TNMC

Those of you who have been hanging around this place for any significant part of the decade it's been running are well aware that I do love the Oscars.  That is a completely uncool attitude to take but that's just the way it is.  I am what I am.

Now the last few years the time constraints of raising kids has taken big chunks out of my theater going time and so I've come to rely on the FilmColumbia festival to show me a big pile of Oscar contenders in one convenient weekend.  This year the festival let me down in that respect.  It was still a great time and had plenty of great films (perhaps a few too many French ones for my tastes), but it was not chock a block with Oscar movies.  The exceptions are the foreign language nominees The Class and Waltz With Bashir.  I've reviewed Bashir and hopeful will get around to The Class before the big show.  Anyway, the point is that I'm less connected than normal on Oscar nominated movies.  I'm working hard to change that and will be talking them up a lot leading up to the Oscars.  As is the custom around here, I will host a live chat during the Oscars.  So if you plan on watching, consider checking us out during the show.  

Right now I'm dying to talk about Frost/Nixon.  First off a little background.  I was born during Nixon's second term.  My parents were liberals and had a pretty intense hatred for Nixon.  Obviously I was too young to remember or understand Nixon's political crash but by nature of my home and growing up in the aftermath of Watergate, I have always been greatly cynical about politics.  I have a near total distrust of politicians and almost always assume they are to some degree corrupt.  Nixon's transgressions set the stage for that attitude.  And yet I am rather fascinated by Nixon.  His considerable intelligence matched with a crippling lack of confidence and desperate need for acceptance makes him a baffling figure.

Frost/Nixon takes place shortly after Nixon resigns the presidency.  British talk show host David Frost gets it in his head to interview Nixon.  Other than a personality that drives him to be in the spotlight, it's hard to understand why he wanted this.  He's no journalist and seems to have only a passing understanding of Nixon's administration.  Frost simply understands that this interview would qualify as spectacle and that is something he can sell.

On the flip side, Nixon is desperate to rehabilitate his image and sees Frost as means to that end.  He relishes the chance to speak to the American public and make them see his side.  But he's also intensely competitive and craves a chance to match wits in a high stakes atmosphere with Frost.  What neither of them realize is that Frost is in way over his head.  

It must have been easy to assume that because of his bumbling handling of the Watergate affair that Nixon would be an easy target.  Hell, even today I think a lot of people would somehow assume Nixon to be a fool, ripe for picking.  But Nixon was no fool.  He was wickedly smart and a lot cagier than he gets credit for.  We tend to remember Watergate primarily about him.  When I studied economics we talked mostly about his terrible economic policies.  And of course there was Vietnam.  That's a lot of bad stuff and it over shadows the extraordinary nature of his political career.  This was a man intensely uncomfortable in his own skin, which should be a crippling problem for a politician.  But he was Eisenhower's veep, narrowly lost to Kennedy in Nixon's first run for the presidency and then won it in 1968.  And then he buried McGovern in 1972 for a second term, despite the Watergate break in being national news.  I'm not trying make Nixon out to be a great president but it is important to have a reasonable view of his capabilities because clearly David Frost did not.  Frost was wise enough to hire some experts to help him prepare for the interview.  Unfortunately he didn't take advantage of that help until very late in the process.

Director Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan cast this interview process as akin to a boxing match.  Frost comes in thinking his natural talents and charisma will let him take down Nixon fast.  Nixon figuratively sets about working the body, keeping Frost at a distance and just wearing the kid down.  It's a great structure that transforms a purely intellectual event into gladiatorial combat.  Instead of two guys in a room talking, you get a real battle with ups and downs and an actual sense of tension and energy.

Frank Langella and Michael Sheen handled these roles in the original stage version and that pays off handsomely.  They have a wealth of knowledge about their characters that makes it never feel like acting.  They know these characters so deeply and thoroughly that they become second nature.  They seem to actually inhabit these characters.  Nixon is obviously the more interesting character so Langella gets the bulk of the praise (including an Oscar nom) but Sheen should not be ignored, because he is the foil that does a lot of heavy lifting that lets Langella steal the scenes.  It's really a magnificent pairing.  I'd like to leave some of this to your discovery but there is a scene where Langella is just astonishing without saying much of anything.  It is the moment that clinched him a nomination.

Probably the best thing I can say about the movie is that as it approached the end, I didn't want that end to get there.  I wanted more.  This was just too damn good to end so soon.  They could have made it an hour longer and I wouldn't have complained.  It had me hooked so thoroughly that every moment made me want another.  Along with Langella's nomination for best actor, the film is nominated for best picture and best director.  I haven't yet seen the other best picture nominees, so I really can't yet say how strong a contender this is.  But it is a magnificent movie.