As the title suggests, Frost/Nixon dramatizes the encounter between two larger-than-life historical figures, David Frost and Richard Nixon, played respectively by two larger-than-life actors, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella.
Of course, back when Watergate was originally unfolding, I was barely a few months old. I was three years old by the time Nixon sat down for Frost’s questions. I’ve never lived in a world without Watergate, so it’s hard for me to think of a time when the president was assumed to be “pure”. Or at least, not a crook. In my mind, all politicians are a little dirty, and the only differences are in how dirty they get and over which issues.
George W. Bush falsified evidence for the Iraq War. Bill Clinton lied about having oral sex in the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan illegally sold weapons to Iran. Richard Nixon ordered break-ins and the bugging of his opponents’ offices.
Certainly other presidents back as far as Thomas Jefferson have been touched by scandal. But, Watergate was different because it marked the first time a president was not only participating, but directing a crime. And, the crime itself wasn’t political favoritism or siphoning money, but the decidedly grimier category of burglary and wiretapping.
Stripping all the politics away however, the most damning thing about Watergate – the aspect that caused the public to react with shock and disbelief — wasn’t the crime itself or even the cover-up. It was the irrational motivation of fear. When you boil it down, Watergate was really about one man’s unimaginable personal insecurity. Everything else was just a consequence.
Similarly, the Frost/Nixon interviews are important not so much because David Frost sort-of succeeded in getting Richard Nixon to sort-of admit he sort-of had something to do with Watergate, sort-of. No, Frost’s real achievement was getting Nixon to reveal his true nature. He was not a political giant. He was a essentially a frightened little boy.
At the time, the interview was a coup for Frost. He was perviously regarded as no more a serious “journalist” than Barbara Walters or Regis Philbin, specializing in cocktail chatter and softball questions. The playwright of Frost/Nixon suggests it as exactly this fluffy reputation that led Nixon to agree to the interview in the first place, and which allowed him to be “ambushed” by letting his guard down.
Unfortunately, the legacy of the Frost/Nixon interviews is that politicians are now pretty uniformly presumed guilty of something. (You can blame Nixon for that.) And, journalists are now honor-bound to get the dirt on their subjects, no matter what the cost. (You can blame Frost here.) More than anything, Frost/Nixon is about this shift in the dynamic between intervewer and interviewee, between the president and the press.
The play is simple; the writing clear and efficient. One blank set, two chairs, a bank of video monitors. That’s it. But with a play as heavy as this (and with two absolutely pitch-perfect actors in the leads) that’s all you really need.
