Nixon - Stone, 1995. Film Review.

Gain the World, Lose your Soul

Nixon was an interesting President. His time in office was completely overshadowed by Watergate, reminding me somewhat to Clinton and his definition of sex. Nixon had achieved some notable events but who really cares right? He fucked everything up through Watergate, his internal tantrums against the press and maybe even his choice not to shave before the first ever televised presidential debate.

This is what makes Nixon so interesting; he is a president that had a scandal.

Oliver Stone intelligently and sometimes scattily jumps between periods in the movie, when Nixon was 10, 19 and the political period between 1960 and his resignation. Overwhelming at first, the period jumping proves a fabulous convention to the movie. Stone and Hopkins then easily convince us that his childhood, his mother and father had enormous effect on his later life. An issue that Nixon never grapples with; constantly trying to prove to himself that he can gain acceptance from everyone. In which his wife, played by Joan Allen says he never will.

Anthony Hopkins plays Nixon, he attacks the role with a Best Actor performance which baffles me as to why he didn’t get it, and oddly it went to Nicholas Cage. He does not play with a clear cut impersonation of Nixon, but plays it so we believe it, somehow. I put this down to great acting. Hopkins shows us in the first part of the film, before presidency, that he drifts into lust for the job, sometimes throwing out morals and becoming angry as to why he doesn’t win, first against Kennedy and second as Governor of California. He blames the public, Kennedy and the fact he didn’t come from an accepted background. Hopkins plays this with such depth and conviction you think ‘wow’. But while watching I had an interesting interpretation of the movie, usually when you go into a biopic you feel that you will sympathise with the main character. Nixon is different, the movie is so well written, directed and acted, sympathy is replaced with confusion that Nixon himself felt as to ‘why don’t people like me?’ I did not feel for Nixon, but I still cannot, and I know political scientists have not, discovered why people did not like him. After all he ended the Vietnam War (albeit with record force), established the EPA and made significant and modern changes to welfare.

James Woods plays ‘Bob’ Haldeman, the Chief of Staff and aide to Nixon. With a crew-cut and solid following in which he hardly questions the President, another great performance by Woods that has a presence in such a stuffy role. The late J.T. Walsh plays the Assistant of Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, as Rob Reiner said in his commentary of A Few Good Men hardly anybody plays a part like Walsh with such moving subtleness. At times defending and questioning the president, Walsh plays the part with such believability and conviction that you feel Ehrlichman is actually playing the part. Joan Allen is Pat Nixon, one that I thought probably employed the most creative licence by adding a thinker and reactionary character to the story. Pat was reluctant at accepting defeat in 1960 and 1962 for her husband and tried to avoid another campaign in 1968 although she agreed. In the movie she is played as quite a detached, chain smoking and strong woman, true or not true her reactions toward her husband were always in the best intentions and always supportive toward him.

John Williams scores the film. A film of this scale could have had a far more moving and presidential soundtrack with Williams creating a standard Hollywood melody, 1997s Dante’s Peak (scored by Williams) sounds almost the same.

Stone has created a great movie, a kind of film that comes around every few years. It comes four years after his JFK and in my opinion Nixon is better. Better because the President fails because of himself, and you feel and see it coming through great performances and solid direction. This is also the kind of movie that stays with you and invokes thought. A kind of movie I love.

My Rating: 5/5
My Summary: Solid performances deliver a great biopic, actors shine, and thought is provoked.
A film for: Midweek thought challenger.

Photo date: 6 March 2002 © 1995-Cinergi Pictures Entertainment Inc. & Cinergi Productions N.V., Inc.-All rights reserved