I recently watched a "screener" DVD of Frost/Nixon (that's a DVD they send out free to folks in the industry who can vote for awards) and I wish I knew what I thought of it. I enjoyed the film. It held my attention all the way through and I thought the performances and direction were excellent. I will probably watch it again.
But a lot of things bothered me about it, starting with the fact that I thought it overinflated the importance of the legendary Frost-Nixon interviews. They were a nice bit of entertainment to those of us who were waiting to see Richard M. Nixon squirm a little and put on the defensive…but in the end, I think that's all they were. Nixon got a lot of money and from some quarters, some much-craved sympathy. Beyond that, things remained largely status quo. Those who insisted he'd been railroaded from office still insisted it. Those who disliked him still disliked him. "The system" did not change much except that those in it were reminded that it's possible to get caught.
I am a bit surprised that Sir David Frost is making the rounds, talking up a movie that makes him look like such a weak, shallow figure. Frost was a much better interviewer than the one portrayed by Michael Sheen in this movie, and less the underdog. I don't recall his reputation and career at that stage being so fragile that he desperately needed the success of the interviews the way the Frost on screen does. Making him a true David to Nixon's Goliath was probably wise from a dramatic standpoint but I couldn't help but think that while a more accurate weighting would have lacked a certain punch, it might have gotten at more truth about its subjects.
One interesting bit of simplification is that in the movie, Frost contracts for four hours of interviewing Nixon, and Nixon proceeds to dominate the first three hours with tangents and trivia, making for naught but self-serving froth. And so it all comes down to the last hour, the one devoted to Watergate, in which Frost must land some sort of punch that will legitimize the whole project…and by cramming like a college student the night before an exam, he manages to do this. That's not what happened. For one thing, Frost scored points aplenty in the earlier sessions. (Nixon's defenses of the bombing of Cambodia were probably more damning admissions than anything he said with regard to Watergate.)
Also, in reality, Frost went into the tapings well aware that Nixon could and would stonewall, deviate, double talk and generally control any conversation. The original contract called for a four-to-one ratio — Nixon would sit for twenty-four hours of interviewing which would be pared down to four 90-minute shows. (Eventually, an additional hour-long show was added.) About halfway through the tapings, when Nixon's ramblings were consuming too much of the time, Frost requested additional taping time. Nixon refused…so Frost responded with a pretty clever threat: If Nixon wouldn't grant more hours of interrogation, Frost would merely leave out a number of topics, like normalization of relations with China, that Nixon regarded as his legacy and triumphs. Nixon gave in and four more hours of taping were added. So the questioning went on for 28 hours, not four.
Another departure from reality: In the climax, at the critical last taping session, Frost gets Nixon to blurt out his famous and incriminating line, "When the president does it, it's not illegal!" But Nixon actually said that in an earlier conversation, not the final one.
The movie treats that line as the moment of Frost's victory and vindication and maybe, in terms of making the interviews a media success, it was. But in reality, when it was all over, Nixon was still Nixon. In the early part of the film, one of Frost's associates speaks of giving Nixon "the trial he never had." I sure didn't think that's what happened. Frost got Nixon to tear up and admit he'd let his country down and — in the passive voice — that mistakes were made. He arguably went a little farther than that but, inarguably, not very far.
I'm probably overthinking the movie, which is fine for what it is. The performances are excellent. The story is gripping, even though you pretty much know exactly where it's going and how long it's going to take to get there. Like I said, I'll probably watch Frost/Nixon at least one more time because I enjoyed it very much. What I guess I didn't enjoy was after, when I thought about how much Nixon got away with. Yeah, he had to resign in disgrace but he also never had to answer for what he'd done. The worst that happened was that David Frost made him cry a little.
