Film Review--Nixon

Nixon
directed by Oliver Stone
written by Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson, Oliver Stone
starring Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Powers Boothe, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, E.G. Marshall, David Paymer, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Sorvino, Mary Steenburgen, J.T. Walsh, James Woods, Kevin Dunn

In this sprawling, open telling of the life of President Richard Nixon (Hopkins) director Oliver Stone creates a surprisingly even-handed account that portrays Nixon as both complicit in the Watergate break-in and deeply sympathetic on a personal level.

Nixon here is a disheveled, gnarled, grumpy and charismatic force of nature who stands his ground however shifty it is beneath him against everything he loathes about contemporary life. In this film Nixon is a startled rabbit caught eternally in the headlights unsure of the proper outcome to strive for. The Vietnam--war which he didn’t start but by which many of the youth blamed him for nonetheless–is the shaky platform upon which is presidency is built. The mocks of the young people screaming and daring the sky to crash at their feet sting Nixon even if he won’t show it. Privately he’s quietly tormented and anguished.

This film digs deeply into the skull of its subject and pulls out a portrait of a man who was forever shaped by events in his early life. The film follows a number of time lines to trace the story from its roots straight through Watergate with a few stops in between including his failed presidential bid in 1960, his failed California governor bid in 1962 and his successful Presidential run in 1968. There are many stories told in this three and half hour talk fest that tries to uncover difficult truths about the President and succeeds supremely.

Stone creates a hypnotic dreamscape that can be felt in every frame of this film. It plays like a surreal, occasionally nightmarish fantasy that is nonetheless grounded in cold, bitter fact. It doesn’t emerge with any solid truths about the man because there are simply too many to consider; instead it whittles away at the persona in an effort to come away with something that is succinctly tangible. It’s a complex subject treated with great skill and care and the final result is a portrait that reveals a man who is wounded, temperamental, fiercely intelligent, comic, and scared.

All of the major players are cinematically rendered here and each one plays a vital role in the drama as it unfolds. Henry Kissinger (Sorvino) is a specter who hovers over the film as something of a sleepily sinister force who may or may not been the source of the leaks of secret, classified documents to the New York times. Kissinger is portrayed as a man as rife with dirty secrets as the primary target of this film. One also gets the impression that he is untouchable in a most frightening manner. His presence is so profoundly felt that every moment he is on screen Nixon comes off as somewhat bullied and shrunken.

Joan Allen gives a deeply moving performance as Pat Nixon, the longsuffering wife gamely puts her best face forward despite a great number of reservations that nag her as the film moves along. Allen captures a vulnerability coupled with a totemic strength that proves the adage that behind every strong man there is an equally strong woman. Only in this film, it’s clear that Pat is much stronger emotionally than her husband and that she dutifully carries much of his burden so he can scurry off and be presidential.

In this film Nixon is akin to a dog perennially chasing his tale. What he wants is eternally out of reach and he is always left disappointed at his inability to achieve his aims. Indeed, the overarching emotional state that best describes this film is disappointment. Taking this film as a cue one sees a tremendous amount of frustrated ambition in Nixon as he struggled emotionally to work his way through the political hoops. It’s literally written on Hopkins’s face–a terribly pained terrain–that Nixon exists in a realm of perpetual futility in the face of so much expectation. The result leaves him with micro-emotions that reveal tremendous discomfort and anguish. Freezing the film on his face tells a most fascinating story about a man who is routinely ill-at-ease (if he’s ever at ease) and who shows momentary flashes of disgust, fear, sorrow, hatred, grief, etc. regularly when communicating with other people.

It isn’t immediately clear in this film what is supposed to represent Nixon’s finer achievements in office. It appears that the negotiations with China and Russia are heralded as important diplomatic steps but the film treats both of them with a decisive distaste. Both play for laughs however unintentional. Actually, it’s most likely deliberate but both Mao and Brezhnev have a decided comic appeal to them that comes through as they meet with Dick Nixon. It’s obvious they don’t trust him and we’re not sure if we do either. He’s rallied against communists his whole life–even imagining that the youth rebellion is funded by the communists–and now here he sits with the two leading world communists chatting about the weather. He looks uncomfortable. His sunken shoulders sink even further and the conversations are rooted in a disconnect between what Nixon knows he must do and his fear of what Communism would mean should it be implemented fully in the United States. Nixon fears Communism, terror, disorder, mayhem, and anything else that threatens to shake up his carefully codified world. His is a staunch conservatism in the true sense. He legitimately wants to retain as much as the early post war sentiment as possible and the war protests, the youth-driven anger all send him into a tizzy because he cannot control them.

According to this film Richard Nixon held President John F. Kennedy is exceedingly high esteem despite his public rallying against the heralded Democrat. Publically he blamed Kennedy for the mess with Cuba but privately he recognized him as a vital president who won the people’s hearts. While looking at a painting of Kennedy, Nixon says “When the people look at you they see what they want to be. When they look at me they see what they are.”

Anthony Hopkins captures every dark angle here in Nixon’s character. This is a rare and serious envelopment of a man’s most taxing and grievous character flaws coupled with his tremendous will for life and power. In the final saying Hopkins gives us a Nixon of enormous import who is deeply wounded from many unsavory experiences that have occasionally waylaid his ambitions or haunted him with a startling sense of loss and betrayal. In the end Hopkins shows us the raw humanity of Nixon and at least his core goodness despite the wicked things that he has done. Joan Allen is discreetly enforcing in this film as Pat Nixon and she captures an intensity that grounds the film in an almost regal sensibility. Allen gives one of the finest stately performances in the history of film and she is much deserving of her Academy Award nomination which she unfortunately did not win. Bob Hoskins is simply diabolical as J. Edgar Hoover. He’s slimy, sexually deviant (for the time, anyway), and utterly creepy in his presentation of Hoover. Sam Waterston is not in the theatrical version but his scene with Nixon is reinserted in the DVD release and his performance as Richard Helms, the CIA head, is disturbing and exquisitely rendered. He quotes Keats’s “The Second Coming” and the links between it and Nixon’s presidency eerily resonate throughout the room. Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig, Ed Harris as the mysterious E. Howard Hunt, David Hyde Pierce as John Dean are among the numerous performances that provide the film with a sharp edge that keeps it honest and necessary.

Overall, this film is as good as one could possibly expect about a slippery subject who simply cannot be effectively nailed down. He’s just too complex both emotionally and intellectually for a simple treatment and this one captures many angles that make up the man as he quests for greatness but falls just short with every striding. He’s a man who cannot quite make the team despite his intense preparation and struggle to learn the play book. No matter what he does he will forever fail to grab the brass ring and will always slip back down into oblivion before rising once again to make the effort anew. That’s what defines Nixon and he says it during one of his later speeches: “I am not a quitter” and he certainly wasn’t. In this film, Hopkins captures this aspect of his character through gestures mostly. His Nixon is a fighter who nevertheless could never quite land the knockout blow. Still he always hung around long enough for the decision which he routinely and quite unfortunately lost.