Gem/åben hele nummeret som PDF - 16:9

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For young movie goers (under the age of 30) Nixon will probably, aside from the history books, be remembered from Ron Howard’s gripping account Frost/Nixon (2008), about Nixon’s intense encounter with the journalist David Frost. Twelve years earlier, however, in 1996, Oliver Stone made a memorable biopic called Nixon, starring a staggeringly persuasive Sir Anthony Hopkins in the film’s leading role and simply depicting reality ‘as the director sees it’ (cf. In Video Entertainment 1996). “Paranoia, bitterness and revenge” function as the main themes in Stone’s movie, in which Nixon is at best a tragic hero, who may have had ideals, but who would soon come to be known for his scandalous cover-ups and political plotting (ibid.). As is typical of Oliver Stone, the film uses fictionalized archival footage, creating an intense sense of authenticity, and the film establishes a certain sense of sympathy toward Nixon – however unrelenting it may seem – by going back to his strict upbringing and showing him as a young, impressionable boy (fig. 18). “JFK was a murder mystery,” the director says, while “this is a character mystery”, a character mystery trying to unlock and explain the enigma that is Richard Nixon (ibid.). Stone has often been known for his political views – and largely seen as a political filmmaker – but going back to and dramatizing the childhood of Nixon, he focuses on Nixon as a private and essentially tragic character, providing us with a causal-psychological way of explaining or even justifying of Nixon’s actions. As Anthony Hopkins puts it in the featurette accompanying the dvd version of Stone’s film: “I think he’s a tragic figure, tragic to America also” (ibid.). Politician Turned Boxer: Frost/Nixon Whereas Stone, like Griffith, creates a fictional ‘cradle-to-grave like’ account of Nixon’s life, Ron Howard focuses on one specific and crucial event from 1977, a televised interview which would largely disgrace and discredit ex-president Richard Nixon. The screenwriter behind the film, Peter Morgan, is hardly unfamiliar to the biopic genre, having earlier created The Queen (2006), in which Hugh Grant stars as the British Prime Minister (at the time) Tony Blair and Helen Mirren plays The Queen. In Frost/Nixon we are not concerned with the hows and whys – how The Watergate scandal came about and why Nixon was so paranoid regarding his political opposition. Howard’s film, instead, is concerned with Nixon’s attempt to retouch or even recreate his image and the TV journalist David Frost’s attempt to resurrect his career in TV journalism. Howard’s film, characterized by film critic Peter Bradshaw as nothing more than a “talky, inert drama” (Bradshaw 2008), is, thus, reminiscent of a “boxing movie about two combatants who never meet outside the ring” (ibid). As is typical of the genre, the film opens with (fictionalized) archival footage and captions illustrating the trials regarding Watergate and displaying the different people who were forced to resign on account of that political scandal (fig. 19). “As an American I found this story relevant,” says director Ron Howard, a story displaying “the breakdown in the citizens’ trust of their government” (Universal 2009). More acutely, though, the director points to the potential of describing the “alleged abuses of power” in the Bush administration of the time (2008; ibid). However the film is conceived – whether it is seen strictly as a historical reminder or as an allegorical depiction of power abuse and misconduct in the US government – it hardly gives us a deep insight into the psyche of Richard Nixon. Final remarks In his own words, Frank Langella, who plays Nixon in Howard’s film, was “determined not to do an impression” (ibid.). Even so, biopics have an inherent Oscar quality, given that actors have to mimic and (to some degree) impersonate a famous person – and polical biopics are often compelling and complex character studies in which tragedy and success are juxtaposed in various different ways. The political biopic is not a new genre in America, and its prevalence in the Hollywood genre system is telling of its inherent qualities as a ‘star vehicle’ which feeds on a natural hunger for reality and history (in a way that seems harmless, even if it clearly represents a deeply individualistic conception of society).
The current boom of this genre may indicate a “return of the real” – a need for real stories about real people – but it also attests to a personalized conception of history which is popular in the US and American cinema (which clearly favors individualized causality) . Audiovisual accounts of history, one might say, is but the political biopics of great (wo)men. Facts Bibliography Altman, Rick (2002): Film/Genre. London: BFI Publishing. Bradshaw, Peter (2008): ”Frost/Nixon”, The Guardian. October 15th, 2008. Den store danske (2012): “Den grundlovsgivende forsamling”. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (2003): “A Nation’s Strength” (1904), in 101 Patriotic Poems. Boston et al: McGraw-Hill. Foster, Hal (1996): The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century. Chicago: The MIT Press. In Video Entertainment (1996): “Featurette”, on the dvd version of Nixon. In Video Entertainment. Nielsen, Jakob Isak (2011): “Leder: Bio pics”, 16:9 #43. Pickwick Group Limited (2010): ”Back matter” on the dvd Abraham Lincoln. Schepelern, Peter (ed.) (2010): Filmleksikon. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Schatz, Thomas (1981): Hollywood Genres. Boston, Massachusetts: McGraw Hill. Twentieth Century Fox (2005): “Back matter” on the dvd The Young Mr. Lincoln. Universal (2009): “The Making of Frost/Nixon”, on the dvd Frost/Nixon. 16:9 - februar 2012 - 10. årgang - nummer 44 Udgives med støtte fra Det Danske Filminstitut samt Kulturministeriets bevilling til almenkulturelle tidsskrifter. ISSN: 1603-5194. Copyright © 2002-12. Alle rettigheder reserveret. Udskriv denne artikel Gem/åben denne artikel som PDF Gem/åben hele nummeret som PDF 11
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