The movie did a fine job of making the preparations for a TV special into a real drama. It would've been better except for the over-the-top late-night call before the last interview. And for Nixon's sudden transformation from intellectual boxer into punch-drunk has-been.
Apparently the final confrontation was completely phony. In fact, many of the movie's key aspects were phony. I guess the only way they could make the story dramatic was to falsify it.
Nixon v Frost: The true story of what really happened when a British journalist bullied a TV confession out of a disgraced ex-President
Frost/Nixon: A Dishonorable Distortion of History
Film Review: Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon’s Self-Congratulatory Revisionism
By now you should know my position on portraying history accurately. If you can't make a true story interesting without falsifying it, then don't. Make up a story instead.
Frost/Nixon would've worked just as well--maybe better--if it were about a fictional journalist interviewing a fictional president. The subject could've been the president's decision to invade a Middle East country based on trumped-up intelligence after a terrorist act it didn't commit. The goal could've been to get the president to admit he was wrong, the invasion wasn't justified, and he committed crimes in his zeal for vengeance.
Frost/Nixon does get a bonus point for using my hometown of Palos Verdes as a stand-in for San Clemente. Of course, it was totally obvious to anyone who's been to Palos Verdes or San Clemente.
Images: Archival & Cinematic
Rob's rating: 8.0 of 10. (The first 3/4 of the movie was more like an 8.5.)
1 comment:
I was not a Nixon fan at the time when he was president. But in retrospect, I must say that he was an effective president and did many things for us that were positive and good. He was caught doing what politicians did at the time. He was no worse than any of the others but unfortunately was chosen by fate to start the movement of close watch we keep on politicians now.
Post a Comment