Review of Nixon (1995) by Di P — 09 Sep 2010

Wow. It's been about three years since I saw this. I was blown away by it then and love it even more now. A monolithic achievement on every single level, from the acting, to the writing, to the cinematography, to the direction, to the score. The way that Stone and his co-writers are able to extract a fully satisfying narrative out of Nixon's life is extraordinary and unique. The seemingly hap-hazard story structure was once lost on me, but now I can appreciate the full power of it.

The critical fulcrum point being the scene at the Lincoln monument. It's heartbreaking. You have a protagonist who up to that point has been the relentless underdog, and you can't help but feel for him. But in that scene he realizes that no matter how hard he tries, he'll never be John Kennedy. And then it's a rapid decline, until he really starts to be come loathsome. There's a great scene soon after with Pat where he comes across as a loon - essentially, the world's most powerful man has a massive persecution complex. Scary stuff.

I've heard that people feel that Stone isn't harsh enough to Nixon himself, but I disagree entirely. It's more about how Nixon's character is revealed, rather than developed - when he starts baying for blood, we see that the people who have known him longest aren't surprised in the slightest. He becomes slimy and hypocritical, and lashes out at his most faithful devotees. By the penultimate scenes, he's become a genuine scumbag, but he never accepts or understands that. It's really very tragic.

It's basically a great companion piece to JFK, and would make for a nice coda to Stone's Vietnam trilogy as well. He's at the very peak of his powers here, and now I think that this is really his masterpiece. It's the culmination of everything that he has explored before that point as a filmmaker, and yet it goes beyond that. It's Shakespearean, it's operatic, and by God is it cinematic.