'Frost/Nixon' shines a light on the Bush presidency

When Richard Nixon, a politician who hated and feared the media, decided to spurn the networks and the newsmen and give his first comprehensive, post-resignation interviews to a lightweight talk-show host, the country got something unexpected from the disgraced president and his dilettante interviewer: Closure.

The televised confrontation, and the catharsis it engendered, made it to a wider screen last week as Ron Howard unleashed"Frost/Nixon," his cinematic reconstruction of the events. Meanwhile, George W. Bush, another disgraced president, picked that week to give ABC the first wide-ranging interview since his presidency ceased to be relevant. The contrast between the conversations was depressing.

In"Frost/Nixon," Nixon is played by a looming, arthritic Frank Langella. He is quiet and tired, broken by the stress of his own failure. The night before the climactic confrontation on Watergate, he cracks, placing a Scotch-fueled, midnight phone call to Frost, played by Michael Sheen, and launches into an angry, self-loathing, self-pitying monologue. The next day, he no longer remembers the conversation. When Frost makes reference to it, Nixon's face falls and the fight leaves him. It is possibly the first cinematic portrayal of a president drunk-dialing. And the consequences are as serious as those of any bender. Nixon confesses to his sins.

It was this confession that rendered Nixon such a complete and tragic figure, in film and in fact. Thanks to Gerald Ford's pardon, Nixon never stood trial for crimes he may have committed. But he didn't escape them either. The payoff of the"Frost/Nixon" interview was a close-up view of Nixon's unending self-punishment. As James Reston Jr. put it, the whole confrontation was prelude to a single instant, our final glimpse of Nixon, his"face swollen and ravaged by loneliness, self-loathing and defeat."