Will the real Bill Clinton stand up in Peter Morgan's new film?
The funny thing about the news that Peter Morgan's next project will be Clinton/Blair is the realisation that it will be the first time a character called "Bill Clinton" has appeared on film. Funny because moviegoers and TV viewers will be forgiven for feeling they have seen Clinton on celluloid a thousand times before.
And in a way they have. Jack Stanton – John Travolta's girl-chasing, hoarse-voiced, charismatic southern governor seeking the presidency in Primary Colors – was unashamedly modelled on the Bill Clinton of 1992 (with Emma Thompson in the Hillary role).
Less obvious was Billy Bob Thornton's turn as the US president in Love Actually. He was an intriguing hybrid of Clinton and George W Bush: rightwing and cowboy-booted like Dubya, lecherous like Bill.
But the true Hollywood incarnation of Clinton – with a heavy dollop of wishful thinking stirred into the mix – was Jed Bartlet, the president who ruled for seven seasons from NBC's The West Wing. True, he was a New Englander with a Nobel prize in economics and firm control of his zipper – unlike Clinton. But every week he grappled with dilemmas that had confronted the real-life Clinton administration – from an off-message surgeon-general to Camp David Middle East peace talks – usually making the decisions Hollywood liberals wished Clinton would have made.
After all these disguised or fantasy versions of Clinton on film, it will be fascinating to see Morgan confront him head on. Usually the writer attempts to identify some kind of psychological essence in his political protagonists: Nixon's inferiority complex in Frost/Nixon, Blair's actorly craving for centre stage in The Deal. What, one wonders, will Morgan decide is the essential Clinton?..
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
And in a way they have. Jack Stanton – John Travolta's girl-chasing, hoarse-voiced, charismatic southern governor seeking the presidency in Primary Colors – was unashamedly modelled on the Bill Clinton of 1992 (with Emma Thompson in the Hillary role).
Less obvious was Billy Bob Thornton's turn as the US president in Love Actually. He was an intriguing hybrid of Clinton and George W Bush: rightwing and cowboy-booted like Dubya, lecherous like Bill.
But the true Hollywood incarnation of Clinton – with a heavy dollop of wishful thinking stirred into the mix – was Jed Bartlet, the president who ruled for seven seasons from NBC's The West Wing. True, he was a New Englander with a Nobel prize in economics and firm control of his zipper – unlike Clinton. But every week he grappled with dilemmas that had confronted the real-life Clinton administration – from an off-message surgeon-general to Camp David Middle East peace talks – usually making the decisions Hollywood liberals wished Clinton would have made.
After all these disguised or fantasy versions of Clinton on film, it will be fascinating to see Morgan confront him head on. Usually the writer attempts to identify some kind of psychological essence in his political protagonists: Nixon's inferiority complex in Frost/Nixon, Blair's actorly craving for centre stage in The Deal. What, one wonders, will Morgan decide is the essential Clinton?..