''Secret Honor'' is a 1984 American historical drama film directed by
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New H ...
, written by
Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone, and starring
Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall (September 10, 1931 – June 12, 2022) was an American character actor.
Hall is known for his collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson, including '' Hard Eight'' (1996), ''Boogie Nights'' (1997) and ''Magnolia'' (1999). He als ...
. It is based on the play, and follows
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...
as a fictional account attempting to gain insight.
[Don Shirley]
Theater Review : 'Secret Honor': Nixonian Credibility Gap
''The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...
'', August 12, 1994 It was filmed at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
.
Plot
A disgraced
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...
is restlessly pacing in the study of his
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...
mansion in the late 1970s. Armed with a loaded
revolver, a bottle of
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky (; sco, Scots whisky/whiskie, whusk(e)y; often simply called whisky or Scotch) is malt whisky or grain whisky (or a blend of the two), made in Scotland.
All Scotch whisky was originally made from malted barley. Commercial dist ...
and a running
tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...
, while surrounded by
closed circuit television
Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...
cameras, he spends the next ninety minutes recalling, with rage, suspicion, sadness and disappointment, his controversial life and career in a long monologue.
It often veers into tangents and concerns his family, the people who made him powerful or they took him out of power. Nixon recalls
his mother
''His Mother'' is a 1912 American silent film produced by Kalem Company. It was directed by Sidney Olcott with Gene Gauntier and Jack J. Clark in the leading roles. It was one of more than a dozen films produced by the Kalem Company filmed in Ire ...
fondly,
Dwight Eisenhower with hatred,
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the preside ...
with condescension and
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
with a mixture of appreciation and rage. When Nixon gets angry at someone he is thinking about, the monologue often becomes disjointed; the passion overwhelms Nixon's ability for words. If he veers too far off topic, he tells the person who is supposed to transcribe the tape (an unseen character named "Roberto") to edit out the whole screed back to an earlier, calmer point.
Throughout the monologue, Nixon's description of himself changes. Sometimes he calls himself a man of the people, saying that he could succeed because he had known failure, just like the average American; he broods on his humble beginnings and the hard work he put in to rise to the top, and all the setbacks that he endured and overcame. However, the times when he talks about his own ideas and accomplishments in flattering terms tend to be brief, and they often bleed into self-pitying rants about how he is an innocent martyr, destroyed by sinister and hypocritical forces. Similarly, he can be self-deprecating or otherwise reflect a low self-image, but he rarely focuses on his own faults for long, preferring instead to blame others. He denies the relevance of
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
and claims that he never committed a crime. He emphasizes that he was never charged with it, therefore he did not need or deserve a pardon. He feels that the pardon he received from President
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
forever tainted him in the public's eyes, because to get a pardon he must have been guilty.
However, Nixon admits that he has been the willing tool of a political network he alternately calls "the
Bohemian Grove
Bohemian Grove is a restricted 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) campground at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, Monte Rio, California, United States, belonging to a private San Francisco–based gentlemen's club known as the Bohemian Club. I ...
" and "The Committee of 100". The alleged interest of the committee is the
heroin trade with
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
, although he followed them rather out of a lust for power plus some belief in their willingness to bring
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
to Asia. However, after the 1972 vote he received new orders from them: they wanted Nixon to keep the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
going on at all costs, then go for a third term in office, so they can continue their business with the president as their
strawman
A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false ...
. Nixon further explains that at some point he decided that he did not want to go down in history as the president who sacrificed thousands of American soldiers for drug money, so he himself staged the
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
scandal to get out of office against massive public support. Nixon puts the blame on others: on the public that supports him although - or even because - he is a scam artist and a petty thief, just like the majority of them, as he sees it.
Reception
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
awarded four stars out of four and lauded it as "one of the most scathing, lacerating and brilliant movies of 1984," and wrote that Hall played his role "with such savage intensity, such passion, such venom, such scandal, that we cannot turn away." He ranked the film sixth on his year-end list of the best films of 1984.
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...
of the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' also awarded his top grade of four stars and stated that "thanks to a thoroughly outrageous but strangely credible script by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone, Robert Altman's film of the stage play 'Secret Honor' offers a fresh Richard Nixon, one truly worthy of pity, and at the same time properly assigns responsibility for his career to us as much as to him." He ranked the film seventh on his own 1984 best-of list.
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death i ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called the film "a fascinating, funny, offbeat movie" and "something of a cinematic tour de force, both for Mr. Altman and for the previously unknown to me Philip Baker Hall, whose contribution is a legitimate, bravura performance, not a '
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serve ...
' impersonation." A review in ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' reporting from a pre-wide release screening in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
wrote, "There isn't likely a broad audience for 'Secret Honor,' yet pic is really too good to remain a secret for long ... Philip Baker Hall is so physically and verbally impressive in his ravings that, should pic get a commercial release in L.A., the Academy would be quite realistic in considering him for a best acting Oscar. Hall's range in stumbling through his study and wildly reminiscing into a tape recorder is text book thesping, and his resemblance to Nixon is often unsettling." Linda Gross of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' wrote that the film was "a remarkable character study of an American Everyman," with Hall giving "a superb, sustained performance. He delivers darkly the black night of a man's soul, and Altman has recorded it faithfully."
[Gross, Linda (September 13, 1984). "'Secret Honor': Fall of an Everyman". '']Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
''. Part VI, p. 4. Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions of ...
called the film "a small, weird triumph" and described Hall's performance as "an acting feat by a man who probably isn't a great actor," explaining that "Hall draws on his lack of a star presence and on an actor's fears of his own mediocrity in a way that seems to parallel Nixon's feelings. Though he doesn't closely resemble Nixon, he's got the Nixon twitches down pat, and he gets inside him with so much historical accuracy that it's as if we were watching the actual Nixon in the wildest scenes that others wrote about, and as if we were seeing the man we heard on the tapes."
Home media
The film was released on region 1 DVD.
References
External links
*
*
''Secret Honor''an essay by Michael Wilmington at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...
{{Richard Nixon
1984 films
1984 drama films
American political satire films
American political drama films
Films directed by Robert Altman
Films shot in Michigan
One-character films
Films about Richard Nixon
Watergate scandal in film
1980s English-language films
1980s American films