The President Finally Admits His Mistakes - 'Frost/Nixon' Review...

Posted on February 2, 2009 - 7:14am by michael Ron Howard has now been involved in the entertainment industry for well over 50 years, and I think it requires that kind of experience to see the potential of a story about what went on behind the scenes of the infamous Nixon/Frost interviews of 1977. Most of the credit should go to writer Peter Morgan, who was also responsible for the internationally successful play of the same name, but Howard's intricately skilled directorial hand can be clearly felt throughout the film.

Everyone involved was taking a risk in getting involved with the film, which initially didn't have much commercial promise. Many people who signed on, including Ron Howard, too much lower than their usual fees in order to get the movie made, and in many ways it may have resembled the subject matter that it approached, in that everyone involved believed deeply in the project, even if not entirely sure about the outcome. In retrospect, however, the timing could not possibly have been better.

The movie starts out with a fascinating re-enactment of Nixon's final days in office, culminating in his 37th appearance before the American people from the Oval Office, where he resigned the U.S. presidency, something that had never been done before and has never been done since. Nixon retreated to his estate in San Clemente, where he remained in a sort of limbo for three years until a little known talk-show host falling out of style in his own country decided to try to put together a series of interviews with the fallen president to sort out once and for all his controversial years in office.

For us it's a fascinating examination of one of the most important political news events of our time, but it's also and compelling and engaging drama. The movie is made with an almost documentary-like realism, despite the fact that writer Peter Morgan has clearly, and admittedly, used his imagination on certain occasions. But the essence, the reality of what happened is put in front of us in probably the best way imaginable outside of time travel. Frank Langella inhabits the role of Nixon despite physical differences, but Michael Sheen's David Frost is incredible. Have you seen the original interview? The resemblance is almost bizarre.

David Frost begged and pleaded with all of the major networks for funding to help produce and distribute the interview series, but had nothing but doors closing in his face by doubtful television executives who couldn't imagine paying a British talk show host to interview an American president. He was laughed at left and right for even presuming to talk to Nixon and ultimately received almost no financial help whatsoever in putting the project together.

The two reasons that he managed to get the interview were because he paid Nixon directly, with a personal check, $600,000 mostly of his own money, and because Nixon and his team of political advisers correctly viewed Frost as a lightweight journalist that they could pretty much walk all over and tell whatever story they saw fit.

The ingredients of a powerful battle have thus been introduced, and as the second half of the movie gets underway, we very clearly understand the motivation driving both Nixon and Frost, and we understand that for both of them it is absolutely imperative to take control of the proceedings.

There is dramatic portrayal of a lot of the legal and contractual agreements in the run-up to the interviews, including a preemptive discussion about the meaning of the term "Watergate," and how much time can be devoted to such subjects and how much time would be devoted to, ah, more favorable subject matter. Kevin Bacon gives a spectacular performance as an ex-Marine lieutenant named Jack Brennan, who is intensely devoted to Nixon and the preservation of his reputation. In one scene, Frost learns something important about his opponent's state of mind when Brennan tells him:

"Look, 60% of what he did what he did in office was right. And 30% of it might have been wrong but he thought it was right at the time."
"But," Frost interjects, "that means 10% of the time he was doing the wrong thing and knew it."

By this point, formality is on its way out the window and the true nature of the battle is beginning to show for the first time. As Nixon reveals later in the film (in a scene invented for the movie) when he makes a drunken phone call to Frost late at night, "The limelight can only shine on one of us."

The movie is filled, by the way,  with spectacular performances, and I have to say that I'm disappointed to see that the entire supporting cast was overlooked in the Oscar nominations. Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, and Matthew Macfayden are James Reston Jr, Bob Zelnick, and John Birt respectively, Frost's researchers, who all have their own reasons for bearing down on Frost to bear down Nixon and give him, as Reston said before even signing onto the project, "the trial that Nixon never had." Frank Langella, however, has been given a much deserved Best Actor nomination, and he should get it.

The best thing that the movie does, however, is the way it presents the transformation of both Frost and Nixon during the course of the interviews. Frost and his team have done exhaustive research on their subject and walk into the interviews calm and collected and confident, and within seconds of beginning the interviews Frost immediately fires off a question that catches Nixon completely off-guard, mostly due to a contractual agreement that he wouldn't pull such a stunt. Nixon is visibly upset, but within a few seconds he regains his composure and proceeds to steamroll Frost for the majority of the next few sessions. Panic, of course, ensues among Frost and his colleagues.

But both of them have an important point of view toward the other. Frost was enamored with Nixon's stature, his screen presence, his sheer sense of authority as soon as he walks into the room, while Nixon was equally envious of Frost's ability to interact with people, his knack for "liking people and being liked." Nixon understands that he has never been very good at being liked, and that possibly his and Frost's roles in life were meant to be reversed. This is a powerful dichotomy that seems to clearly delineate who's who in the interviews, but instead it only mixes up the roles and possibly creates the growing environment of instability that ultimately allowed for a relatively unsuccessful talk-show host to take journalistic control of one of the most famous men in the world.

I don't know to which film the Best Picture Oscar will go, but I've seen all of them and Frost/Nixon is definitely the one most deserving of the award, even among four other great films. But there is one brief but significant exchange between Frost and Nixon that I would like to point out, and keep in mind that this is pulled almost verbatim from the original tapes -

Nixon: “Look, when you’re in office, you gotta do a lot of things sometimes that are not always in the strictest sense of the law, legal, but you do them because they’re in the greater interest of the nation.”
Frost: “Alright wait, just so I understand correctly, are you really saying that in certain situations the President can decide whether it’s in the best interest of the nation and then do something illegal - “
Nixon: “I’m saying that when the President does it, that means it’s not illegal.”

Oscar or not, those are the most powerful words uttered in any film in 2008.

The Bean-Meter

[caption id="attachment_20718" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="5 beans out of 5!"][/caption]