MovieChat Forums > Frost/Nixon (2009) Discussion > Was the audience supposed to have pity f...

Was the audience supposed to have pity for Richard Nixon?

posted 13 years ago by This_is_an_outrage
8 replies | jump to latest

In the movie he's always incensed (with a great deal of anxiety too) whenever anyone in public brings up Watergate and obviously seems haunted by his past. At the end of the film he's a good sport towards David Frost who drops by to visit at his seaside home despite having been exposed by Frost on national TV as a liar, but after Frost leaves you see him all alone peering out to sea while the camera fades. Because the angle is from behind you can't see his face, but it seems like he's portrayed as a melancholic loner. Did anyone else feel that he came across as this sad, vanquished figure who retired as a disgraced president?

[–] lekgolah 13 years ago

Just saw the film for the first time, thought it was great and agree with you about the damaged portrayal of Nixon. I think Ron Howard did a great job directing the film so that we can sympathise with Nixon.

[–] This_is_an_outrage 13 years ago

True but I forgot to mention that the audience is time and time again reminded that Nixon was a pathological liar.

[–] mobile707 13 years ago

I think the audience is "supposed to have" mixed feelings about this cinematic version of Nixon. Among those mixed feelings, I think pity is included, yes. But not just pity. I think the audience is also supposed to respect Nixon, revile Nixon, and behold him as this strange man who was both brilliant yet destructive, squalid yet visionary, determined to leave his mark on history and did so in ways both beneficial and harmful.

As for being "portrayed as a melancholic loner", well that is not too far off the mark.

[–] koffeenkreame41-1 12 years ago

^^This. I think Howard illustrated that perfectly, we see that Nixon was in fact all alone.

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[–] joyceday 12 years ago

I always felt bad for Nixon not that he had to resign the presidency but that what he did made it inevitable. The fact was that there was no need for what he and his underlings did in that McGovern went on to lose every state except his own including states that ALWAYS go Democratic. His fears, doubts, and paranoia caused him to lose that which he couldn't lose except for his own grave mistakes. That is why I feel pity for him because he feared the enemy and the enemy was him.

[–] yusef-ghanima 11 years ago

i think it showed what a tricky dicky he was until the end, and i wondered if the shoe present was as friendly as it appeared in the movie, it seemed actually like look who's the screwed up lady in the end!

[–] Robbmonster 11 years ago

mobile07 summed up my thoughts on the matter. I don't think the intention was to evoke 'pity', but rather to show Nixon as a three dimensional man, which of course, he was.

But having said that, the film certainly dwelt on his negative traits more than his positive ones.

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[–] cartesianthought 10 years ago

Frost/Nixon does exagerrate Nixon, both in his ghoulish malicious villainous portrayal before the interviews and the amiable emotionally-relatable portrayal after the interviews.

The audience was supposed to hate Nixon at first, and then feel sorry for him.

- Cart