Frank Langella on Frost/Nixon's Liberties

Posted by Michael Dance

Some critics and Oscar watchers have complained that Frost/Nixon takes too many liberties with its subject, specifically pointing to a scene (I mentioned it earlier) in which a drunken Nixon calls Frost the night before their final interview. Obviously, the scene is an invention of writer Peter Morgan.

I actually had a separate issue with the scene, of a more practical kind -- I thought Nixon's drunken monologue went on for way too long. (Yes, drunk people ramble in real life, but this is the movies.) Objecting to it for being fictional is wrongheaded for, in my opinion, a few reasons:

1. It's obviously fictional.

2. If it was true, there'd be absolutely no way to corroborate it, so it doesn't even matter if it's fictional or not.

3. The scene is thematically pivotal to the relationship Morgan is presenting between Nixon and Frost, especially as it's mentioned at two later points in the movie.

Langella himself seems to share my opinion (or, I suppose, it might be the other way around). In a video interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor -- who I never realized was quite as awesome as he seems in the video -- says:

The phone call, which did not happen, is very much the core of the film -- the core of the theme of the film -- which is, two men, in trouble in their careers, each determined to win. And one man saying to the other [...] however charming you might be, I'm going to cut your throat once the cameras start.

Follow the above link to watch it for yourself.

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Frank Langella on Frost/Nixon's Liberties

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