Not much meat in ‘Jimmy Carter’

The new documentary on our 39th president, “Jimmy Carter Man From Plains,” is running newspaper advertisements listing the man’s accomplishments. Which is a good thing, because you won’t find out much about them in the film.

As directed by Jonathan Demme, this narrowly cast documentary focuses so exclusively on a publicity tour the former president took in the closing months of 2006 that a more accurate title might be “Jimmy Carter How I Sold My Book.”

That 21st Carter volume was, of course, not just any book. It was “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” a treatise on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose title alone created what the media took delight in calling “a firestorm of controversy.”

Actually, it turns out you can learn a thing or two about an individual by watching him on a book tour, and this admiring documentary is more interesting than you might think, though not as interesting as it should be. Handsomely shot by Declan Quinn and filled with fine music though it is, there is not enough, finally, about the project that is compelling.

Given that whatever Carter found time to do during a roughly two-month span is in this film, we get to see the ex-president meeting his neighbors at a down-home barbecue in Plains, Ga., attending a banquet for the not-for-profit Carter Center and authoritatively pounding nails in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity.

Mostly, however, what we see is that book tour, as the former president appears with Jay Leno, Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, NPR’s Terry Gross and Larry King.

Though “Man From Plains” may think it is contributing to informed dialogue about the Palestinian question, the information it doles out comes out in such bits and pieces that any dispassionate weighing of arguments pro and con is impossible. Anyone truly interested in the effects of the Israeli security barrier would be much better served watching Simone Bitton’s fine documentary “Mur(Wall)” than taking in what’s on tap here.

What is most interesting about “Man From Plains” is the window it inevitably gives into Carter’s personality. What we see is a very-sure-of-himself individual who is so convinced he has the right answers to everything, he risks coming off as close to indifferent to what anyone else thinks. It’s likely that no one gets to be president without seeing the world that way, but it is still something else to witness.

What we also get a glimpse of is presidential stubbornness, a contrarian refusal to say what people expect to hear. So while Carter is questioned numerous times about Palestinian terrorism, the only time we see him giving a detailed condemnation of such activities is when he is interviewed on the Arab-language Al Jazeera network.

Aiding and abetting these attitudes is the cocoon of approval not only presidents but also all celebrities have cushioning them. Everyone is always waiting for the president and happy to see him, umbrellas are ready when it rains, meals he wants are ordered by staff to be in his rooms when he arrives. Carter is, in fact, so used to things going his way that he almost goes into shock when Brandeis University initially says it’s not interested in having him speak.

Perhaps the most interesting choice Demme makes is starting the film with a snippet of Carter’s live-wire mother, Lillian, on “The Tonight Show” back in 1979.

It’s been said that a boy who is secure in the favor of his mother grows up into the most successful of men -- and perhaps that clip is the film’s way of indicating that James Earl Carter is one of that elect.

“Jimmy Carter Man From Plains.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 2 hours, 2 minutes. In limited release.