PARK CITY — There’s a moment in “Hillary” when Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are awkwardly waiting backstage before the start of a Democratic primary debate. During the wait, Sanders turns to Clinton and asks if he should unbutton his jacket, to which she replies that he can unbutton it when they get wound up during the debate.
Clinton may be critical of Democratic hopeful Sanders in her upcoming documentary that premiered Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. But during a 20-minute question-and-answer session following the screening of “Hillary,” the former Democratic presidential candidate shared her thoughts on the impeachment trial and said that President Donald Trump getting reelected for a second term is “unimaginable.”
“People can support whoever they want to support, but once we have a nominee, close ranks,” Clinton said when asked by an audience member who people should vote for in the upcoming election. “... We have a lot of domestic problems that the next president should address, but we also have these serious problems around the world because of the way that this president has conducted himself.”
“Hillary,” which comes to Hulu March 6, premiered to an audience of 500, with the 72-year-old Clinton and her Secret Service agents in attendance. The series dives into Clinton’s rise to becoming one of the biggest names in the political world — a name that is simultaneously admired and vilified, says Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s senior policy adviser during the 2016 election.
The end product is an intimate four-part docuseries that premiered Saturday afternoon in a state where Clinton came in second behind Trump during the 2016 presidential election, receiving 27.5% of the popular vote.
During the Q&A, she also talked about the process of creating “Hillary,” which she said was “exhausting and very overwhelming from time to time.”
“My bluntness, my outspokenness, my pushback, all of that creates cognitive dissonance in people,” — Clinton in “Hillary”
“You sit in that chair, you’ve told the filmmaker, ‘Yeah, nothing’s off limits, you can ask me anything you want,’ and she does!” Clinton said. “I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”
When the documentary “Mitt” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival five years ago, Mitt Romney described running for president as one of “life’s most extraordinary experiences.”
A few years later, Clinton was in a similar boat. After her run for U.S. president, Clinton had nearly 2,000 hours of campaign footage and wanted to turn it into a documentary.
But when director Nanette Burstein got on board in February 2018, she was interested in a different story — “something much bigger than the election,” according to an interview in the Hollywood Reporter.
So over seven days, Burstein interviewed the former secretary of state for 35 hours — not to mention Clinton’s husband, daughter, former President Barack Obama and other colleagues and longtime friends.
“Hillary” is broad in scope, weaving campaign footage into a life story that covers everything from Clinton’s conservative upbringing in a Chicago suburb to meeting husband Bill Clinton at Yale Law School to Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky to Hillary Clinton’s candid disregard for current presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
“At the end of the day, I’ve loved and been loved, and all the rest is background music. I have no regrets.” — Clinton in “Hillary”
“Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done,” Clinton says of Sanders. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
In “Hillary,” viewers see Clinton as a young lawyer investigating Watergate. It shows her becoming the first lady of Arkansas and being scrutinized for having a full-time job and keeping her last name. She becomes the first first lady of the United States to have an office in the West Wing and run for public office.
The docuseries shows how Clinton’s image is a constant source of debate in the media and how she becomes a polarizing figure — whether it’s taking the lead on running health care reform during her husband’s presidency or choosing to stay with her husband following the Lewinsky scandal.
“My bluntness, my outspokenness, my pushback, all of that creates cognitive dissonance in people,” Clinton says in “Hillary.”
Clinton’s critics are noticeably missing from the series (Burstein told the Hollywood Reporter that Newt Gingrich said he’d “rather stick needles in (his) eyes than do the interview”), but “Hillary” does delve into the scandals of the Clintons’ lives — Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, emails and Benghazi.
“We have a lot of domestic problems that the next president should address, but we also have these serious problems around the world because of the way that this president has conducted himself.” — Clinton
“I’m the most investigated innocent person in America,” Clinton jokes in “Hillary.” “Even when something is disproved, people remember the allegation was made ... that kind of constant character assault takes a toll.”
There are some heavy moments in “Hillary” — Bill Clinton gets visibly emotional recounting the Lewinsky affair — and Hillary Clinton is clearly fighting back tears during her concession speech on election night.
“(Filming the series) was a very emotional experience, for him and for me,” Clinton said to the Sundance audience. “I was really proud of him for doing it, proud of the real honesty and feeling that he brought to the questions that he addressed. I was really grateful he was willing to do it.”
“Hillary” takes an especially somber tone when it gets to Clinton’s loss to Trump.
“I’ve been in a lot of elections, and I didn’t see this coming,” Clinton says. “It made me sick to my stomach. It didn’t make sense.”
But the documentary does end on a hopeful note, though, showing how Clinton’s loss has triggered a new feminist movement — from the Women’s March to record-breaking numbers of females elected in the 2018 midterm elections.
“At the end of the day, I’ve loved and been loved, and all the rest is background music,” Clinton says in “Hillary.” “I have no regrets.”