Primary Colors

...The brawl that we haven't seen, the rage boiling under the televised billing and cooing, is precisely what makes us laugh...

...Applicants should provide a letter of introduction, a current resume and four references...

...The successful candidate will possess significant experience in educational administration and a distinguished record of academic accomplishment in the area of biblical theology, ecumenical and interreligious studies, or related fields...

...And that would have--gasp...

...An actor was needed (someone Commonweal | 7 April 24, 1998 Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies in Israel invites nominations and applications for the position of rector...

...Lester just doesn't have that kind of tacit power...

...At first Stanton wants to use the blackmail but a trusted aide, disappointed in her boss, commits suicide in despairing protest...

...The rector is the academic and administrative leader of the institute, and is responsible for the continuing development of its ecumenical and interreligious mission...

...Her triumph here in a film containing so much comedy is an odd one...

...Sometimes hard-hitting, cynical political movies aren't cynical enough...

...With the assistance of the vice-rector and administrator, the rector oversees the educational programs and conferences, the finances, and the staff, and develops cooperative relationships with appropriate academic and religious persons to further the aims of the institute, both in the local and international arenas...

...And, most damaging to the overall impact of the movie, the action Stanton takes with blackmail information about his only formidable rival, Governor Picker (Hagman), struck me as both morally confused and dramatically unconvincing...

...But fihn is a medium that takes kindly to shallowness...

...the actress has drawn us too close to the character for technicalities to get in the way...

...The scene in which Kathy Bates as a troubleshooter almost makes her job literal by threatening to shoot off the genital jewels of a conniving lawyer is a purely farcical moment that is out of place in a comedy-drama striving for a certain verisimilitude...

...Hagman and Travolta bring this scene off convincingly but, in retrospect, how mechanically convenient it is that Stanton won't have to decide whether to renege on his assurance or not...

...Just as Susan Stanton is about to explode at her husband for his latest infidelity, the director cuts to the couple being interviewed on a morning talk show where they are all smiles and mutual trust...

...In the Mike NicholsElaine May movie version, the characterizations remain thin, the political insights merely glib, and the film's Henry Burton comes across as even dimmer than the book's...

...It also offers three-month sessions in continuing education for parish clergy, religious teachers and other church workers, as well as semesters of international study for undergraduates...

...Though Burton's on-screen job as campaign manager is a hectic one, he never does anything dramatically tangy...

...A brief subplot involving Burton's radical journalist-girlfriend makes her seem like a semidemented grievancecollector instead of the voice of Burton's conscience as indicated by the script...

...If Travolta shifts skillfully from emotion to emotion, Hagman hits three or four keys simultaneously: old-statesman dignity, a renewed but genteel lust for power, a truly damaging vein of weakness...

...But the acting masterpiece of this movie is Larry Hagman's performance as a one-fime governor who presents a serious challenge to Stanton...

...Nominations and applications will be accepted until May 1, 1998...

...Based on what the movie shows us of Stanton, he would have sabotaged Picker in a media minute and saved all philosophical compunctions for after the election, just as he saved all regret over humiliating an earlier rival for the few minutes after that rival died of a heart attack...

...A doctorate is preferred, and a working knowledge of Hebrew and/or Arabic would be strong assets in the position...

...Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C...

...bring on the four horsemen!!-- put a Republican in the White House...

...Yet the movie turns out to be fun, sometimes exhilarating fun...

...The one inadequacy here, of course, is Adrian Lester's Henry Burton...

...The graying hair seems at odds with the still youthful face, but he's got down pat the temper of a man so confident of his skills and, even more so, of his destiny that he feels licensed to risk self-destruction...

...John Travolta's make-up isn't convincing but his performance is...

...horrors...

...Nichols's coup was in not showing any of the argument...

...Travolta uses the foggy Clinton drawl and good o1' boy grin as an actor, not as a mimic: he captures the sleepy strength and sensual enjoyment of struggle and manipulation to perfection...

...But in the second half of the movie this flaw doesn't register...

...To see Travolta in the current rerelease of Grease, where he is pure testosterone in trousers, and then to watch him here presenting a palette of emotional hues, is to be startled at the performer's growth...

...Excellent management, communication, interpersonal and cooperative skills are necessary qualifications...

...Only in Stantoffs few outbursts of rage does Travolta fail by relying upon mere grimaces and shouts...

...Since its creation in 1971, over 3,500 Orthodox, Protestants, Anglicans and Roman Catholics have participated in the programs...

...Applications should be submitted to: Tantur Rector Search Committee c/o Rev...

...In the early scenes there is a slight vocal flaw: though Thompson manages the American vowels and diphthongs nimbly, they seem contradicted by the British high-comedy rhythms of the actress's delivery...

...134 Hayes-Healy Center University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 like the Roscoe Lee Browne of thirty years ago) who could make watching interesting...

...To honor her memory, Stanton turns the evidence over to his rival with an assurance that it won't be used...

...Tantur, located just outside Jerusalem on the road to Bethlehem, is a center for theological inquiry, Christian ecumenical studies, and interreligious dialogue between Christians and those of other world faiths, especially Jews and Muslims...

...They revel in the to-and-fro bustle of crowded auditoriums, campaign headquarters, and the highways and squalid motel rooms of the primary odyssey...

...And Nichols, unlike many film directors who began in the theater, understands that not showing something can be funny...

...Later, talking to Burton, Stanton declares that his abstention from blackmail wasn't the right thing to do because, had Picker not withdrawn and then gone on to win the nomination, he couldn't have won the election...

...The institute, jointly founded by Pope Paul VI and the University of Notre Dame, is a residential center for visiting scholars interested in the ecumenical and interreligious dimensions of scriptural, theological and pastoral studies...

...Commonweal | 8 April24, 1998...

...There are other lapses...

...He and his cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus, really know how to compose for the horizontal sweep of the screen...

...Best of all, Klein's dialogue--a little too bright and brittle on the page--now has more weight and even more humor as arranged and abridged by Elaine May and spoken by a troupe of actors revelling in their roles...

...there's Carville...

...Nichols's staging has verve and wit...

...My favorite film actress, Emma Thompson, plays the first lady-to-be and is mostly magnificent...

...scant novelistic pleasure was left in the way of characterizations, atmosphere, or political insight (as opposed to political knowingness, which the book had in abundance...

...And, the novel's protagonist, narrator Henry Burton--the black campaign manager of the Clintonesque Jack Stanton, and himself the grandson of a great civil-rights leader--is but a sketch for an interesting character that was never fulfilled...

...Any competent director would have known that the jump from marital spat to TV hypocrisy would get laughs...

...She begins on a note of high, bubbly selfconfidence and seemingly limitless verve and then, over the course of the film, as her husband's infidelities and the media din take their toll, drains herself of color...

...Once you got through the first fifty pages and aligned each fictional personage with his or her real-life counterpart (that one's Stephanopoulos...

...Picker then gratefully drops out of the race...

...When he isn't ordering aides around, Burton merely watches more interesting characters collide, snipe, and explode...

...I say of course not because of Lester's limitations (this relative newcomer may prove to be a fine actor in other roles) but because the role itself is a trap waiting for an actor to fall into it...

...The rest of the cast, with one exception, is adroit, with especially fine work from redoubtable Kathy Bates, frisky and fierce Billy Bob Thornton, and Tony Shalhoub, so convincing as an Italian in Big Night and equally convincing here as a Cuban...

...So when Kathy Bates tells Burton that there is hope for him because he still has "an atmosphere of his own" it's a bad joke, for the actor playing Burton has none...