Nixon

Beginning of article

Nixon may not be the last word on the thirty-seventh president, but it is the ultimate Oliver Stone movie. The nature of the filmmaker is here, undistilled: the paranoia, the pretentiousness, the simple-minded views of recent American history and institutions, the spasmodic flashes of real talent, the shrewdness in selecting and directing actors, and--above all--the unbounded confidence of the man as he tries to explain all the historical convulsions of the last three decades by evoking the Fu Manchu nefariousness of a few organizations, as if Sax Rohmer or Ian Fleming had undertaken the task of an Arnold Toynbee.

Paranoia is both Stone's fuel and the gift he seeks to bestow on the public. His Nixon may be a mover and shaker but he is, first and last, a victim. A victim first of his own past--family background, era, economic origin, etc.--but also a victim of ... Them. And who are Them? The usual suspects: the C.I.A., evil Texas billionaires, the F.B.I., the mafia, anti-Castro Cubans. Stone just barely distinguishes among them and seems to feel that they work, if not together, on the same projects and toward the same goals.