He is self-confident in a much more real-world way than the automatons he plays on screen, and even the sense of humor he shows in roles like “Twins” is much less pointed than the one he uses day to day.

The real Schwarzenegger was, and apparently still is, the kind of savvy, self-confident, needling individual who just a few weeks ago made an appearance, media circus in tow, at a Manhattan event celebrating after-school programs.

“Look at all the press back there: They’re here for you,” he said to the gathered children. “They love after-school programs.”

That’s the Arnold I remember, the Arnold not regularly seen on the screen. Californians who vote for the comforting image may be in for a shock when and if the reality takes center stage.

Kenneth Turan is a Times film critic.