The first is narrative. The director repeatedly interspersed interviews with the two participants and Nixon's staunch opponents with documentary techniques, and he has a posture to restore the original face of history. But the real interview process is to imitate the American court drama genre model: the young lawyers who are fledgling and flamboyant (and occasionally the old lawyers who are obsessed with alcohol) must be disadvantaged and at a disadvantage. Later, you must be inspired by some kind of spiritual force, or by the great help of a righteous person, and find a powerful new witness or evidence, so as to turn defeat into victory and win the lawsuit in one fell swoop. Such as my cousin, Yihai Xiongfeng, etc... The Englishman Fox of the talk show host in this film is obviously equivalent to a young lawyer, and his interviewee, former US President Nixon, is an old and cunning prosecutor or prosecution lawyer.
What's interesting about character creation is that the character traits of the two protagonists, Fox and Nixon, have been dramatically interchanged. As a well-known British talk show anchor, Fox does not seem to show the unique sense of humor and eloquence of the British (of course the latter is somewhat due to his temporary change of the runway). This role was portrayed in the film as much as his opponent Nixon should have. He did not care about the cynicism of the opponent and recruited the American reporter played by Sam Rockwell into the team. It can be described as a broad-minded and knowledgeable person; in the second phase of the interview, the effect is still not good. . "If any of you have doubts, please quit now!", even more mature and stable leadership.
And Nixon, the former president of the United States, provided the humor and observation that should belong to Fox in the film: before the interview started, he joked about the other party’s girlfriend (the role of Fox’s girlfriend. It is purely fictional. If it is the latter, it seems to be a vase. Because the only dramatic effect this woman can have in the second half of the film is to encourage the hero who lost the first battle with the power of love to cheer up and fight again. He was replaced by Nixon who was out of control). At the same time, he showed extraordinary enthusiasm for the strapless Italian brand shoes on the opponent's feet.
Unfortunately, the ups and downs in the plot provided by the court drama model and the "subversion" of the character's characteristics did not make the two protagonists of the film more contagious. Among them, the problem with Fox is that the so-called leadership temperament contradicts what he did in the course of the story. It stands to reason that the huge pressure brought by the out-of-pocket payment of millions of dollars and the rejection by the major television networks is enough to prompt them to go all out from the beginning. But judging from the performance of the first three days in the first battle, this British guy is more like a kind of absent-minded and perfunctory, rather than out of lack of experience. In addition, he knew Rockwell with his insight, but he did not communicate with him in depth for a long time. He didn't know that the opponent possessed the assassin that defeated Nixon in one blow. Instead of waiting for that weird phone call to make a call late at night like waking up from a dream?
For Nixon's corner, what the audience sees is not purely humane, but very obvious traces of "joking". For example, the plot of losing words due to emotional out-of-control and ultimately leading to all-out losses is easily reminiscent of the 5 or 60-year Hollywood films "Writing in the Wind" and "The Mutiny Kane". Especially the latter. The details of Nixon's facial expressions and body movements under the uncontrolled mental state are surprisingly similar to the old captain played by Bogart. The only difference is that he doesn't have the pair of iron balls in his hands.
Although it must be admitted, this way of expression makes the character itself more vivid. But at the same time it is undeniable that it will also make people suspect that this character is farther away from the real Nixon in terms of "likeness". Even those audiences who don't care whether the actors look alike.
And Nixon's mental state at the time exactly echoed the phone call he made to Fox before. This purely fictitious plot not only saves Fox in adversity more exaggeratedly in the narrative, but also cleverly beautifies the image of the only president who resigned from office in the history of the United States. Because when the drunken behavior is disordered and the secret of not knowing what they did is exposed afterwards, people will unconsciously associate Nixon’s actions in the Watergate incident with this mental state, and then deduced that he was at a time. It is a crime of dereliction of duty only when confused.
Whether a fictitious artistic technique should be used to justify a real historical figure like Nixon, the Chinese audience as an outsider doesn’t really care—not to mention that Nixon is indeed indelible in opening the door to Sino-US diplomacy. Historical achievements. On the contrary, I pay more attention to some American concepts and values revealed through interviews in the film that make the people of the third world very sensitive.
When Fox pointed out the "Cambodia" issue sharply, Nixon replied calmly: No matter how suspicion was at the time, the first thing he thought of was the Philadelphia construction workers. Because he told me that if you intervene early, you will find the weapon that killed my son! So I will not regret the invasion of Cambodia. On the contrary, I even think it should be earlier and more powerful!
The reason why this episode is impressive is not in Nixon's answer itself, but in Fox's speechlessness and Rockwell's "he is very confident" evaluation. Their reaction fully demonstrated that even those Americans who most strongly opposed Nixon were in agreement with the United States on the issue of whether they should be able to use force only out of suspicion that they might be threatened, or even sacrifice a large number of innocent civilians. The government holds the same position. And it is precisely because the thinking about the nature of war from the government down to the ordinary people is based on the wrong position (at least from the perspective of outside the Americans) and low moral footing, that’s why For more than half a century, a large number of anti-war works of various art forms have emerged, but the United States is a country that is against the Vietnam War, from the Korean War to the Iraq War...
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