The White House big nights in

WHEN Bill Clinton requested a private screening of Paul Schrader's new movie Affliction recently, media speculation was rife. Was the story of a feckless alcoholic father resonant with Clinton's own troubled childhood?

Could Affliction have been a kind of therapy?

Pretty soon, the story just fizzled out. The truth, it seemed, was more prosaic: yet another PR company had exploited a quite common practice of screening movies in the private White House cinema, a presidential perk actually dating back to the Second World War. On the other hand, it's odd to think that a White House institution set up in 1942 to cater for a crippled president in a wheelchair - President Roosevelt - has latterly become a subtle instrument of presidential power. Last year it was wielded more than ever. In 1998, the Clintons organised well-publicised lunch and screening parties for both Good Will Hunting and The Apostle. Taking their cue from Tony Blair, they took to hobnobbing with the hottest names of the big screen, including Gus Van Sant and Matt Damon. Perhaps Good Will Hunting's themes of redemption and education struck a chord with Hillary? The screening of The Apostle, too, had more than one ostensible role. It was a public affirmation of the status of veteran actor Robert Duvall, but it was also an attempt to show business as usual, even if it was only show business. In fact, the Clintons have always been sparing with their endorsements of films, plays and books. As politicians, they cannot afford to endorse anything that isn't horribly worthy. It's certain the Clintons read and admired Allen Ginsberg, for example, but there was no way they could ever admit to owning any of the great libertarian's risqu tracts. Even if they didn't inhale. Genuine expressions of the Clintons' cultural tastes have to be carefully sifted from the stream of high-octane public endorsements. It's quite disarming to discover that when Bill and Hillary were young they used to have cosy chats about the political merits of the cerebral novels of Robert Musil. How much things have changed. Access the White House website now and you'll find that all the books the President lists as favourites are safe, soft classics like Last of the Mohicans, while High Noon, apparently, is his favourite movie. Do we really buy their public expressions of taste? Although Bill has been extremely vocal about his liking for Walter Moseley's novels -- noirish thrillers by a stylish black writer -we know he'd far rather eat peanut butter and jello sandwiches in front of a baseball game on TV. Another of his well-known favourite books is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the book he gave to Hillary on their second date. Yet the Whitman is conspicuous by its absence on the White House website. Why? Well, it turns out that he repeated the gift-giving gesture more recently. During the Starr investigation, it came to light that among Monica's private possessions was a copy of Leaves of Grass given to her by the President. He probably hadn't read Whitman in years: it was the empty gesture of a lacklustre Casanova. Hillary used to devour novels in five-hour sittings and she's far more naturally highbrow than Bill. But even her taste is massaged for public view. We know Hillary "likes" Shakespeare after her visit to the Globe Theatre in London, her request for a blue silk dress used in an RSC production, and her recent breach White House etiquette by staying the end of a public screening of Shakespeare in Love when she was only supposed to introduce Yet we also know that she sneaked out see The Vagina Monologues last year when she thought no one was looking. It was a return to that stringy-haired, bespectacled feminist of yore. The Clintons' public taste will always carefully reflect their populist instincts. After all, who wouldn't want their own private cinema? Who wouldn't want to be invited to the White House to watch a movie (popcorn is, apparently, provided in the cinema situated in the East Colonnade)? Who wouldn't have wanted to be there as Bill watched Primary Colors? Or to see whether - as the rest of America is reported to have done - at the moment the spaceship vaporises the White House with a column of fire in Independence Day, he jumped up and cheered? If Clinton really is considering a Hollywood career in preference to the exile of presidential lecture circuit, as a persistent rumour indicates, the old Roosevelt cinema will have played a curious role in that trajectory. And who knows, maybe he'll be back there in 10 years' time. Except Hillary will chose a few less cornball thrillers and black and white gunslinger classics.

Copyright 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.