Films based on the historical record can be a bit of a mixed bag. The main reason being that we already know the outcome, which can have the effect of robbing the film of narrative suspense. However, some directors seem to excel with these types of films and are able to grab and hold out attention and build suspense, even though we know the ultimate outcome. One of these director’s is Ron Howard who directed Apollo 13, which is an outstanding film that is able to maintain a sense of suspense throughout as well as provide a very moving cinematic experience, despite the fact that we know all turns out well. It was therefore with great anticipation that I sat down to watch another Ron Howard film, Frost/Nixon, based on the award winning London play.
Film
Frost/Nixon was nominated for Best Picture in this year’s Academy Awards and was well deserving of that honor as it was truly one of 2008′s best films. In fact, the film garnered five Academy Award nominations, including Best Director (Ron Howard), Best Actor (Frank Langella), Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Morgan) and Best Film editing in addition to the aforementioned Best Picture nomination. All were well deserved.
The film is based on the London play that also starred Michael Sheen as David Frost and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon. Three years after resigning the presidency in 1974, Richard Nixon and his advisers were eager to begin to try to rebuild his public image and shape the historical record. While there were news organizations looking to interview Mr. Nixon, the Nixon camp selected David Frost as he was the highest bidder and was thought of as being a rather soft and shallow interviewer.
David Frost was better known for his daytime gigs as a talk show host in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. David Frost risked his financial future in bidding such a high price for the interviews. He had a difficult time raising private capital to finance the interview as none of the major US television networks were willing to pay to show the interviews on the basis that they did not pay for interviews. This left Mr. Frost scrambling to find television outlets for the series of interviews in the US.
Clearly, Mr. Frost had to deliver a compelling series of interviews to secure US television distribution rights that would not only cover his fixed costs, but make him some money as well. He had to in effect, make history during these interviews or face financial ruin and the end of his career. Frost/Nixon tells the story of the preparation that both sides underwent for the interviews, the uncertainty in the Frost camp as to whether their boss had the right stuff to conduct a probing and serious interview of Mr. Nixon and the Nixon camp’s feeling that they had a softy on the other side who they could push around and manhandle.
The film is briskly paced and tension filled and features tremendous performances, not only by Frank Langella as Richard Nixon but Michael Sheen as well who almost becomes David Frost, following up on his thrilling performance as Tony Blair in The Queen. This is an excellent film and one that is well worth seeing and another in a series of compelling product from Ron Howard (The DaVinci Code notwithstanding). Highly recommended.
Video
The video presentation on Frost/Nixon is a bit of a mixed bag. The film features historical video which, as one would expect, looks washed out and noisy. The film, in addition to the actual narrative, also features flash forwards with the various participants in the whole process. Both have very different looks. The picture quality of the actual narrative look quite good, although lacking the clarity and detail of the best looking Blu-ray releases. These sequences, which make up the bulk of the film, have a well saturated and natural looking color palette with excellent skin tones. Black level is deep and solid as well. However, these same sections of the film are a bit on the soft side, lacking the level of detail and clarity of the best looking films on Blu-ray. While close-ups look good even they lack the level of facial, clothing and background detail that we have come to expect with new films such as this on Blu-ray.
I have noticed this on other Ron Howard films so I doubt it is the fault of the encode and is just how the film was shot. However, the rest of the film, consisting of what I have described as flash forwards, where the participants discuss their recollections and observations years later of the whole endeavor, look washed out and grainy with noticeably inferior black levels. I am not sure why the decision was made to make the “newer” in term of time sequences look older and worse than the older footage, but that is what we have here. However, these sequences don’t take up enough time to warrant dropping the overall grade for the picture quality under a 4. Good but not great is the phrase that comes to mid to describe the look of this film.
Audio
The audio presentation here is about what I expected before I viewed the film. Given that Frost/Nixon is a dialogue driven film, it is a very front heavy mix, with sparse use of the surrounds. The overall sound quality is quite good and the dialogue track well recorded, with each word of dialogue clearly presented and easy to hear. The overall sound is rather smooth and full but lacks the sense of transparency and imaging that characterize the best sounding audio mixes. Don’t expect much in the way of an immersive feel here or a bombastic sound design on this release as it just isn’t there. While a bombastic sound design would not be warranted with this type of film, I l would have preferred more use of the surrounds to provide a more immersive sound experience than is provided here.
Special Features
Frost/Nixon comes equipped with several extras in high def. Included are deleted scenes as well as the featurette “The Making of Frost/Nixon”, which takes an in depth look at all the aspects of the film’s production including interviews with Ron Howard and members of the cast.
The most interesting extra by far is “The Real Interview” footage of the actual Frost and Nixon interviews as they appeared on TV in the 1977. It is interesting to see how the sequences that appeared in the film, while identical in terms of the actual dialogue, were presented by Mr. Langella in the film with a degree of suspense and forcefulness that was lacking in the actual real life interviews. I wish that more of the actual interviews were included on this release.
Also included is a feature on the Nixon Library, showing materials that are preserved for public viewing at the library, ranging from the Nixon tapes to Nixon’s visit to China. Also included is a director”s commentary. Exclusive to this Blu-ray release and accessible by Universal’s U-Control is The Nixon Chronicles, which presents the actual original interviews noted above along side the shot by shot recreations of those scenes in the film. Again, of all the extras, I found these to be the most interesting as noted before.
Another interesting featurette is “Discovering Secrets: The People and Places Behind the Story” where director Ron Howard, producer Brian Glazer and the entire production team discuss the many secrets of the Nixon era that they discovered during the research conducted for this project. The disc is also BD-Live enabled which allows you to share movie clips and download more bonus content via the web, provided that you have a profile 2.0 Blu-ray player.
Final Thoughts
Frost/Nixon is a well written, directed and acted film that is well worth a look. If you are a political junkie like me, I have no doubt that you will enjoy this film. Even if you aren’t, I have no doubt that you will enjoy this film as much as the rest of us, as you do not need to have much in the way of knowledge concerning this era of our history to appreciate and enjoy all this film has to offer. Highly recommended.
