Category Archives: Conspiracy a-go-go

Cold War, Conspiracy a-go-go, Spy vs Spy

The mole from the ministry: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ****

July 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 24, 2011)

It is always the quiet ones that you need to watch out for. I’m sure you’ve viewed enough nature documentaries on the National Geographic Channel to figure that one out. Lions will sit patiently for hours, waiting for the right moment to pounce. As casual and disinterested as they may seem at times, they never lose their focus. They are studying your every move, all the while visualizing how nicely you will fit on today’s fresh sheet.

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s new film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (adapted from John le Carre’s classic espionage potboiler by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan) is chockablock with such animals. However, these are not creatures of the four-legged, furry variety that you will find in the sun-drenched African Savanna, lurking about in tall grasses. These are creatures of the bipedal, D-deficient variety that you will find in the fog-shrouded British Isles, usually lurking in musty offices with nicotine-stained ceilings.

The story is set in 1973, against a Cold War backdrop. Our unlikely hero is not so much a leonine, but rather an owlish sort of fellow. His name is George Smiley (Gary Oldman), and despite the fact that he would look more at home behind a library check out desk than behind the wheel of, let’s say, an Aston Martin, he is a seasoned intelligence agent for MI6. Actually, Smiley’s long-standing career with a branch known as “The Circus” is not going so well. When his boss, known simply as Control (John Hurt), gets booted out for a botched operation in Hungary, Smiley finds himself out of a job as well (more as a scapegoat). It seems that the office politics of the Circus are nearly indistinguishable from the acrimonious and paranoia-fueled spy games played in the field with “enemy” agents.

Smiley’s forced retirement is short-lived. He is summoned to a meet with a government under-secretary (Simon McBurney), where he is asked to surreptitiously come back to work. There are suspicions that there is a double agent among higher echelons of the Circus, who has been feeding intelligence to the Soviets. Smiley’s mission, should he decide to accept it, is to smoke out the mole.

Interestingly, it was Smiley’s ex-boss, Control (now dead), who intuited this possibility, narrowing the field of suspects down to five men in the department. Given that he didn’t have much going on outside of his job (apart from brooding about his estranged wife), Smiley jumps at the chance to get back in the game. And as movies have taught us, the Crusty yet Benign (city editor, lawyer, police inspector, seasoned beat cop, or in this case, Master Spy) needs an Ambitious Young Apprentice to watch his back (Benedict Cumberbatch).

What ensues is too byzantine and multi-layered for me to summarize here. And when I say “byzantine and multi-layered”, I mean that in the most positive possible context, thanks in no small part to that rarest of animals found at the multiplex these days: The Intelligent Script (#1 on the endangered species list). Not only do Alfredson, his writers and actors refuse to insult our intelligence, but they aren’t afraid to make us do something that we haven’t done in a while: lean forward in our theater seat to catch every nuance of plot and character (it’s been so long that I think I pulled something).

That is not to say that this is a static and somber affair. There’s “action” here and there, but it’s not calculated and choreographed; Dr. No’s island doesn’t blow up at the end. When violence does occur, it’s ugly, ungraceful and anything but cinematic (as in real life). Most of the “thrills” are drawn from the arsenal of the skilled actor; a sideways glance or a subtle voice inflection that can ratchet up the tension as effectively as someone holding a gun to your head.

This is Oldman’s best performance in years. It’s nice to see him take a break from playing cartoon villains and getting back to where he once belonged (his bespectacled, enigmatic characterization hearkens back to another Cold War film spy hero, Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer). Rounding off a top-notch cast are Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong (a standout) and the wonderful Kathy Burke (who nails 2011’s best movie line: “I don’t know about you, George, but I’m feeling seriously under-fucked.”).

DP Hoyte Van Hoytema (who also photographed the director’s moody 2008 vampire tale, Let the Right One In) deserves a mention. He sustains a bleak, wintry atmosphere that could be pulling double duty as a visual metaphor for the Cold War itself; or for the arctic desolation of the alarmingly pale souls who populate this tale. Not unlike vampires, they are twilight creatures who stalk their prey under cloak of darkness, and live in mortal fear of illumination and discovery. As I said…always watch out for the quiet ones.

Cold War, Conspiracy a-go-go, Film Noir, Nuclear Paranoia

Blu-ray reissue: Kiss Me Deadly ****

July 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 2, 2011)

Kiss Me Deadly – Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Robert Aldrich directed this influential 1955 pulp noir, adapted by A.I. Bezzerides from Mickey Spillane’s novel. Ralph Meeker is the epitome of cool as hard-boiled private detective Mike Hammer, who picks up a half-crazed (and half-naked) escapee from “the laughing house” (Cloris Leachman) one fateful evening after she flags him down on the highway. This sets off a chain of events that leads Hammer from run-ins with low-rent thugs to embroilment with a complex conspiracy involving a government scientist and a box of radioactive “whatsit” coveted by a number of interested parties.

The sometimes confounding plot takes a back seat to the film’s groundbreaking look and feel. The inventive camera angles, the expressive black and white cinematography (by Ernest Laszlo), the shocking violence, and the nihilism of the characters combine to make this quite unlike any other American film from the mid-50s.

The film is said to have had an influence on the French New Wave (you can see that link when you pair it with Godard’s Breathless). British director Alex Cox paid homage in his 1984 cult film, Repo Man (both films include a crazed scientist driving around with a box of glowing radioactive material in the trunk), and Tarantino featured a suspiciously similar box of mysterious “whatsit” in Pulp Fiction.

Criterion’s transfer is excellent (although on the down side, the high definition does bring out the inherent graininess of the film). Extras include commentary from two noir historians, excerpts from two docs (one about screenwriter Bezzerides and the other a profile of Spillane) and a special tribute from the aforementioned Alex Cox.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Show Biz, Thriller

Blu-ray reissue: Blow Out ****

July 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 2, 2011)

Blow Out – Criterion Collection Blu-ray

This 1981 thriller is one of Brian de Palma’s finest efforts. John Travolta stars as a sound man who works on schlocky horror films. While making a field recording of ambient nature sounds, he unexpectedly captures audio of a fatal car crash involving a political candidate, which may not have been an “accident”. The proof lies buried somewhere in his recording-which naturally becomes a coveted item by some dubious characters. His life begins to unravel synchronously with the secrets on his tape. The director employs an arsenal of influences (from Antonioni to Hitchcock), but succeeds in making this one his most “de Palma-esque” with some of the deftest set-pieces he’s ever done (particularly in the climax). Criterion has done this visual stunner proud with their Blu-ray. The extras include in-depth interviews with de Palma and co-star Nancy Allen.

Conspiracy a-go-go, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

Let them eat yellow cake: Fair Game ***

July 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 6, 2010)

I would like to invite you along for a little stroll down memory lane…to a time, not so long ago, when we had this man in the White House who, well…went a little ‘funny’ in the head after a terrorist group attacked America. You know, funny, and what he did was, you see, he sort of…girded his loins to invade a Middle Eastern country that actually had very little to do with the specific group of terrorists who attacked America.

Naturally, he first had to come up with a viable reason . And what he did was, he convinced the Congress that the country in question was not only chockablock with evildoers, but evildoers who had weapons of mass destruction that surely would be wielded against America in the near future.

Now, he couldn’t actually produce any photos of these Doomsday Machines, but they did discover some suspicious aluminum tubes. Oh-and they heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another that they had been messin’ around with a substance called “yellow cake” which can be used in the manufacture of WMDs. Again, no real evidence, but nobody in the Congress wanted to be labeled as unpatriotic or anything like that, so they all went “Booyah! Shock and awe!” and opened those bomb bay doors wide.

So, the invasion was going swimmingly for a spell, and even those Americans who may have been scratching their heads over the aluminum tubes and yellow cake and such were keeping mum, because they didn’t want to be labeled as unpatriotic, either.Besides, all the journalists on the TV were supporting the troops, too!

But then, as the war began to drag on, and no stockpiles of WMDs seemed to be turning up, sleeper cells of not-so-patriotic grumblers could be detected all around America. However, as they turned out to be mostly aging, drug-addled old left-leaning hippie panhandlers and radical progressive pundits, the White House didn’t pay much mind to such gibberish-that is, until the summer of 2003.

That is when a former Foreign Service officer and ambassador named Joe Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times called “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”. Wilson had been sent on a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney, to investigate a report that Iraq had purchased some of the aforementioned yellow cake back in the late 1990s.

The gist of the piece was that there seemed to be a credibility gap between what the guy in the White House (you know, the one who went, sort of ’funny’ in the head) was claiming regarding the alleged stockpiling of yellow cake in Iraq, and what Wilson had actually discovered. ‘Someone’ obviously lied.

And it wasn’t Mr. Wilson.

That’s why ‘someone’ involved with the White House became very cross with Wilson. As a result, ‘someone’ accidentally-on-purpose allowed some confidential information about Wilson’s wife to get leaked.

In fact, it was only 8 days after Wilson’s op-ed appeared that conservative journalist Robert Novak published an article in which he identified Valerie Plame Wilson as an “agency operative” (as in CIA). The Wilson’s life became hell, and the question of whether or not ‘someone’ in the Bush administration was guilty of a criminal act (by outing a CIA operative) became a widely debated issue.

Eventually, following a Department of Justice investigation, a member of the administration, Lewis “Scooter” Libby (former chief of staff for VP Cheney) ended up taking the fall in 2007, when he received a 30-month sentence for perjury and obstruction The President (apparently still feeling a little ‘funny’) commuted Libby’s sentence, 4 months after the conviction.

You’ll note that I said Libby “took the fall”. I don’t want to name names, or put on a tin foil hat and suggest that there was a powerful cabal behind the smear, but in 2007, the Wilsons did file a civil suit against Messrs. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Richard Armitage (it didn’t take). Ah-(*sigh*) those were the days.

Indeed, many “Kodak moments” from the BushCo era came flashing back as I watched Fair Game, Doug Liman’s slightly uneven dramatization of the “Plame affair”. Jez and John-Henry Butterworth based their screenplay on two memoirs, The Politics of Truth by Joe Wilson, and Fair Game by Valerie Plame.

Sean Penn and Naomi Watts bring their star power to the table as the Wilsons, portraying them as a loving couple who were living relatively low key lives (she more as a necessity of her profession) until they got pushed into a boiling cauldron of nasty political intrigue that falls somewhere in between All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor.

Viewers unfamiliar with the back story could be misled by the opening scenes, which give the impression you may be in for a Bourne-style action thriller. The conundrum is that the part of the story concerning Valerie Plame’s CIA exploits can at best be speculative in nature. Due to the sensitivity of those matters, Plame has only gone on record concerning that part of her life in vague, generalized terms, so what you end up with is something along the lines of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

However, the most important part of the couple’s story was the political fallout that transpired once Valerie was “outed” by Novak. Although Valerie (the more guarded of the two) is initially reticent to go on the counteroffensive, Joe is able to convince her that there is much more at stake than merely salvaging their pride by pushing back.

Liman wisely shifts the focus to depicting how Wilson and Plame weathered this storm together, and ultimately stood up to the Bush-Cheney juggernaut of “alternative facts” that helped sell the American public on Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The CIA, of course was no help; they dropped Plame like a hot potato once her cover was blown (essentially throwing her under the bus while wishing her best of luck).

In light of this past Tuesday’s depressing results, the timing of this film’s release could be seen as serendipity. We know from experience how ugly it’s going to get, and also learned that a bully is a bully until you push back. So why not take a bit of inspiration away from this political David and Goliath tale from our not-so-distant past? We’d best get in shape now. So…drop and give me 20!

Conspiracy a-go-go, Drama, Journalism, On Politics

DVD Reissue: Z ***1/2

June 26, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 28, 2009)

Z – Criterion Collection DVD

This 1969 film was a breakthrough for director Costa-Gavras, and a high-watermark for the “radical chic” cinema that flourished at the time. Yves Montand plays a leftist politician who is assassinated after giving a speech at a pro-Peace rally. What at first appears to be an open and shut case of a violent action by an isolated group of right wing extremists unfolds as a suspenseful conspiracy thriller.

The story (set in an unspecified Balkan nation, but based on the real-life assassination of a Greek political figure back in 1963) is told from the perspective of two characters-a photojournalist (a young Jacques Perrin, future director of Winged Migration) and an investigating magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The great Irene Papas is also on board as Montand’s wife.

The film is a bit of a stagey talk-fest for a political “thriller” but it is still essential viewing. It’s part Kafka, part Rashomon, but ultimately a cautionary tale about what happens when corrupt officialdom, unchecked police oppression and partisan-sanctioned extremism get into bed together. Criterion’s edition has a beautiful, restored print. Extras include a commentary track and interviews.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Film Noir, Thriller

DVD Reissue: North by Northwest ****

June 26, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 28, 2009)

North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) – Warner (2-disc)

I’m hard-pressed to find a more perfect blend of suspense, intrigue, romance, action, comedy and visual mastery than Hitchcock’s 1959 masterpiece. Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau head a great cast in this outstanding “wrong man” thriller (a Hitchcock specialty). Almost every set piece in the film has become iconic (and emulated by countless Hitchcock wannabes).

Although I never tire of the crop-dusting sequence or the (literally) cliff-hanging Mt. Rushmore set piece, my favorite part is the dining car scene. Armed solely with Ernest Lehman’s clever repartee and their acting chemistry, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint engage in the most erotic sex scene ever filmed wherein participants remain fully clothed (and keep hands where we can see them!). Bernard Hermann’s score is one of his finest.

The 50^th anniversary restoration by Warner is crystalline, and corrects the color issues that marred the previous edition.

Comedy, Conspiracy a-go-go, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

Generals and majors ah ah: In The Loop ****

June 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 8, 2009)

Here’s a revelation, in the midst of summer movie torpor: The political satire is not dead; it’s just been sort of resting …at least since Wag the Dog sped in and out of theaters in 1997. Armando Iannucci and co-writers Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Ian Martin and Tony Roche (much of the team responsible for the BBC series The Thick of It) have mined the headlines and produced a nugget of pure satirical gold with In the Loop. I daresay that it recalls the halcyon days of Terry Southern and Paddy Chayefsky, whose sharp, barb-tongued screenplays once ripped the body politic with savage aplomb.

When the British Minister for International Development (Tom Hollander) gets tongue-tied during a BBC news interview and blurts out that “War is unforeseeable” in response to a question about his stance on a possible U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, it stirs up a trans-Atlantic political shit storm, as hawks and doves on both sides of the pond scramble to spin his nebulous statement into an endorsement for their respective agendas.

When he later tries to backpedal by saying “Sometimes, to walk the road of peace, we have to…climb the mountains of conflict” it raises murderous ire from the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications (Peter Capaldi, as a classic Type-A prick) who tells the minister (among other colorful admonishments) that his awkward metaphor made him sound like some kind of “Nazi Julie Andrews”.

The gaffe-prone minister is given a chance to redeem his now precarious career status with a “fact finding” visit to D.C., under the watchful eye of Capaldi. Also along for the trip is the minister’s ambitious new advisor and chief handler (Chris Addison).

They are feted by the dovish Assistant Secretary of Diplomacy( Mimi Kennedy) who is desperately trying to keep him from the clutches of the hawkish Assistant Secretary of State (David Rasche) who is like an amalgam of Rumsfeld and Cheney, and of whom Kennedy observes that “…the voices in his head are now singing barbershop together.” Things get interesting when a war-weary general turned desk-bound Pentagon brass (James Gandolfini) joins the mix.

The filmmakers take aim at multiple targets, and hit the bull’s eye nearly every time with creatively honed insults delivered in deliciously profane pentameter by all members of the cast. Capaldi’s character in particular spouts some of the most uproariously clever lines I’ve heard in years. As for my personal favorite, I’d say that it’s a tossup between “I’m putting you on a probationary period…from today until the end of recorded time” or (b) “I will marshal all the media forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide.”

Politics as usual, I suppose.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Journalism, On Politics

Conspiracy a go-go: State of Play ***

June 12, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 18, 2009)

Hey, Aqualung! Crowe and Affleck in State of Play.

Let’s get this out of the way. I have not seen the original BBC series that Kevin MacDonald’s terrific new thriller, State of Play, was based upon. So if there are any nuances that have been lost in translation, I will profess in advance that I am blissfully unaware of them (so feel free to fight among yourselves in the comment section).

Chock-a-block with paranoid journalists, shadowy assassins, corrupt politicians, and soulless lackeys of the corporate war machine (perhaps “State of the Union” would have been more apt?), the film is a mash-up of complex, old school conspiracy thrillers like The Parallax View and slicker contemporary fare like Enemy of the State. And perhaps most interestingly, it views its timely appraisal of corporatist Washington politics and the usurpation of responsible American journalism through a decidedly European sensibility.

Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is an investigative reporter for The Washington Globe; he’s one of those grizzled, rumpled newspaper veterans of the “analog” variety. His office cubicle has that “lived-in” look; an explosion of chaotic, paper-strewn clutter that tells us that this is a guy with ink-stained fingers who actually digs deep, takes notes and probably even fact checks before he writes a story (remember that kind of journalism?). Cal, sporting unkempt long hair, a scraggly beard and frequently outfitted in a long wool overcoat, may look like he just strolled off a Jethro Tull album cover, but you sense that once he latches onto a story, he is going to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

In his years on the Beltway beat, Cal has made a lot of friends in high places, including Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a golden boy whose star is on the rise. Collins chairs a committee that is investigating some dubiously vetted Defense Department contract awards (are there any other kind?). Currently under the committee’s microscope is a shady Blackwater-type corporation that appears bent on spearheading the complete privatization of America’s Homeland Security operations.

On the eve of the scheduled hearings, the congressman’s young female research assistant (wink wink) dies under mysterious circumstances. Cal is immediately put on the story by his requisite crusty yet benign editor (Helen Mirren). When the panicked congressman reaches out for Cal’s counsel as a friend, the stage is set for a test of the reporter’s objective integrity, especially as the (personal and professional) circumstances become more byzantine.

If it’s starting to sound like you may have been here before, there’s a reason for the plot point déjà vu. Three reasons, actually. The trio of writers who adapted the screenplay is kind of like the Crosby, Stills & Nash of conspiracy thriller scribes. Tony Gilroy wrote Michael Clayton, which was about deadly corporate machinations; Matthew Michael Carnahan did Lions for Lambs, which delved a bit into the grey areas in the relationships between Beltway journalists and politicians; and Billy Ray scripted Breach (based on a true story) which dealt with duplicity and betrayal within the intelligence community.

I think it’s notable that the film also gives a nod to the advent of the blogosphere, and the ripple effect it is has had on traditional mainstream journalism (something my friend Digby has written about, oh, once or twice). When a cub reporter (Rachael McAdams) from the news paper’s online division ingratiates herself into a co-assignment with Cal on the congressional assistant’s murder story, he initially reacts with a fair amount of hostility.

There’s a great scene where Cal calls her with urgent information that she needs to write down; the look on his face as he waits for her while she scrambles to find a pen speaks volumes. Eventually, despite the “oil and water” mix, the pair develops a working dynamic that vacillates between the time-honored student/mentor relationship and Woodward and Bernstein following the money.

Despite the utilization of a few genre clichés (I think there has been a rule ever since All the President’s Men that you are required to have at least one tense scene that takes place after hours in a dark and foreboding underground parking garage) I found the film quite involving, thanks to a great cast and tight direction.

It was fun to watch Mirren and Crowe working together; these are two of the finest actors currently walking the planet (although I wish they would have given Dame Helen a bit more to do aside from pacing and fuming about imminent deadlines). The underrated Robin Wright-Penn (excellent as the congressman’s wife) is also on hand.

I think MacDonald, who also directed The Last King of Scotland, has the potential to be the next Costa-Gavras. His feature films all vibe an undercurrent of docu-realism; perhaps not too surprising, since he made his bones with highly lauded documentaries like Touching the Void and One Day in September. In a spring season of mall cops and 3-D monsters, with Summer Release Purgatory looming, State of Play is one movie that will not require putting your brain on hold.

Big Money, Conspiracy a-go-go, Corporate Intrigue, On Politics

Pay you back with interest: The International ***

June 11, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 21, 2009)

Owen and Watts: Lawyers, guns and money.

Get this. In the Bizarro World of Tom Tykwer’s new conspiracy thriller, The International, people don’t rob banks…. banks rob people. That’s crazy! And if you think that’s weird, check this out: at one point in the film, one of the characters puts forth the proposition that true power belongs to he who controls the debt. Are you swallowing this malarkey? Oh, and it gets even better.

The filmmakers even suggest that some Third World military coups are seeded by powerful financial groups and directed from shadowy corporate boardrooms. What a fantasy! The next thing you’re gonna tell me is that these same “evil bankers” will devise some nefarious bailout plan that enables them to sustain their self-indulgent standards of high living while the world’s economy collapses-and all at the expense of hard-working taxpayers. Yeah, right.

The (fictional) international bank in question is under relentless investigation by a stalwart Interpol agent (the ever-glum Clive Owen), who is following a trail of shady arms deals all over Europe and the Near East that appear to be linked to the organization.

Whenever anyone gets close to exposing the truth about the bank’s Machiavellian schemes and criminal enterprises, they die under Mysterious Circumstances (alas, it is the karma for all whistle-blowers portrayed by lower-billed actors in a conspiracy thriller). The chase leads to New York, where (for reasons I was not 100% clear on) Owen is teamed up with a Manhattan-based assistant D.A. (Naomi Watts). Complexity ensues, with tastefully-attired Eurotrash assassins lurking behind every silver-tongued bank exec.

Director Tykwer, best-known for his hyper-kinetic cult thriller Run Lola Run, seems at odds with himself. He appears to be paying homage to the smartly-written, Byzantine and deliberately paced political paranoia thrillers of the 1970s, like Three Days of the Condor and Day of the Jackal, yet he also employs structural elements more akin to the logic-defying, action-driven escapades of a James Bond/Jason Bourne adventure (an imaginatively mounted shoot-out in New York’s Guggenheim is exciting from a purely cinematic standpoint, yet suffers incongruity with the rest of the narrative).

Still, the film involving enough to hold your attention throughout. It’s far from a classic, but if you are a sucker for the genre (like yours truly), I think you’ll find it worthwhile. I enjoyed the Bondian travelogue device (it even has the mandatory stop in Istanbul-complete with the requisite foot chase through a crowded bazaar).

Owen and Watts hold your attention (although I would have liked to have seen more screen chemistry between them, and would it kill Clive Owen to crack just a tiny little smile once in a while?) and there is an excellent supporting performance from the frequently underrated German character actor, Armin Mueller-Stahl.

The timing of the film’s release is interesting, in light of the current banking crisis and the plethora of financial scandals. From what I understand, screenwriter Eric Singer (no relation to the drummer from Kiss) based certain elements of the story on the real-life B.C.C.I. scandal. I predict that this will become the ubiquitous new trend in screen villains-the R. Allen Stanfords and Bernie Madoffs seem heaven-sent to replace Middle-Eastern terrorists as the Heavies du Jour for action thrillers. You can take that to the bank.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Historical drama, On Politics, Show Biz

Confessions of a dangerous mind: Frost/Nixon ****

May 13, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 20, 2008)

[frost_nixon05.jpg]

Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.

-Wm. Shakespeare (from Richard III)

I’m saying that when the president does it…that means it’s not illegal.

-Richard M. Nixon

There’s an old theatrical performer’s axiom that goes “Always leave ‘em wanting more.” In August of 1974, President Richard Nixon made his Watergate-weary exit from the American political stage with a nationally televised resignation soliloquy, and left ‘em wanting more…answers. Any immediate hopes for an expository epilogue to this 5 year long usurpation of the Constitution and Shakespearean tragedy were abruptly dashed one month later when President Gerald Ford granted him a full pardon. Like King Lear, the mad leader slunk back to his castle by the sea and out of public view.

Time passed. Most Americans turned their attention to the recession of ’74-’75, and various shiny distractions like Pet Rocks, disco balls, and Charlie’s Angels. Some inquiring minds, however, still wanted to know. One of them was a British television personality/savvy self-promoter by the name of David Frost, who had been kicking around the medium since the early 60s in various guises, from droll satirist (That Was the Week that Was and The Frost Report in the U.K.) to straight-up talk show host (Frost on America).

Although he occasionally interviewed politicians and statesmen, he wasn’t generally thought of as a “journalist” prior to 1977. When he first started shopping an idea to tackle former President Nixon in a series of exclusive TV interviews, he raised many an eyebrow and was laughed out of a few network executive’s offices (it would be like David Letterman suddenly deciding that he wanted to become the next Mike Wallace… “Get out of here, you nut!”). Undeterred, Frost decided that he would fund the project himself and independently syndicate the broadcasts. Eventually, of course, the interviews did hit the airwaves, and the rest, as they say, is History.

While the broadcasts themselves have become the stuff of legend to political junkies (as it is the closest anyone ever got to coaxing anything resembling a pang of conscience and regret from The Tricky One for his crimes), the machinations leading up to the actual broadcasts may not sound like the makings of an engrossing tale, but it has inspired a popular Broadway play and now a riveting new film.

Guided with an assured hand by director Ron Howard, and adapted for the screen by Peter Morgan (from his own award-winning play), Frost/Nixon is a superbly crafted mélange of history lesson, courtroom drama, backstage tale, championship boxing match, and (perhaps most importantly) another tie-in for you to use to impress friends with your prowess at playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Morgan’s screenplay is deftly built around this perfect setup for a clash of the titans: The Consummate Showman vs. The Consummate Politician. The “oil and water” mix of the two personalities is also a natural for theatrical consideration. Frost was good-looking, charming, glib, and fashionably attired; whereas Nixon was shifty-eyed, socially awkward and brooding, with a relatively rumpled countenance.

In this corner: Former President Richard M. Nixon (Frank Langella, reprising his Tony-winning stage role), his agent Swifty Lazar (Toby Jones), his former White House Chief of Staff/Man Friday Jack Brennen (Kevin Bacon!), and wife Pat (Patty McCormack). And in this corner: David Frost (Michael Sheen, also reprising his Broadway role), his chief researchers (Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt) and girlfriend/Muse (Rebecca Hall).

Langella and Sheen are nicely in tune with each other onscreen; likely this is due to the fact that they’ve had ample opportunity to flesh out their respective characters during the course of their Broadway run. It’s one of the best performances I’ve seen by Langella (he already has a Golden Globe nom, we will see what happens come Oscar time). Armed with Morgan’s incisive dialog, and with Howard’s skillful and unobtrusive direction to cover his flank, he uncannily captures the essence of Nixon’s contradictions and complexities; the supreme intelligence, the grandiose pomposity and the congenital craftiness, all corroded by the insidious paranoia that eventually consumed his soul, and by turn, the soul of the nation.

All the supporting performances are wonderful, particularly from Platt and Rockwell as Frost’s tenacious strategists, who in a roundabout way play out like Tom Stoppard’s re-imagining of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Nixon’s Hamlet (if I may continue to run with the Shakespearean analogies). Indeed, it is Rockwell’s character who utters the most insightful observation in the script about Nixon’s Achilles Heel in this affair; he posits that no matter how cagily Nixon fancied himself to be putting one over on Frost, he was ultimately done in by something that never lies: “The reductive power of the close-up.” Anon. (Fade to black).