The Clintons are still intriguing enough for a detailed biopic about their political lives that shouldn't be cloaked in analogies "Primary Colors" style. And if Bill Clinton wants an egoistic biopic about him before Hillary, the latter would have a much more compelling tale, especially if the year 2012 is any indication of the third act. As well, it's possible Meryl Streep will someday play her, even if it means several connected or interconnected movies as it once was with Ralph Bellamy playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
No, the above statement isn't necessarily indicative of Hillary Clinton someday becoming President. It's possible that Secretary Clinton has entered a final act of her career and seems adamant in staying away from running for President, even if hints of drafting. But what a final act it is to have a serious blood clot in the brain while dealing with accusations of faking her illness to prevent testifying before Congress on the Benghazi terrorist attacks in Libya.
A performance by Meryl Streep depicting that finale is the stuff of a fourth Oscar within an undetermined future year. It's also a dangerous path of attempting to take on a biopic of a living notable still writing her life story for the history books. That's a cinematic avenue we're starting to see more often for the sake of profit in the current rather than waiting to see what the future holds for the individual.
Going the above route is also one of the riskiest moves in documentary filmmaking, especially when the notable being analyzed has a future contradicting what the previous documentary told. Such political documentaries as "2016: Obama's America" and "Bush's Brain" (yes, about Karl Rove) provided two opposite ends of the political spectrum that could easily change within a decade as the American political system evolves as we speak. A predicament like that could someday place both of the above films into a Blu-ray bargain bin as titles most people consider anachronisms.
The only antidote to that is to follow the Michael Apted method, or the "Up Series." If you're familiar with these long-running brilliant British documentaries, then you know how the documentary form can easily follow up on the same group of people for close to 50 years without seeming superfluous. With Apted's upcoming follow up "56 Up", we'll be reminded how easily the sunset of lives can make an earlier documentary about the same people seem from a parallel universe.
This isn't to say that some documentaries (example: "Hoop Dreams") don't stand alone in their own cloud where avoiding follow-ups only makes the film more intriguing as time goes on. It doesn't quite work the same way with a political luminary when most documentaries being made about them are meant to give a story that hits us between the eyes exclusively for the time we live in.
Yet, how does that work with political biopics such as Oliver Stone's "W." or our proposed biopic on Hillary Clinton?
In a more logical cinematic world, Hillary Clinton should play Hillary Clinton in a documentary rather than a speculative movie with Meryl Streep. That way, we'd be able to have more documentaries that show us how either Hillary managed to avoid becoming President of the United States or became the first victim of political drafting.
In a more sensitive world, the public should let her blood clot and Secretary of State position become her career finale with an ambiguously fairy tale ending.
