Getting Back On Track...Again...Again...

So anyway, I'm not entirely satisfied with my first two attempts, they're...flawed. Honestly, I have no idea how to write about a film. But, everyone has to start somewhere. At the very least I could benefit from a good editor. Hell, the "top" critics in the country have an editor for crying out loud. So...where do I go from here? Well, I think I'll just jump right into Frost/Nixon. While I don't share Brad's feeling that my previous endeavors completely spoiled the films (for Pete's sake, Valkyrie is a dramatization of historical fact - how much is there to spoil?), I'll concede that they were a bit long in detail. So I'll try to keep things a touch more concise this go around. Keep in mind that there might be an occasional spoiler strewn about...but this was a real event, I'm not going to tell anyone anything more than the wikipedia article on the subject would have. So without further ado...

Watergate is a pop culture buzz word. Strike that, Watergate may arguably be the pop culture buzz word - for at least the last century or so. At the very least, since 1974 any political scandal to reach even the fainest of notoriety has had the suffix "-gate" attached to it. I find it humorous, but not terribly surprising, that many people under the age of 40 (or so) know the term, but don't actually know what it was that Nixon did (just search a message board about the film and you'll see exactly what I mean)! Of my loyal following, I'm the only one that was actually alive when some of the events of the film Frost/Nixon took place - granted, I was still shitting my pants 6 or 7 times a day and could barely roll over under my own will power (wait...how's that different from now...?), but I was alive and breathing. I'll confess, until this film came along, I was completely unaware of David Frost and his series of interviews with President Nixon in 1977. Honestly, I don't even know what he actually looks like now...I haven't bothered to look him up online yet (suppose I'll get to it eventually). The point is, it doesn't matter. The film doesn't offer any insight or new perspective on the events of the Watergate break-in and Nixon's subsequent resignation. What it does do (and damned effectively) is portray, with a great deal of fictionalized drama for plot and effect, a stirring perspective on two men at a singular and important point in American history.

I would absolutely have loved to see this in its stage form. The film was written by Peter Morgan (based on his play of the same name). I can only imagine that a great deal of the first hour of the screenplay has been drawn out considerably - the logistics of staging the final act alone are a bit mind boggling, let alone all the set-up and character development of the first couple acts of the film. Here, the film stars its two original stage leads - Michael Sheen (of The Queen and Underworld fame) as British entertainer and talk show host David Frost (note I refer to him not as a journalist because by this point in his career, Frost was anything but), and Frank Langella as former President Richard Nixon. I've always liked Sheen - his turn as Tony Blair in The Queen was fantastic. Even when he's portraying a villain or just an evil bastard there's still a charm and accessibility to the man. Until these interviews, Frost was a virtual failure here in the U.S., and while popular abroad, still somewhat looked down upon as something of a second-rate entertainer and playboy. Sheen owns it in this character - you love to loathe him and hate to like him, but you do.

Then there's the matter of Langella's portrayal of Nixon. Dozens of actors and comedians have had there stabs at the man in the last 30 years or so. Everybody has a Nixon impression - hell, I have a fucking Nixon impression...you can't help it. Male or female, young or old, you can't help but try to be Nixon when talking about him. Langella is on an entirely different fucking plane of existence with his Nixon. Sure he's got the height and size about right (Nixon was about 6'1" or so, Langella is 6'3"), and has - with the aid of make-up and a few prosthetics - a passable resemblance to him. But the mannerism, the personality - it is Richard Nixon. You might as well have dug the bastard up and brought him back from the dead. It's haunting...it really is. You watch any archival footage of the real Nixon and compare it to Langella's performance - you'd swear he was a freakin' clone or something. A spot-on portrayal of a real-life historical figure seems to be like candy to the Oscar crowd - so, having said that...Langella should be a shoe-in for Best Actor...hell, he's already got the Tony for it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Truman Capote was good, Forrest Whittaker's Idi Amin was terrific...but Frank Langella's Richard Nixon - that's fucking art man...abso-fuckin'-lutely poetry in motion!!! The final act - particularly the last interview - is one of the best nail-biting of a film-going experiences as I've ever seen. I need to see the real interviews to see which is the more entertaining - if the film's even close, then goddamn that must have been something to watch.

Given his directorial resume, Ron Howard isn't necessarily the first director I would have associated with this film - and it's one helluva resume. I honestly believe that - and you have to remember what a fantastic group of films the man has directed - this is arguably his finest work to date. It's certainly his most intimate and personal. Howard has said in many an interview that he was inspired to shoot this after seeing the Broadway performance - and it shows. Obviously, by virtue of having originated the roles, Sheen and Langella wouldn't have needed much coaxing or prodding. But I can't help but think that Ron Howard helped them bring the epitome of their "A-game" into the film. It also benefits from some very tight cinematography and the assistance of being allowed multiple angles and takes to get everything just perfect. I also can't help but think that Howard probably really wanted James Horner to score the film...but also knew precisely what kind of score he'd be getting in the end. To which I would venture a guess is exactly what he didn't want. Defaulting to his second favorite composer, Hans "go-team-go" Zimmer didn't exactly seem like a natural choice either, but that's what we ended up with. And honestly, I can say without a second thought that this is the most restrained I have ever heard the man. There's no bombast - no Charge of the Synth-Brigade to be found. It's primarily a piano-based score, with flourishes of string orchestra thrown in when deemed necessary. The final cue of the film (leading into the end credits) is the most intense piece in it and that's not saying much as it's just upbeat and rhythmic. Overall though it stays out of the way mostly, and accentuates the drama when called for.

History (at least for the last 35 years) has done a bang-up job of dragging Nixon's name through the mud, putting the man in a vice and tightening for all it's worth. So much so that any proponents of the man (few that there still are - I certainly don't count myself as one of them) have never had a fair shake at lightening the burden of his disgrace. Nearly every biography, every film, every miniseries and play and documentary about the man and those events can't help but have a left-leaning slant...and certainly Frost/Nixon is no exception. What it does do, despite its own agenda, is still manage to bring a faint glint of pity and dignity to the President (not necessarily Nixon the civilian ,but Nixon the President). Frost's agenda was to get what the American people were foaming at the mouth for - a confession - and (perhaps even more ambitiously) an apology. Everyone wanted to give Nixon the trial he never had...the film doesn't detract from that. Frost (more or less) got what he wanted, and so following did the American people - the film let's us relive that moment. But what it also does is succeed (rather inadvertently or not) in allowing us, the viewers (most of whom likely despise the man) to feel a glimmer of empathy with a disgraced man - who, whether you believe it or not, seems to have only been doing what he thought was the right thing to do at the time.

Call it bullshit, call it whatever you want - hate the bastard as much as ever, I do...and I wasn't even fucking there (hell, many of us weren't even sperm yet)! I still say that by the end of the film you just can't help but feel ever-so-slightly sorry for what (at least by the portrayal in this film) was a broken man with a debt that could never be repaid and a crime that could never be forgiven. I'm of the opinion after watching Frost/Nixon that in about five years from now (give or take a month) a Frost/Bush series of interviews would be just as well received and serve to relieve some of the anger and bitterness that has engulfed this nation for the last eight years. The parallels between the events then and those now are uncanny, and it almost seems ironic, maybe even precognitive that this film was made and released when it was.