When Newsweek columnist Joe Klein penned the novel, under the pseudonym Anonymous, it was his scream of frustration with Clinton. Many Clintonites saw the book, at best, as a flip take on Clinton's painful journey to the White House, or, at worst, a perverse window on the first couple's private life. And the media had boiled the book's ambivalence and soul-searching down to back nuggets of ugly innuendo.
The novel was perceived as an assault, so Hollywood watchers assumed the film would be too. But Clinton, who is rumored to have a standing job offer at DreamWorks SKG, the studio owned by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, must understand that whatever ends up on that big, silvery screen will be more powerful than the words in a dusty, dog-eared novel. Jeremy Larner, who worked as a speechwriter for Senator Eugene McCarthy and wrote The Candidate for Robert Redford, sums up the hypnotic effect of the film: "In politics, you can get to an even deeper level of truth when you fictionalize, and on film you can alter the truth forever."
By the time Primary Colors started production, it was a valentine being directed by a social friend of Clinton's who had campaigned for him. It would co-star one of Clinton's most loyal Hollywood supporters, who was getting research help from 1992 campaign strategist, through an introduction made by Clinton's best friend. Now, instead of serving as an indictment of Clinton, Primary Colors the movie casts a dark eye on the press and the public. "You have to be dead not to see that the film favors Clinton," Travolta says. "The script was always kind to him. We're talking about kind to a character, but indirectly we're talking about kind to the president. I've always said that I think he'll be pleased with it, because more than anything it promotes what a decent fellow he is." The Teflon Kid has escaped again.
