GOVT-531-001 Prof.

Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

Frost/Nixon Review

In my opinion, when Americans think about Watergate, they only remember the more well-known aspects of the story: Nixon getting on the helicopter for the last time, the heroic journalism of Woodward and Bernstein, the mystery of Deep Throat, the puzzle wrapped in an enigma (then flavored with frustration) of the missing eighteen and a half minutes. As enduring and important as these questions undoubtedly are, a part of the story that is often overlooked is the Frost/Nixon interviews. This is a shame because other than the missing minutes, the interviews are my favorite part of the whole story. While he didn't ultimately get a full confession out of the ex-President, Frost set the theme of Watergate in its coda as the story of a disgraced President who had chosen not to accept responsibility for his wrongdoing. The most recent depiction of the immortal interviews is Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard and released in 2008 to critical acclaim. However, the film was also criticized for inaccuracy and overuse of dramatic license by pro- and anti-Richard Nixon partisans. But who's right? How does it compare to the actual Nixon Interviews? What was left out and why? Is dramatic license a blank check to depict historical material however you want, or is accuracy paramount? I will be exploring all these questions and more. So come with me on an amazing journey inside the legacy of the most infamous, paranoid, and sweaty President of our times.

GOVT-531-001 Prof. Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

The film has a strong opening that presents a few minutes of audio from the actual Watergate tapes, followed by a video overview using footage from the time period intermixed with footage of actors in the movie describing what happened during the Watergate scandal up until Nixon's abridged resignation speech on August 8th, 1974. I would have liked a little more detail to really establish how much of a violation of our principles of democracy this scandal was; however, it was a fairly good introduction to Watergate for neophytes. I also didn't like that, because the director apparently thought the audience would miss important details, they had to use talking heads to constantly throw exposition our way. It gave a pseudo-documentary feel that took away from the story's tension. However, the scenes with Kevin Bacon playing Nixon's embattled chief of staff Jack Brennan (with a brief cameo from Diane Sawyer!) offering his retrospective were interesting enough to mollify my overall annoyance with this technique. Leaving aside an analysis of the accuracy of the depiction of the facts of the scandal and interviews, Frost/Nixon as a film is well done. It's not as much of a triumph as many critics say it is, and it has large flaws, but it's also very good. The film's greatest strength is Frank Langella as Richard Nixon. He only somewhat looks like Nixon because his head is a little too round, but he spectacularly nails his hunch, gravelly voice, odd mannerisms, and darkly humorous sayings. I loved Nixon's commentary on Frost's "effeminate" Italian shoes, and a scene between Nixon and Brennan after Nixon expresses his frustration at giving a speech is too priceless to spoil.

GOVT-531-001 Prof. Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

While Langella's performance provided some of the film's best moments besides the interviews themselves, I thought all the other actors were just alright. Michael Sheen looked more like David Frost than Langella looked like Nixon. Sheen also reenacted what I remembered of Frost's behaviors from watching the actual interviews very well, but his portrayal of the man himself is very shallow and self-centered. Frost does somewhat redeem himself towards the end, but for most of the movie my attention was more focused on Nixon, on the mounting tension surrounding the negotiations between the two sides over the interviews, and on the climactic final interview on Watergate. The film relies on these key strengths to effectively engage an audience that might be new to the history, and paces its powerful story moments effectively. As regards how the interviews were portrayed in the film, Frost/Nixon is highly accurate, but somewhat inaccurate in key areas. Even more key than the acting or the plot was the film's striving to really create a definitively factual yet slightly (key word) fictionalized account of the interviews. It comes so close, but the few things it misses bring it down from becoming truly great, and cannot be entirely dismissed on the basis of dramatic license. On the DVD special feature "The Real Interviews", Ron Howard and the actors go to great lengths to show how they recreated the interview corner of the house Frost and Nixon were in, and how as many lines from the actual interviews as possible were put in word for word. Ron Howard specifically puts in the caveat that this is not a reenactment, as that would take 12 hours, but reiterates that an "overall truth" of what happened comes out, and he credits

GOVT-531-001 Prof. Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

the writing of the play that he adapted for this success. I have not seen the play, but mostly don't have a problem with the compression of events for the film's two hours and three minutes of running time, or with the fact that the room isn't as dark as it is in the actual interview, as both are effective artistically. I also cannot state the accuracy of the words spoken in the first three parts, relating to domestic policy, foreign policy, and Nixon's personal life, or who "won" those portions. I did find 80 minutes worth of YouTube footage of the Watergate portion that I burned to a homemade DVD as extra material for this midterm (Frost, 2010), and will conclude by examining the film's veracity in comparison to that part of the interview. The movie's production team is correct in saying that they recreated the scenery well, and got a lot of what was said in that last interview down verbatim. However, there are several huge differences that, as I stated, bring it down for me and open the movie to a lot of historical (rather than filmic) criticism. One of the important deviations is that, according to David Frost in the introduction to my DVD, there were twelve days of taping, two of them devoted to Watergate. By contrast, Frost/Nixon shows only four days of taping. I know I said I didn't have a problem with compression, but how hard would it have been to have the subtitle "Day 12" or a montage or something like that? It makes the film feel a little like the CliffNotes version of the interviews. Another major problem is with the film's tone during the final interview. This is not to say that Nixon and Frost weren't combative in the real Watergate segments. But the film shows them sparring a touch too much, going for the obvious Hollywood emotional jugular rather than

GOVT-531-001 Prof. Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

letting the cool but intellectually tense sparring that characterized the actual interview ramp up the intensity of the climax in a unique and less contrived fashion. It thus felt more like a verbal fistfight and that rang hollow for me. For me the interviews were like a game of chess. For most of the time Nixon thought Frost was playing checkers until Frost checkmated him with the revelation, through conversations that Nixon had with Charles Colson, that Nixon was lying about when he knew about Watergate. Even though it gets that part right, the film does two things wrong with it. First, it makes the whole interview seem more like a shouting match than it actually was, as in the original interviews Nixon was very calm and collected except for a few moments, and even when he was upset he never seemed enraged at Frost. Second, it seems to take the words Nixon actually said and make them seem like more of a definitive confession and downfall for Nixon and a total victory for Frost than they actually were. In the actual footage, Nixon only really admitted to making mistakes and to letting America down rather than any actual criminal wrongdoing or participation in a coverup on his part, and effectively minced words to do so. Lastly, Nixon's drunken midnight phone call to Frost that the film shows as taking place the night before the final interview never actually happened (Aitken, 2009). It's a very effectively written and emotional moment that highlights how similar Frost and Nixon are in their quest for the limelight. However, it was another contrived Hollywood insertion that could have been cut.

GOVT-531-001 Prof. Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

I understand the need of the filmmakers to create captivating drama and to fit that drama in two hours; it was no easy undertaking and by no means am I saying that Frost/Nixon is a bad film either as a film by itself or as an examination of a sadly overlooked historical event. However, it's not as great a film or a fictional retelling of the Frost Nixon interviews as it could have been. The mediocre acting of everyone in the cast except for Langella as Nixon and the irritating voiceovers draw attention away from its strengths judged solely as a film. Meanwhile, the typical Hollywood adaptation tendency to compress for time and to (by making the tone of the interviews more aggressive and suggest that Frost somehow "won") inject a ho-hum hero/villain dynamic unnecessarily replaces the actual drama of trying to get the truth out of Richard Nixon with Oscar bait. But although this is most certainly not the incredibly strong filmic depiction of the best interviews in history that many probably wanted, it still has a lot of talent behind it and is entertaining from start to finish.

SCORE: 6/10 Nixon Scowls Nixon Is Mildly Grumpy

GOVT-531-001 Prof. Fulsom Daniel Deitrick 10/17/13

Works Cited

Aitken, Jonathan. "Nixon v Frost: The True Story of What Really Happened When a British Journalist Bullied a TV Confession out of a Disgraced Ex-President." Mail Online. Mail Online, 23 Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article1127039/Nixon-v-Frost-The-true-story-really-happened-British-journalist-bullied-TVconfession-disgraced-ex-President.html>.

Frost, David. "Frost/Nixon Interviews YouTube Playlist." YouTube. Google Inc. Web. 2008. <http://goo.gl/tmsmPO>. Videos Uploaded 15 Jan. 2010 By: gijsgeluid2006. Playlist & DVD Created 13 Oct. 2013 By: Daniel Deitrick