Frost/Nixon is a riveting film but, perhaps, only if like me you enjoy watching a corrupt politician — especially a high ranking government official — trapped into publicly admitting his wrongdoings. There is that sense of gratification that emanates from the gut and when Nixon said “I gave them a sword and they stuck it in… twisted it with relish,” vicariously you feel like you’re holding that sword in your hand and you’ve just thrust it into this man’s belly and you’re twisting it mercilessly as you watch him writhe in pain. Then, you realize that there so many others like him but who, unlike him, will never feel public humiliation and the kind of pain that Nixon endured (it is painful for any power hungry person to be deprived of power) for as long as they live. And it makes you sad.
I have read a lot of materials about Watergate. If you can imagine a grade schooler poring over the Compton’s Encyclopedia Yearbooks, that was me reading about Watergate. I knew the names of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein even if mentioning them drew blank stares from my classmates. The mention of “Deep Throat” elicited a different kind of reaction that was totally unrelated to Nixon and Watergate. But David Frost?
The David Frost I knew is a musician — the man behind the album called The Symphony Sessions which I enjoyed as a law student. Before I bought that album, I never heard of David Frost. And after I bought the album, I didn’t know there was another David Frost and I didn’t know that that interview with Nixon ever took place. So when I saw Frost/Nixon, I thought I was watching fiction.
I don’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that I hadn’t read any reviews of the movie nor seen any of the trailers — fortunate, I suppose, because I was able to enjoy it without bias. Had I read up on the subject of the actual interview prior to seeing the movie, I might be one of those people lambasting the film for its real or imagine factual inaccuracies. Maybe. Or maybe not. See original video footage of the interview (an annotated version).
The interview itself was portrayed accurately in the film. It is the film’s account of the circumstances surrounding its production that draw criticisms with some claiming obvious omissions and inclusions of outright fictitious events. Well, it is a movie, after all, not a historical documentary. I highly recommend it.
It was the summer of my Freshman year in High School and I can still remember they day he resigned. That was a big event in history that I didn’t realize at the time how momentous it was.
You know, I get the feeling that Nixon was a lesson for everyone who came after him. The lesson — never leave a trail of evidence and get caught.
well that’s certainly an indifferently lost point on our brazen set of asphalt-faced political characters here, isn’t it?
Wellll… it takes brains not to leave a trail of evidence to not get caught. Res ipsa loquitur? LOL
I think I just gave birth to a new local political term – ASPHALMUKS.
LOL I like it!
The amazing thing is there weren’t tanks in the streets and mobs storming the White House. For such a momentous event, it was pretty boring and anticlimactic.
LOL you prefer the EDSA People Power version?
No of course not. It’s just that why can’t more politicians worldwide behave like that? If he didn’t want to leave, what would anyone do about it? Were 9 old men from the Supreme Court going to go the White House and throw him out? In the end he cared more about the country and left quietly and voluntarily rather than plunge the nation into crisis.