Secret Honor
With Philip Baker Hall.
US, 1984, 35mm, color, 90 min.
Print source: HFA
In the one-man play filmed while he taught at the University of Michigan, Altman’s usual ensemble cast is less stripped away than perhaps concentrated all in the figure of Richard Milhous Nixon—or his half-fictional spectre, as piercingly inhabited by brilliant character actor Philip Baker Hall. Surrounded by presidential portraits and his own image on surveillance cameras, Nixon records his feverish, stream-of-consciousness confession on the same machine that led to his descent. His racing, stuttering, humorous, pitiful delivery unravels like an urgent exorcism not only of Nixon’s sins but of the entire country’s. Some of his conspiratorial admissions are brilliant explanations—whether true or not—of the deeply convoluted layers of political denial, corruption and media collusion. Yet perhaps the most difficult revelation Altman offers is that within that dark web of money and power is an actual, empathetic human being, wrestling with a mass of personal demons and at the mercy of ungovernable forces.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Vincent & Theo
Fool for Love
Prêt-à-porter
California Split
Thieves Like Us
A Perfect Couple
A Prairie Home Companion
O.C. and Stiggs
That Cold Day in the Park
Corn's-A-Poppin'
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Gingerbread Man
Dr. T and the Women
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
