Nixon (1995)

Why am I watching this right after JFK? BECAUSE I AM A MORON, THAT’S WHY!!!

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, let’s experience the Director’s Cut! The Theatrical Release ran 192 minutes, but this one is 212 minutes; twenty minutes longer!

Director Oliver Stone is clearly covering his ass with the opening prologue, which reads: “This film is a dramatic interpolation of events and characters based on public sources and incomplete historical record. Some scenes and events are presented as composites or have been hypothesized or condensed.” In effect, he’s putting up-front that he’s moving stuff around to show you a story, not a docudrama per se. Unlike JFK, where his whole point was that ‘we don’t really know what happened,’ this story is about someone we are all too familiar with the actions of. The downfall of this particular President of the United States was basically the slowest and most public train wreck of events ever witnessed. Every day there was a fresh new allegation of wrongdoing or criminal activity on the part of the holder of the Oval Office and those employed therein. The pettiness and vindictiveness within President Nixon’s heart was laid bare in newspapers and on the nightly news for all to see. Testimony before Congressional Committees were broadcast live long before dedicated news channels were even an idea as yet; even an official channel which was solely the broadcaster of debates, such as CSPAN, was not something anyone was considering. So, in summary, we are all fully aware of the events involved here, so it’s good that Mr Stone isn’t trying to ‘wake people up to the reality’ this time around.

[left to right] Anthony Hopkins, James Woods, J.T. Walsh, and David Hyde Pierce in Nixon (1995) — — — —

As a result, however, it’s 40 minutes in before we get a review of the title character’s CV in public life, and some of the more disgusting things which set the stage for his evil aren’t even mentioned or are glossed over in passing.

Also, we get so many flashbacks: his childhood (about twenty-seventeen times), his various times campaigning for something (and seemingly always losing until 1968), and the toll it had on his wife and his marriage to her. Pat Nixon gets pretty short shrift here, too; she gets more lens time than the kids do, but as they’re practically non-existent,, that’s not saying much. When his daughter comes to him and tells President Nixon that the public don’t know the man she knows! How she can know him at all is a mystery, as we haven’t seen the family together except at the wedding.

Anthony Hopkins in Nixon (1995) — — — —

The performance of Anthony Hopkins as the title character is superb. While Nicholas Cage’s performance in Leaving Las Vegas was good, Sir Anthony’s losing to it was another example of the Academy getting it wrong again. While he isn’t truly impersonating Richard Nixon, he’s certainly captured the soul of the man, his vocal mannerisms, his shambling gait, his occasional and imprecise violent shoving of people and things in the general direction of where he wants them to go. Seventeen layers of prosthesis and rubber appliances to alter someone’s visual appearance will never match someone finding within themselves the essence of their character, even if that actor doesn’t possess the dexterity of Sir Anthony.

This movie was released in 1995, which was the year after former President Richard Nixon died, and two years after his wife, Pat Nixon, died. With their wounds all too fresh, the Nixon Family and a few prominent supporters publicly objected to the film’s contents and the portrayal of Richard Nixon as a man.

Me, I would have like to have seen more detail of the things from his time as a Senator which formed him as President. But that’s me. I don’t see much to like about the late President* Richard Millhouse Nixon, so maybe it doesn’t matter,.

★★★★☆