Frost/Nixon Ron Howard USA/UK 2009
In Frost/Nixon a great script leads a superb cast through the fascinating story of a how former US president Richard M Nixon nearly admitted his involvement in the Watergate scandal to interviewer David Frost.
With such strengths, director Ron Howard probably had only to sit down and say "action" to achieve such a riveting fictionalisation, but nonetheless something was lost in the translation of what had been a successful play into film.
Playwright Peter Morgan wrote Frost/Nixon originally for the stage where it achieved much acclaim in both London and New York. The play (and now film) fleshes out the battle of wits between television presenter David Frost and Nixon over the course of a set of television interviews.
Using a documentary structure Frost/Nixon recounts the encounter whilst some of the characters involved commentate upon the events. The film also uses the same principals as the play. Both Michael Sheen and Frank Langella return to play Frost and Nixon respectively.
British TV presenter David Frost's 1977 interview with Richard Nixon raised eyebrows at the time due to Frost's light entertainment background and his nationality. After departing into the political wilderness in 1974 Nixon had refused to tell his story in any depth.
But when Frost offered to pay Nixon for an interview he accepted. Both men had much to gain from the encounter. Frost's career had become stuck after his early success; Nixon relished the opportunity to restore his reputation with an interviewer he perceived as easy to control.
Like much political journalism, a small result was massively overblown. Nixon never admitted his guilt. He merely apologised and expressed remorse. For getting even that far Frost was declared the winner and the mythology of the Frost-Nixon interview has grown and grown.
The entire film builds up towards this verbal sparring match between journalist and president with the conclusion that Frost won because he understood television whilst Nixon didn't. This is a particularly ironic point given how Nixon allegedly lost the 1960 presidential election due to a poorly received television debate. As Frost's producer John Birt explains immediately after the finale in Frost/Nixon, television simplifies. Any admission, even a miniscule one, in the interview therefore counted as a decisive victory.
A bruising personal confrontation is perfect material for a play, but a film needs to show. This creates an odd situation where the finale praises the power of television in a very restrained, flat way. Birt talks to camera and tells us why the outcome is so important.The supposedly visual finale needs explanation!
Compare this with the famous scene in The Queen (also written by Morgan) where the Queen has a stag in her gun sights and lets it go. That ambiguous moment gave Helen Mirren's character soul without the need for someone to explicitly tell us so.
Michael Sheen and Frank Langella showboat to the crowd as two characters who are both exceedingly easy to caricature. Sheen has a tougher job conveying Frost the charmer, who barely appears ruffled by it all. Langella makes his Tricky Dicky suitably inscrutable and he has more to play with.
Like many fictionalised accounts of public figures, much of the fun arises from Nixon effectively acting off camera. Moments such as when he tries to unsettle Frost with coarse language immediately before the interview are jolting.
Frost/Nixon grips tightly as it works its way towards the confession. It suffers in comparison to other films in the Peter Morgan reality genre because Nixon is already an established screen character. However serious the interview in Frost/Nixon becomes you can't quite shake other portrayals of the only president to resign. Dan Hedeya's performance in the 1999 film Dick sums up the Nixon we secretly all want to kick around when he tells his dog: "Checkers - shut up. Or I'll feed you to the Chinese."
