Secret Honor - Criterion Collection

Starring:Philip Baker Hall
Director: Robert Altman
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
A bravura performance by Philip Baker Hall and the probing eye of Robert Altman make Secret Honor a provocative--even haunting--speculation on history. The project originated as a one-man play, a fictional look at Richard Nixon dictating a lengthy monologue to a tape machine. The script offers some wild possibilities for explaining Watergate, but more importantly it attempts to understand Nixon the man (and succeeds far better than Oliver Stone's factual Nixon). Hall's flabbergasting performance, though it holds nothing back in its picture of a boozing, paranoid self-dramatist, manages to humanize Nixon. Altman's low-budget filming of the play tinkered little with the text or with Hall's performance, but the gliding camera, always picking out the telling angle or detail, is pure Altman. It received a tiny release in 1984, but Secret Honor now looks like a key American political fantasia, like The Manchurian Candidate wrought on a single set. --Robert Horton
Description
Sequestered in his home, a disgraced President Richard Millhouse Nixon arms himself with a bottle of Scotch and a gun to record memoirs that no one will hear. Surrounded by the silent portraits of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Kissinger, and his mother, Nixon resurrects his past in a passionate attempt to reconcile his failed political career. Based on the original play by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone, and starring Philip Baker Hall in a tour de force solo performance, Robert Altman's Secret Honor is a searing interrogation of the Nixon mystique and an audacious depiction of unchecked paranoia.

Secret Honor - Criterion Collection
Average customer rating:

Robert Altman's "Sympathy for the Devil"

Ranting, Rambling and Raving--Altman's Ode To Nixon Is A Great Film That Doesn't Connect With Me

An Extraordinary Performance By Philip Baker Hall

I am the American dream.

an unusual but interesting film

Secret Honor - Criterion Collection
Starring: Philip Baker Hall
Director: Robert Altman
Manufacturer: Criterion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005JNG8
Release Date: 2004-10-19

Amazon.com

A bravura performance by Philip Baker Hall and the probing eye of Robert Altman make Secret Honor a provocative--even haunting--speculation on history. The project originated as a one-man play, a fictional look at Richard Nixon dictating a lengthy monologue to a tape machine. The script offers some wild possibilities for explaining Watergate, but more importantly it attempts to understand Nixon the man (and succeeds far better than Oliver Stone's factual Nixon). Hall's flabbergasting performance, though it holds nothing back in its picture of a boozing, paranoid self-dramatist, manages to humanize Nixon. Altman's low-budget filming of the play tinkered little with the text or with Hall's performance, but the gliding camera, always picking out the telling angle or detail, is pure Altman. It received a tiny release in 1984, but Secret Honor now looks like a key American political fantasia, like The Manchurian Candidate wrought on a single set. --Robert Horton

Description

Sequestered in his home, a disgraced President Richard Millhouse Nixon arms himself with a bottle of Scotch and a gun to record memoirs that no one will hear. Surrounded by the silent portraits of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Kissinger, and his mother, Nixon resurrects his past in a passionate attempt to reconcile his failed political career. Based on the original play by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone, and starring Philip Baker Hall in a tour de force solo performance, Robert Altman's Secret Honor is a searing interrogation of the Nixon mystique and an audacious depiction of unchecked paranoia.

Customer Reviews:

Robert Altman's "Sympathy for the Devil".......2007-03-24

SECRET HONOR (1984)
directed by Robert Altman
approx 90 minutes

Richard Nixon got us out of Vietnam, bombed a neutral country, was an early proponent of civil rights in his party, probably won the popular vote in 1960 but didn't fight it, and at one point was rumored to have the highest IQ score of anyone to hold the highest office in the land. His re-election in 1972 was a huge landslide, but he also had some of the lowest approval ratings years later. He's also probably one of the only genuine "outsiders" and "self made men" to get elected... and (so far) the only one to step down. People still really hate Nixon, for various reasons, but no matter what your opinion of the man is I recommend seeing this movie.

Philip Baker Hall does an amazing job as Richard Milhouse Nixon, probably the most complicated U.S. President of the 20th century. The roles Hall has gotten in recent years don't offer him the wide range of emotions that he's capable of showing. While the acting alone makes this movie worth viewing, the people who will probably enjoy it the most are those with a good grasp on Nixon's biography. He addresses (in some way) every issue you can imagine, from his early smears against Helen Douglas to his cursing Kissinger and the CIA. Nixon of course had a lot to be bitter about and in this movie is literally on the defensive: the Nixon character pretends to be a lawyer defending the former President in an impeachment trial. Issues from his Quaker background are brought up as well as his dismal childhood memories of his family.

Part of the pretext of this movie is that the Nixon character tries to reveal the "real reasons for Watergate". Hall weaves a sort of desperate paranoid web of intelligence and elite connections that were putting pressure on Nixon from all sides. I'm actually shocked that the Alex Jones crowd hasn't revived this movie since there are repeated references to "Bohemian Grove". The "Committee of 100" in this movie has some similarities with the "Committee of 300" described by Dr. John Coleman.

Definitely a movie worth your attention.

Ranting, Rambling and Raving--Altman's Ode To Nixon Is A Great Film That Doesn't Connect With Me.......2006-10-31

Before his resurgence with "The Player," there was a time when Robert Altman was out of fashion in Hollywood following the disastrous "Popeye" in 1980. During that period, he still did some interesting work--most notably a few filmed adaptations of plays and "Tanner '88" for HBO. "Tanner '88," in my opinion, is one of the most brilliant, politically astute pieces ever made--it really captured a moment in time (however fictionalized). Among his adaptations --"Streamers," "Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" and "Fool For Love" were entertaining, if flawed. Super dramatic and overripe--I love these films, but their theatrical roots really show. Perhaps his most significant adaptation, however, was "Secret Honor."

"Secret Honor" is essentially a one man show. A fictional Richard Nixon contemplates his life and the failings in his political career. Shooting through every emotion, we're offered insight into many of the significant historical events of his day. We see a proud, yet paranoid, individual--one that has seemingly played a political pawn. For ninety minutes, he rambles and rants--and you've probably never seen anything like it before on film. Philip Baker Hall gives one heck of a blistering performance. It's probably one of the greatest unknown or unremembered performances of all time.

And here, I'm almost ashamed to admit--I just don't get much entertainment value from this film. I've seen it several times now--I recognize it's merit--I just don't connect with it. Altman has made a sly and significant film--it just isn't for me. Altman was one of my early heroes--as a kid, "Nashville" was a picture that redefined movies for me, that opened up narrative structure in a way that I'd never seen before. And I see the importance of "Secret Honor" as well--but I think it's appeal is more limited.

Obviously any cinema buff should check it out. It's worth it for Hall's terrific performance, if nothing else. Anyone interested in history or Nixon specifically might also get value and entertainment from this film. As for me, maybe I'm a philistine--because I just can't send out a recommendation to the casual filmgoer.

The film does boast, however, one of the greatest exit lines ever. No matter what you feel about the film--it goes out with a bang! KGHarris, 10/06.

An Extraordinary Performance By Philip Baker Hall.......2005-08-21

"Nixon as Hamlet, Nixon as Lear, Nixon as Blanche DuBois..." says Michael Wilmington in his Criterion liner notes. It's 1983 and Richard Nixon, late at night, is in the study of his home preparing to record his version of the events in his life. He's managed after some difficulty to connect the tape recorder. He has a tumbler of scotch at hand. As he talks he's at times playing defense attorney for Richard Nixon before an imaginary judge, at other times he's Richard Nixon explaining himself and his actions.

"I wanted to be a winner because I was a loser. That's right. I'd been a failure every night of my life and that is my secret...I was a dogcatcher...yeah...I was...I am...and a...mmm...used car salesman, too...sure, sure, fine...and a siding and a shingle man and...because I knew that today the dogcatcher is king!...and all those crooks and those shysters and those mobsters and those lobsters...I mean lobbyists...and the well fed...all the welfare bums and tramps in this country...that is your palace guard. Let 'em suck on that for a while!"

As the night goes by and as the scotch goes down, Nixon rails against almost everyone except his mother; against Eisenhower and Kissinger, against his brothers and his fate, against college slights and job interview turndowns, against east coast lawyers and slick big businessmen, against decisions he had to make to satisfy the secret deals he made with the Committee of 100 and the Bohemian Club crowd. Deep into the scotch he cries of the public humiliation he accepted to save his secret honor against the nightmare plans of the Committee and their smooth, wealthy, powerful members. "My client is guilty of one thing only," he cries to the imaginary judge, "of being Richard Milhous Nixon."

This 90-minute play, restaged to become a highly fluid and effective film by Robert Altman, is an absolute tour de force of solo acting by Philip Baker Hall. He doesn't much look or sound like Nixon, but his performance is stunning. His Nixon ranges seamlessly from resentment to suppressed rage to self pity to almost strangled inarticulateness. He can relish his victories with a cynical laugh and almost sob with the slights he knows he has received from others. The four-letter words are pungent, startling and frequent. Hall is just extraordinary.

What are we left with? I think that anyone who admires fine acting, psychology, politics and cynicism would want this film. I doubt if anyone who hates Nixon or loves Nixon would be satisfied. I found myself feeling a little uncomfortably sympathetic.

The Criterion DVD features an informative insert and several extras, including commentary by Altman and co-writer Donald Freed, as well as an on-camera and interesting interview with Hall. The DVD picture looks fine.

I am the American dream........2005-07-16

SECRET HONOR invites us to spend an intimate evening alone with the only man ever to resign the presidency, Richard Nixon. The Criterion disk contains a bunch of extras, including an hour and twenty-some minutes worth of Nixon, the real Nixon, on videotape and kinescope. It surveys a number of his speeches, beginning with the Fund Crisis (`Checkers') Speech in 1952 and ending with his August 9, 1974 Farewell Speech to the White House Staff. Also included is a newspaper managing editors' question and answer session, from 1973, in which Nixon first told us "I am not a crook." If you're new to Nixon, or need a refresher course in Nixonia, I strongly suggest you watch these before watching the movie. A few politicians are, maybe once in their career, forced to make an embarrassing speech confessing a personal weakness or transgression. Nixon seemed to have made a career out of such speeches, and this tip-of-the-iceberg special feature gives a good sense of Nixon's personal debasement style. SECRET HONOR takes place sometime in the late 1970s, and is an intimate, post-resignation evening spent with Richard Nixon. Philip Baker Hall put his star on the map with his interpretation of the ex-president. He begins the evening with a glass of sherry, which isn't quite Nixon's style. Scotch, and then more scotch, puts slick in his lick and leads to a fascinating, free-ranging, ninety-minute rant against the world.

One man shows can be bad enough on stage. When made into movies even the good ones can be nearly unbearable. SECRET HONOR avoids all the pitfalls. For one thing, Robert Altman is a canny enough director to devise ways to keep us visually interested in what's going on. During the 20-some minute special feature interview with Philip Baker Hall we see photographs of Altman's unique camera contraption - a 16-mm camera mounted on some sort of flying jib that more or less becomes Hall's dance partner. It provides the cameraman with great mobility and flexibility. Along with the fluid camera the script is a great help, as well. Let's face it - the big question in one man shows is "What is he doing there?" Usually the Great Person is decked out in period regalia, maintains eye contact with the audience for the duration, and spends most of his time recounting Great Event after Great Event. As Altman says on his commentary track, it's all a little too precious. SECRET HONOR avoids the one-man trap by having Nixon, appropriately enough, speaking into a tape recorder, explaining himself to someone. We're never sure who that someone is, perhaps his mother, perhaps with all the `Your Honors' and `my clients' in the monologue, it's a judge of some type. It seems some post-pardon defense is, as they say, being strategized. Either way it's an inspired approach.

I think some people still have strong feelings, positive or negative, about Richard Nixon. Nixon haters and Nixon lovers might have some problems with this movie because Nixon comes across as both fatally flawed yet somewhat tragic. Hall, Altman and the script combine to make this a fascinating 90-minutes for anyone with memories of or an interest in the Nixon Presidency. Strongest recommendation for this terrific movie.

an unusual but interesting film.......2005-03-06

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Secret Honor is a film based on the play of the same name by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone. Philip Baker Hall reprised his role as Richard Nixon from the stage performance and is the only person in the film.

The film is a fictitious account of former President Richard Nixon alone in his study speaking into a microphone for a recording. He speaks about many things, many of which were made up only for the story.

I thought it was interesting and the way it is mostly filmed in only one room is similar to the style of filming for "Twelve Angry Men."

I also enjoyed the special features quite a bit. In addition to an interview with actor Philip Baker Hall and audio commentary by Robert Altman and co-writer Donald Freed, there is archive footage of the real Richard Nixon in some of his well known television appearances. Included are his famous "Checkers" speech, a 1968 campaign Q&A session, his announcement of releasing Watergate documents, his resignation speech, and his farewell address to the White House staff.

Though the film portrays Nixon in a bad light, it is fiction, and the special features are wonderful.

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