Word: morgane
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...this display of mood-altering confession and self-justification was the real Nixon, in his TV marathon with Frost in 1977, three years after he left the White House in disgrace. That four-part joust, still the highest-rated interview show in U.S. history, was the inspiration for Peter Morgan's London and Broadway play starring Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost. Langella and Sheen (and Morgan) repeat their roles in the Ron Howard movie version opening today. Both the movie and the interviews (now available on DVD as Frost Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews) are essential evocations...
...Morgan's script has events push Frost against the ropes, the better to show how he rallied to win the fight. In a career slump after losing his Australian TV gig, he secures a contract for the Nixon interviews but must pay $200,000 out of his own pocket. The three big U.S. networks refuse to buy into his scheme, and he borrows money from friends. (He eventually creates a de facto network of independent stations to air the interviews.) Of the two reporters he hires to research Nixon, one, Bob Zelnick (large, puddingy Oliver Platt) is cynical of Frost...
...Bacon), has as lifetime loyalty to his boss. Since the resignation, he has become a fretful coach and father figure to Nixon, encouraging him to be strong, insisting an interview be stopped at the first sign of Nixon's vulnerability. All these plot elements have some basis in fact. Morgan's one fanciful addition is a phone call Nixon makes to Frost, spilling out his guts, fears and resentments. In this scene above all others, Langella leeches into the president's anxieties, and summons much of the angry power of the private man - or at least our image...
...presents a three-count indictment - still a thrilling TV frisson. Nixon does say he let the country down, but couches his confession is so many subordinate clauses that he could leave the ring believing Frost's knockout was only technical. If the exchange lacks the score-settling flourish of Morgan's version, it leaves us with our abiding take on Nixon: Tricky Dick to the last...
...much work in front of the camera anymore, but what's there is choice. His last starring role, as the grizzled fight trainer in 2004's Million Dollar Baby, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, while the movie won for picture, actress (Hilary Swank), supporting actor (Morgan Freeman) and, of course, director. Nobody else has directed Eastwood in a movie since Wolfgang Petersen made In the Line of Fire back in '93. (See the 100 best movies of all time...