Image released by Universal Pictures courtesy of AP
Many have commented how the film humanized Nixon. The disgraced President is seen as a political fox. He likens the interviews with Frost to combat and easily wins the early rounds. After Frost battles back and rattles the former President in the final interview, a more nuanced portrayol of Nixon emerges. The man confesses that he is uneasy in social situations and clamors for Frost’s “lightness” with people. The last shot shows Nixon at his home looking out over the Pacific, framed in solitude with the fading sun washing away in the sky.
The quirks and idiosyncracies of Nixon could fill hundreds of books and they probably have. As stated, I was more interested in the journey of Frost. He is portrayed at the beginning as a dilettante and vapid Lady’s Man. When Frost decides to interiew Nixon and pays him $600,000, none of the American news networks will do business with him because they feel Frost compromised his journalistic ethics and bought a source. Frost is forced to seek out other investors to buy air time and syndicate the four interview installments himself.
In one hilarious moment, Frost leaves an interview with Nixon and goes hat in hand to a lawn maintenance company to pony up to the show. From interviewing giants to schlepping lawn widgets, Frost is desperate to keep the whole thing afloat. This stress brought the current state of journalism into view for me. Journalists and the monolithic media companies that own their newspapers or TV stations are equally under pressure to get the story and keep costs down. With advertisers fleeing newspapers, staffs are being cut, papers are for sale and a running tide of commentary fills the opinion pages on how to stanch the blood flow.
Back to the film. Following a drunken phone call from Nixon, Frost is determined to fight back. He digs in and scores a triumph when he gets Nixon to confess that anything he did wrong was not illegal because Nixon was President at the time. With statements like that, Frost’s interviews with Nixon were a giant success. When broadcast in 1977, the premier drew 45 million viewers, the greatest audience yet for a political interview on television. Frost also walked away with a cool $1 million in profit. Not bad for a journalist hawking lawn products!
The lesson to be learned for modern journalists fighting the decay in the present industry is to stick to their gun and fight for an idea that might be seen as unconventional. We might not all interview a former President, but we need to fight for the opportunity to produce trailblazing work when no one believes in you and the pressure is on. – Michael Barnes
