Nixon. 1995. Directed by Oliver Stone.

(9/23/00)

I really didn't like Oliver Stone's Nixon. The funny thing is that I didn't expect to. Maybe I just don't find Nixon himself an interesting figure. I found the film hard to follow, or hard to understand, and it left me with the feeling that I have no clue as to what the Nixon era was all about.

The problem with Anthony Hopkins or any actor playing Nixon is that to me and people of my generation Nixon is such a familiar figure from TV and the media that it is hard to accept someone else playing him. "This is not Richard Nixon," my mind kept telling me. And one of the properties of film is that since it uses camera we believe that what we see before us is real. And we expect to be able to accept it as real or as the truth--at least while we are watching. This is no complaint against Anthony Hopkins as an actor. The image of President Nixon is just so vivid in my mind that seeing him portrayed by an actor is jarring. (Yet I was completely persuaded by Paul Sorvino's Kissinger.)

And actually, now that I think about it, the real Nixon was more attractive and had more presence than Anthony Hopkins. But then, now that I think of it, I only saw the public face of Nixon. And Oliver Stone wants to go behind that public face. OK, but it still wasn't Nixon.

Oliver Stone's special effects just seemed annoying and self-indulgent. Why was there so much footage in black-and-white? It didn't seem to serve any purpose. And I wasn't impressed by the speeded-up shots of clouds rushing by the White House. In some of his other films (U-Turn and Natural Born Killers which I am about to see again tomorrow), the special effects create a very powerful experience of being bombarded by the images. It is not so impressive here, possibly because of the subject matter. (Or maybe I was just tired or in a bad mood.)

There is just so much to digest in this film that it is difficult to digest it all. There are the effects of American involvement in Cuba, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam war and the protest movement, the Pentagon papers and, of course, Watergate. I really wish that Nixon explained Watergate in simple terms. I know that there was a bungled burglary at the Watergate Hotel, Nixon's tape with the eighteen-and-a-half minute gap, and some people named Ehrlichman and Haldeman. John Dean was the one who really spilled the beans. But other than that I don't know what the whole thing was all about. And I lived through it. What about audiences that are ten and twenty years younger than me?

And how are we intended to view Richard Nixon? We have flashback scenes showing young Dick's interaction with his parents--honest and upright Quakers. He comes across as a decent man caught up in the filthy world of politics. The film, surprisingly, seems to side with Nixon and justify his actions, but later on a tide seems to have turned. His wife Pat tells him off and then there is the scene where he tries to talk John Dean into writing a signed confession. So has Nixon become a villain? Has he been corrupted by the presidency?

If Nixon changed, if he sold out--if that is what Oliver Stone is saying to us--then what the film needs is a very clear, a very sharp scene in which we see Nixon sell out. Unless audiences have gone far beyond me in terms of sophistication and have the capacity to pick up on subtle nuances which I miss.

What does come across in Nixon is the idea that the glamour and greatness of the presidency is an illusion, is all sham. As I watched the film I wondered: "Why does anyone want to be president?" Nixon in this film does not come to the presidency with a sense of, "Well, it's a dirty job, but it needs to be done." It is unquestionably something that he wants for his own benefit. He regards it as a personal loss when the office is snatched from him in 1960. And when 1968 rolls around Pat asks him if he is sure that this is what he really wants, what will really make him happy. And later on she points out that he has gotten everything he wanted, but it hasn't brought him happiness. Why are people so foolish as to seek the presidency, or any political office, for their own benefit?

With Nixon there is definitely a need to be liked, to gain approval. But he never gets that. He becomes, probably, one of the most hated public figures in America. And during a lot of the time that hatred seems to be because the people simply don't understand what he is trying to do.

There is a scene in Nixon that is haunting and poignant. President Nixon meets with college students on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It is either at night or at dawn. He wants to talk to them, to communicate with them. He is awkward; he doesn't know how to go about it. And they are not willing to really listen to his side; all they want is to attack him and demand he stop the war. I wonder if this scene was based on a documented historical incident.

A few minutes previous there was a scene in which Nixon was discussing the Vietnam War and the Communist presence in Southeast Asia with his advisors at dinner. The problem was that it was all so complicated. And Nixon wondered aloud how he could go on television and explain all that to the people in a way that they could understand. And when he was talking to the college students he didn't even try. Why not? Why couldn't he sit down on the steps of the Memorial and explain it to them as best he could? Was it because it was too complicated or because he was doing something illegal? I couldn't figure it out.

The other scene that really moved me was when Nixon asked Kissinger to kneel down and pray with him. That scene really worked and it showed Nixon as flawed, vulnerable and completely human. I had read about this incident somewhere and it came across as a very powerful moment.

I found Nixon confusing and beond me. Perhaps it would reward further study. If I were to revisit this picture it would be more out of respect for Oliver Stone's reputation than from really wanting to see it again.