Secret Honor (VHS, 1987)

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Set in August 1974; Produced and released in 1985.Robert Altman's adaptation of the one-man stage play about former president Richard M. Nixon features a high-powered performance by Philip Baker Hall (MAGNOLIA) as the unraveling president. The dramatic dialogue takes place in Nixon's personal office shortly after his resignation--brought about by the Watergate scandal--where the fallen leader, in a drunken frenzy of self-justification and resentment, comments acerbically on the various personalities and situations he encountered, and desperately bemoans his fate. His targets include presidents of the distant past, the Kennedy family, and leaders from other countries as well as anyone who ever doubted him in his quest to attain ultimate power. The only one who emerges unscathed is Nixon's mother, whom he continued to worship even after her death. Altman uses his versatility as a director to keep the film's single location from becoming claustrophobic or stagnant. By cutting between Nixon himself and a security monitor that is taping his drunken tirade, Altman blurs the line between reality and fiction even more strikingly, rendering a Nixon with a very human and yet "televised" face. Filmed while the director was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, SECRET HONOR remains an insightful and interpretative glimpse into the mind of one of America's most notorious presidents.