The Clintons and Harry Thomason: together again

The Clintons. The mere mention of their name is enough to rile their enemies. Even among sympathizers, Clinton fatigue sets in when their White House battles are dredged up.

“Old news ... people are sick of this,” is what TV producer Harry Thomason came up against, time after time, while trying to line up a distributor for a documentary based on the book “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton,” premiering today at the Sundance Film Festival.

Co-directing the film was a balancing act, Thomason (“Designing Women”) concedes. He and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, have been close friends of the former first couple since their Arkansas days. (Bloodworth-Thomason was responsible for the laudatory campaign biography “A Man From Hope,” and Thomason became embroiled in a 1993 scandal involving the dismissal of the White House travel office staff). But if Thomason whitewashed the Whitewater scandal or the impeachment debacle, the film would be history in more ways than one.

“It was sort of terrifying,” said Thomason, sitting alongside co-director Nickolas Perry and producer Doug Jackson in the office of Regent Entertainment, the distributor of the movie. “These guys helped me walk the right line. There were lots of big disagreements, and we shouted at each other a lot. I know that Clinton is a historical figure who must be examined accurately, and we were careful not to give him a ‘pass.’ I worry that we were actually too tough. Neither he nor Hillary has seen the movie, and we try not to talk about it.”

To avoid charges of bias, the filmmakers decided to let the participants tell the story, although the documentary clearly has a point of view.

Narration, for which actor Morgan Freeman was recruited at the last minute, provided context and continuity. Most left-leaning personalities agreed to talk but unfortunately -- with the exception of the Rev. Jerry Falwell -- those on the other side of the political aisle sent rejection letters. No attempt was made to line up the Clintons, says Joe Conason, a New York Observer columnist who, with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writer Gene Lyons, wrote the 2000 bestseller on which the film is based.

“This film is no more about the Clintons than ‘The Maltese Falcon’ is about that little statue,” contends Conason, who conducted many of the interviews. “It’s more about what they symbolize and the struggle they set in motion. Deciding that Clinton wasn’t a legitimate president, conservative Republicans tried to make it impossible for him to govern. The primary question was one of emphasis. Do we focus on Clinton’s misdeeds, which have been covered at length, or those of his enemies, which haven’t?”

Determined to tell the story that, they feel, the mainstream media ignored, the film examines what Clinton aide Paul Begala calls “a right-wing attempt at coup d’etat.” Among the revelations: efforts by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and groups such as the Alliance for the Rebirth of an Independent America and the Arkansas Project to dig up dirt on Clinton.

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter was one of the “elves” offering covert legal advice to Paula Jones, who accused the president of sexual misconduct, David Brock (“Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative”) maintains, on camera. A onetime reporter for the American Spectator, he also asserts that the state troopers professing to have seen the infidelities were “stage managed” by Arkansas attorney Cliff Jackson.

“I was in the room when the plots were hatched and the checks written,” he says, “so I could offer a firsthand account. A lot of people in the anti-Clinton movement have gone into the Bush administration or, like Laura Ingraham and Coulter, into the media. And some of the techniques employed by the conservative machinery are a permanent part of our political landscape. They weren’t Clinton-specific.”

A key theme of the documentary is the manipulation of mainstream journalists and, thus, public opinion. Supposedly sophisticated media folk were “taken to the cleaners by a bunch of junior college drop-outs from Arkansas,” Lyons says.

What sets the movie apart from the book is the human element, says Perry, a veteran of A&E;’s “Biography” series who was brought in to add MTV-style flair and pacing. He whittled several hundred hours of film down to 90 minutes and interspersed graphics and old movie clips with interviews and archival footage. “The book took a “just-the-facts approach, placing the players within a timeline,” Perry notes. “We’re more concerned with their emotional life, creating a personal connection.”

Perhaps the most moving segment involves Susan McDougal, who with her husband James was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in connection with the Whitewater scandal. Bucking pressure to cut a deal with independent counsel Kenneth Starr and implicate her friends, she spent two years behind bars. “After hearing her story, you ask yourself, ‘Could this happen to me?’ ” producer Jackson says. “The answer is kind of frightening.”

After obtaining the rights to the book, Thomason found only one taker for the project, and an unlikely one at that. Regent Entertainment, an independent film company put on the map by “Gods and Monsters,” had never distributed a documentary.

The question of press accountability is an ongoing one, says Regent partner Paul Colichman. And the story is a classic, full of good guys and bad guys.

A distributor in hand, Thomason focused on financing the movie, which cost less than $2 million. Setting up a limited liability corporation, he raised the money from private investors rather than pre-selling ancillary rights. “The Hunting of the President” was set to debut at the Toronto Film Festival last September, but the filmmakers couldn’t make the deadline. The Sundance screening will be the first time they will see the film with music and new narration. Even if it doesn’t win any prizes, the festival is a valuable marketing tool, the filmmakers say.

After lining up distributors for overseas markets at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Regent is aiming for a summer release in the U.S., probably July 4. Opening initially in Los Angeles and New York, the documentary will eventually play in at least 20 major cities. Before the election, there will be a fall college tour hitting such spots as Boston; Madison, Wis.; and Champaign-Urbana, Ill. Regent also plans to air the movie on TV, but no deal has been signed.

President Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks has heightened interest in the project, Thomason says. (“Everyone is wandering in the wilderness, seeking a voice for the loyal opposition.”) But despite the commercial success of a “Spellbound” or a “Bowling for Columbine,” documentaries are usually dicey and difficult to pull off in ways he never imagined.

“We have close to 1,000 pages of detail on the film: footage numbers, contacts, etc.,” he says. “I’ve been amazed at the amount of manpower it takes just to clear the material.

“When you shoot a dramatic picture or a half-hour comedy, the actors come in, say their lines and go home. You’ve got it all on tape. This has been a nightmare, though. It’s my last foray into the political genre.”