Secret Honor

(for the Laserdisc notes: aspect ratio is 4:3)

It's interesting to know some background of the film. First, Secret Honor began as a stage play written by Donald Freed. Altman toured it around the country. These notes are derived form the commentary tracks on the laserdisc.

The filming occurred while Altman was in residence at the University of Michigan. The set was constructed in a residence hall and video cameras were installed so that students could observe the production. Graduate students in the film program filled many of the technical positions.

The play was shot on 16mm film, which was then enlarged to make 35mm release prints. Consequently, the photographic quality is rather flat. There's no denying the power and accomplishment of Philip Baker Hall's performance, however.

"Secret Honor" is an actor's wet dream.

This screen adaptation of a one-man play stars Philip Baker Hall as Richard Nixon on the dark night that follows his resignation from the office of President of the United States. The film makes clear from the outset that it is not a representation of facts but rather a fictional exploration of the thoughts and feelings that may have been torturing Nixon at the time. Hall has the screen to himself and gives a fierce, if rather one-note, performance. The material isn't very deep and doesn't give Hall a lot of room to explore, but I suppose it succeeds on its own modest terms.

Robert Altman made this film at the apex of his disenfranchisement from the mainstream Hollywood system. He filmed it at the University of Michigan with the assistance of Michigan students, and the tiny budget and minimal resources show. It's not remotely cinematic, though Altman makes a solid effort to make it so. Though the action is confined to Nixon's private office, Altman frequently pans his camera over to a bank of security cameras that Nixon has trained on himself, so that much of the time we're watching an image of Hall on a T.V. monitor rather than Hall himself. The message is clear -- Nixon, and by extension any politician, is constantly performing, even in his most private moments. Once one takes the oath of the presidency, he can't ever stop being the president. How good a job would any one of us do under similar circumstances, and how harshly do we have the right to judge our leaders?

Admittedly, much of my lack of enjoyment of "Secret Honor" is my own fault. It made me realize how little I actually know about Nixon's presidency, which was over in the years just before I was born, and I wasn't able to understand many of the film's references. As is often the case, my knowledge of the more distant past is greater than events that have occurred within my lifetime.

Grade: B

Any individual is a puzzle, and Richard M. Nixon was no exception, rather living proof. To those who know him and his story (wether through a variety of books or personal experience or even through Oliver Stone's excellent "Nixon") this is a magnificent epilogue that instead of tying all loose threads together, reopens wounds and reformulates old and tired questions.

The film is a mix of fragments of a complex and important life (one that helped shape the modern world) and an equally complex mind. Since only a very long (and impossible, given the obvious budget) running time could grace this with a tight sense of structure, the performance becomes the binding element, which is the key element of this picture. Whether you are interested in history, Nixon himself, character suffering, paranoia, film or acting, this is a must-see, if only for the brilliant performance by Philip Baker Hall. His portrayal of Nixon blows Anthony Hopkins's away in terms of accuracy and is a mighty challenger in terms of acting alone. He may be less sympathetic than Hopkins, but such was one of the real Nixon's flaws (in interviews the real Hall is quite charming!).

Turning a play - especially a one-man-show - into a film is quite a challenge, but Altman, through simple yet effective means (notably the use of security-camera monitors and portraits), cranks up the intimacy and paranoia, ending the film in an uneasy and dark manner that would never be conceivable on stage.

In fewer words, suffice to say that this unusual little film is in truth a giant in movie-making resourcefulness and talent. Unmissable.

A fictionalized former President Richard M. Nixon offers a solitary, stream-of-consciousness reflection on his life and political career - and the "true" reasons for the Watergate scandal and his resignation.

This comes down to one thing: an examination of the acting skills of Philip Baker Hall. Since the direction is so limited, it really cannot say anything good or bad about Robert Altman (who had already made his name by this point).

Hall's Nixon is something of a madman. He fluctuates through every range of emotion within 90 minutes, at times flipping between anger and suicidal tendencies. What a wild ride. Of course, the film is clearly marked as fiction... so we should not assume this person was in any way related to the real Nixon.

"You, ladies and gentlemen of the American jury, shall look at the face that is under the mask!" - Philip Baker Hall (Richard Nixon)

It takes 12 minutes for Robert Altman's "Secret Honor" to really get going, the audience having to endure some terribly dated TV music and lots of theatrical posturing by Philip Baker Hall, but once the actor begins his meaty monologue, it's hard not to be transfixed.

Hall, of course, plays former president Richard Nixon. Recently disgraced by the Watergate fiasco, he prances about his private office with a loaded gun and a glass of whisky, spewing scorn at the Kennedy's, Helen Douglas, Henry Kissinger and a mysterious group called both "The Committee of 100" and "The Bohemian Grove".

Employing students from the University of Michigan, and a script that sticks religiously to a stage play by Donald Freed and Arnold Stone, "Secret Honor" is a fairly small scale project for Altman. Still, there are at least four interesting things being done.

The first is the film's location. Altman doesn't use his small set with the same gusto that Stone does in "Talk Radio", Hitchcock does in "Rear Window" or Lumet does in "12 Angry Men", but he does add his own little flourishes here and there. For example, Altman surrounds Nixon's room with wall-mounted pictures of past presidents and places a huge bank of security monitors to one side. The effect is such that Nixon, whose monologue takes the form of a courtroom plea of defence, is addressing a jury that is at once himself, we the audience and those political figures he both admirers and detests. There's therefore a sense of profound scrutiny, Nixon waging a war for his own innocence, politicians over his shoulders, a security camera in his face, a national audience behind his back and a bank of monitors recording his every move.

The second interesting thing is Hall's performance itself. Unlike Stone's "Nixon" or Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon", "Secret Honour" is categorically not an attempt to portray some "ultimate truth" of Nixon. Instead, Altman creates something more fragmented; a creature with different faces, facets and feelings. Altman demonizes as he humanises, deconstructs as he constructs, each of Hall's anecdotes serving only to further muddy the water. Altman's Nixon is both raging bull and wounded child, Altman content to create a portrait that is as baffling as it is complex.

The third interesting thing is Nixon's insistence that it was a mysterious group of powerful figures who orchestrated and mismanaged his career. He calls them "The Bohemian Grove", a cadre of economic power brokers to whom Nixon is nothing more than a paid lackey and perpetual outsider. Even as he damns them, Nixon mourns that he was never fully accepted by this group.

The fourth interesting thing is Nixon's insistence that he staged Watergate deliberately in an attempt to get himself out of office. This claim is filled with ridiculous reversals. The honourable president made himself guilty, he says, committed a deliberately obvious crime, not because he was a paranoid, power hungry mad man, but because he was too noble, too just and great, to associate further with the cartels, criminals and deplorable politicians who were pulling his strings.

Watergate thus shifts from becoming a criminal act, to an act of nobility. Nixon, the man so used and abused that he had to sacrifice his own career for the greater good. Poor boy.

7.9/10 – This is essentially filmed theatre. Still, Hall delivers a fascinating monologue that is both riveting and demented. Incidentally, Altman pretender Paul Thomas Anderson would use actor Philip Baker Hall extensively throughout his filmography, casting him in "Sydney", "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights". Worth one viewing.