Nixon - Now More Than Ever

In my previous article, I found that JFK made me nostalgic for a simpler time in the conspiracy theory world, which is ironic since the JFK assassination and most theories in general are dizzyingly complex. As I moved on to Nixon, I found myself nostalgic for a simpler time in politics, despite Nixon’s presidency representing the most chaotic political climate in US history…up to that point. But before I get into my nostalgia for the good old days of political corruption, I want to gush over this amazing movie.

The Sorta Sequel to JFK

Nixon is nothing like JFK from a story perspective. JFK wasn’t really about the president; it was about his assassination. Nixon is a straight up (well, straight up for Oliver Stone) biopic. But aside from sharing a director, there are a few brief moments that tie the films together. First off, the film uses a part of JFK’s score when the assassination happens, and the assassination looms large on Nixon’s presidency since his presidency would likely have never happened without Kennedy’s death. Because of that, it seems like Stone can’t help but accuse Nixon of having something to do with the assassination. Nixon forebodingly talks about “opening up that whole Bay of Pigs thing.” Haldeman explains it’s Nixon’s code for the assassination, meaning Nixon at least knew the assassination was going to happen, which is later confirmed with his scene with Jack Jones in which someone with a Cuban accent tells him, “Suppose Kennedy don’t run in 1964.” 

While I believe that Nixon’s presidency doesn’t happen without the assassination, I don’t think Nixon had any prior knowledge about it. Stone is crossing a serious line with this, but I don’t care, just like I don’t care about the inaccurate or exaggerated stuff in JFK. I don’t care about the inaccuracies and/or made up moments and characters in Nixon because of this amazing bit of text that opens the film: 

This film is a dramatic interpolation of events and characters based on public sources and an incomplete historical record. Some scenes and events are presented as composites or have been hypothesized or condensed.

Every film “based on a true story” should be required to add this at the beginning. This is Stone admitting “I’m making up a lot of this shit.” What makes it hilarious to me is one word: “hypothesized.” In other words, “We don’t know what happened, but maybe this did.” What a ballsy move to just flat out tell the audience that some (who knows how much) of your movie about a real person is made up. Of course, this is necessary for any movie about real people or events. But it’s nice to have something more honest than “Based on a true story” at the beginning.

With that admission at the onset, Stone is allowed to unleash Nixon the character rather than Nixon the real person. But this only works because of Anthony Hopkins’s performance. At first glance, Hopkins makes little sense. He simply does not look or sound like Nixon naturally. He still doesn’t look all that much like him, and he still sounds more like Anthony Hopkins than Richard Nixon, but he created a character rather than a caricature of the man. There’s no silly fake nose or outlandish Futurama-esque “aroos.” Hopkins embodies the man. He is eloquent and forceful during the speeches (the convention speeches are amazing, both in performance and cinematically). He is a jittery mess when his world is crumbling. He’s awkward when out in society. And his eyes show the true paranoia of Nixon that ultimately ended his political career. It’s such a great performance that when I think of what Nixon sounds like (this happens more often than you’d think), I hear Hopkins instead of the real man.

Beyond Hopkins, Nixon is much like JFK in that seemingly every small part is portrayed by either big names or great character actors, including future Nixon portrayer Dan Hedaya (who, let’s face it, is a much more natural fit for the role than Hopkins). Long movies like this flow much better when actors like Ed Harris, Madeline Kahn, Powers Boothe, David Paymer, etc. are peppered throughout. 

Almost as important as the cast is the insanely foreboding tone of the film. Stone obviously believed the Nixon presidency was the darkest moment in American political history (up to the year the film was made, at least). Near the beginning of the film, there is a slow zoom on the White House during a thunderstorm as a horror film-like score blares. You expect to find a monster in the White House when it cuts inside, and there is one: Nixon. This is what I love about Stone’s best work: serious shit handled seriously. He’s not trying to lighten anything up at all or give the audience a chance to relax, because that was the reality of the moment, be it the Nixon White House, the Kennedy assassination, or the Vietnam War. The people involved in these situations were not given a break, so why should the audience get one?

So how does this add up to an enjoyable experience? Because I’m a Nixon fan. Just like with the Kennedy assassinaton, I find this stuff fascinating and at times in my life I’ve done quite a bit of research on the subject (I’ve read The Haldeman Diaries, for fuck’s sake!). But that takes time. Compared to reading an 800-page biography, a three hour movie is a breeze. Nixon is a nice fix for me these days because I don’t have the time (or youthful devotion) to do real research. Instead, I can watch this and be reminded of my interest in the subject, and I get to experience a serious movie with great performances as a bonus.

Now More Than Ever

I used to shy away from referring to myself as a Nixon “fan” because it felt odd to claim to be a fan of a politician, much less a disgraced one. These days, I don’t feel so bad about it; interpret that however you like. But I’m a fan the same way I’m a fan of sports teams in that I like them but I also get to be extremely mad at them when they let me down. So while I find Nixon’s paranoia and “dirty tricks” reprehensible, I don’t let them completely define the man.

I still find him to be one of the best speakers in presidential history, and many of his policies are downright liberal by today’s standards (like creating the EPA or wanting universal health care). And his foreign policy is unmatched, and I don’t think he gets enough credit for laying the foundation to end the Cold War. 

Of course, I only learned these things after I claimed he was my favorite president. When I was younger, I just liked being a fuckhead by claiming the “worst” president was my favorite. Who knew I would discover, through research, that he actually was my favorite? “Favorite” is another term I didn’t like using. I would usually say, “Well, he’s not my favorite; I just find him to be the most interesting president.” That’s still true, but it’s easier just to say he’s my favorite. 

When I first became interested in Nixon, he was still commonly referred to as the worst president of all time. As time has gone on, he has been reevaluated but, more importantly, political discourse in this country has dissolved into madness. Truth matters less than ever, and opinions and beliefs rule the day. 

I’m not going to wade into the shit swamp of current politics. Instead, I’ll just say that my interest in Nixon now makes me look back on his presidency as a simpler time. The foreboding tone of Stone’s film has less relevance because that scene of the White House as part of a horror movie? That’s now a common theme in political ads made by whichever party isn’t in the White House. You can’t claim something is right or wrong anymore without it becoming an argument. Back in Nixon’s day, even he finally admitted he fucked up because he resigned. 

When people talk about Nixon now, they like to imagine how he would be perceived by today’s standards, but that’s not fair. In many ways, Nixon is to blame for what political discourse became as he viewed politics as warfare. Yes, even he had his limits (hence the resignation), but he didn’t have the foresight to see what he was helping create. I can sit here and point out a dozen things he wanted to do that would have been great, but they didn’t happen because he fucked up. And the scariest part about imagining Nixon in today’s world is that in today’s world there’s no fucking way he would have resigned. 

Nixon was a product of his time, and it makes little sense to look at him otherwise. But I’ll still do it, especially when I’ve had a few beers and want to try to impress someone with my Nixon knowledge (I’m a huge hit at parties). And yes, it’s easy to use his campaign slogan of 1972, “Now more than ever,” as an ironic way of pointing out how nice it would be if politics today were more like they were back then; but that’s bullshit. That’s just as dumb as people wanting “the good old days” back even though the “good old days” weren’t good for everybody. And with politics, it’s important to remember that the passing of time has a way of making things seem simpler than they really were. In the moment, things were pretty fucking dire. And when I look back at Nixon, either through the movie or through books, I try to remember that. The past isn’t a fantasy to aspire to, it’s what led us to the current shitshow.

JFK - Back When Conspiracy Theories Were Fun

I find myself watching JFK (or at least the beginning hour or so as I go to sleep at night) once a month because it’s almost always on a streaming service I have (currently on HBO Max). Each time I watch it, I plan on watching Nixon soon after, but rarely get around to it, as Nixon is almost never on a streaming service. And because of my idiotic principles, I refuse to rent it or buy it on digital because I already own it on DVD…and the basic premise of this site concerns movies I physically own, so I finally got the DVD out and watched Nixon the old fashioned way. But first, some thoughts on conspiracy culture and JFK.

Back When Conspiracy Theories Were Fun

JFK had a huge effect on me when I first watched it. I already fancied myself a history buff and was proud of my knowledge of the era. My stupid high school mind was not ready for the all out attack of this film. I became obsessed with the JFK assassination which resulted in reading a few books and writing way too many essays on it once I got to college. 

At the time, I just wanted to believe every bit of Oliver Stone’s conspiracy fever dream. I wanted to know who those hoboes were that were arrested by the train station. Who killed Lee Bowers? How many fake Oswalds were there? Did Clay Shaw really admit to being Clay Bertrand? Was X a real person? And on and on and on.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve calmed down, though I still think that head shot came from the front. But I’m no longer making people look at fucked up pictures of David Ferrie like I did to my intro to speech class in college…definitely got a few bewildered looks that day. 

I still want to believe everything in the Stone movie, but common sense (and light research) show that a lot of it is pure fiction/fantasy. JFK is a perfect example of how a conspiracy can scratch an itch you didn’t even know you had. 

Take an accepted historical event or common fact, present the unknown “truth” behind it, follow that rabbit hole to the center of the fucking planet. It’s very satisfying. Watching JFK the first time, I felt like part of some secret club finding out all kinds of cool secret shit the CIA never wanted me to know. But just being aware of the “truth” isn’t enough. Then I had to read some books so I could throw out some extra facts that weren’t in the movie to prove I was more in the know than your basic conspiracy theorist. Eventually, though, I had to accept that there isn’t “truth” out there, only belief. And that’s when this shit gets scary.

I finally accepted that there will never be the evidence I need to prove exactly what happened on that day. The closest thing I’ll ever get to that is suspending my disbelief and rewatching JFK, which is exactly why I’ve watched it so many times. This is when conspiracy theories were fun and mostly harmless. But at some point, the conspiracies got crazier and the facts were even more ignored, and it became dangerously close to becoming mainstream. 

People would often give me weird looks when I would go deep on the JFK stuff while we were hanging out, and rightfully so. I was being a fucking weirdo about something that didn’t really matter and could never be proven. But now, mainly thanks to the internet, instead of ranting and raving at sane people who will eventually calm you down (hopefully), now all the conspiracy theorists find an online echo chamber and things get too dark. 

It’s as if being a conspiracy theorist went from being a hobby to a deranged profession. JFK didn’t necessarily create this problem, but it’s tied into it by bringing a major conspiracy theory into pop culture. I feel like this is one of the most acceptable conspiracy theories out there thanks to this film. 

These days, I watch JFK for entertainment purposes and as a cautionary tale for going too deep into a theory. The cast is insane; you have guys like John Candy and Vincent D’Onofrio showing up for just a few moments. It’s hard to find a scene that doesn’t have a recognizable actor in it. And most of them are fucking going for it. Kevin Bacon talking shit to Kevin Costner is a standout moment, and Joe Pesci deserved an Oscar nom just for how he smoked during his first scene with Costner. For a three hour movie that has a dozen plot threads and red herrings, JFK never drags and is always entertaining thanks to Stone’s frenetic style and the aforementioned cast. 

Because of those elements, I can turn my brain off and enjoy it all. When I want to engage with the film a bit more, these days I focus on Costner’s home life in the film. The first few times I watched it (before I had a family of my own, by the way), I wrote off Sissy Spacek and all their kids as the typical hindrance to the hero’s devotion to the “right” thing to do. Watching now, I see Spacek as the real hero of the film, putting up with Costner’s crazy shit. If I ditched my wife on Easter and left her to take all the kids to a busy restaurant, I wouldn’t be here typing this nonsense right now. In this film, though, Costner just brushes it off to “not checking the calendar.” As if Tommy Lee Jones couldn’t wipe off the silver body paint and come into the office on another Sunday? Come on!

That’s the story of the film that gets lost in all the magic bullet and “back and to the left” (and realizing that Newman was in the magic bullet scene and the Keith Hernandez magic loogie scene in Seinfeld) stuff. Now I watch this and see the damage fully committing to a conspiracy theory can cause. The victory at the end of the film isn’t that the jury agreed a conspiracy existed and Costner brought about the only trial for it; it’s that Costner, even though he swears to keep fighting (but he doesn’t sound nearly as convincing as he did in his closing argument), walks away from the crowd with his wife and son. And now instead of reading a book or writing an essay (um…aside from this one just this one time) or going down a reddit rabbit hole, I walk away from it, too.