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Secret Honor

Secret Honor (1984)

June. 07,1985
|
7.2
| Drama

In his New Jersey study, Richard Nixon retraces the missteps of his political career, attempting to absolve himself of responsibility for Watergate and lambasting President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon him. His monologue explores his personal life and describes his upbringing and his mother. A tape recorder, a gun and whiskey are his only companions during his entire monologue, which is tinged with the vitriol and paranoia that puzzled the public during his presidency.

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Karry
1985/06/07

Best movie of this year hands down!

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CheerupSilver
1985/06/08

Very Cool!!!

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Cathardincu
1985/06/09

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

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Caryl
1985/06/10

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

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SnoopyStyle
1985/06/11

Former President Richard Milhous Nixon (Philip Baker Hall) is alone in his study talking into a tape recorder. He has his closed-circuit TV setup, his drinks and a gun. He talks to and about the portraits on the walls. His rants are rambling as he reflects on his life and what has happened to it.I'm not a fan of one-person plays that get transferred to the big screen. It starts from a deficit where it doesn't have the danger and the immediacy of a live show no matter who's doing it. The other problem is that this is a fictional account. It tells the audience right away that this is all fake. It's like an alternate universe and it's hard to say how much truth can be gleamed from this movie. Robert Altman can't do much more than point and shoot in this film. PBH is a great actor and I have great praises for his work. It's an interesting film to see him act but it's not much more than that. I rather have a well researched documentary about Nixon.

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evanston_dad
1985/06/12

"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

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Jason Forestein
1985/06/13

During the late 1970s, Robert Altman started to get weird. 3 Women was wonderfully strange, and certainly more enigmatic than many of the films this maverick had released before, but nothing prepared me for the unhinged brilliance of Secret Honor when, thanks to Criterion, I was finally able to see it. I had become aware of the film sometime during high school, when I became obsessed, more or less simultaneously, with Richard Nixon, Philip Baker Hall, and Robert Altman. Obviously, then, Secret Honor would have to be some sort of Holy Grail for me. When I finally saw it, my obsessions with Nixon and Hall had waned, but my Altman fixation had only grown. How did I find this film? I found it miraculous. I simply cannot believe how awesome a filmmaker Altman truly is. He's masterful with ensembles (see Gosford Park, Nashville, and Short Cuts), but here he shows himself king of the one- man show. Philip Baker Hall is magnetic as a fictionalized Richard Nixon and puts Anthony Hopkins's swell performance to shame. Hopkins may have gotten the syntax and speech patterns down, but Hall, and his thoroughly beaten physical demeanor, seems to embody Nixon more fully. Hall is a fantastic actor, but Altman must have been doing something right to pull this performance--which is tragic and absurd in equal measures--from anyone, no matter how talented. It's the perfect pitch to play the film, as playing Nixon with too much or too little pathos would have killed the movie. The staging of Secret Honor is also a marvel. It takes place in one room, which instills a wonderful sense of claustrophobia, and this room is absolutely cluttered, it seems, by objects that haunt Nixon. It's an amazing design and fits the story perfectly. Secret Honor rests among the greatest Altman films--McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, the Long Goodbye, 3 Women, and Short Cuts--because it's not only a terrific film but also because it shows how masterful Altman is with a range of styles. It's simply brilliant.

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kjaworski
1985/06/14

I recently 'took a flier' on this movie when I saw the new Criterion DVD on the store shelf. I remembered really wanting to see it, as I am a big Paul Thomas Anderson fan (this film is where he saw Philip Baker Hall and decided he was the best actor in America), as well as a fan of Hall's performance in "Hard Eight", PTA's debut."Secret Honor", a film adaptation of the play, which also starred Hall, is certainly a worthwhile viewing, though I'm not exactly carried away with praises as some critics seem to be.Hall certainly has more than a few exciting and inspired moments as former President Richard M. Nixon in this fictitious work that places him in his study for 90 minutes one night with alcohol, TV monitors, his mother's old piano, and various other elements that come into play.But, for me, the piece just doesn't have much realism for a play/film that has a premise which is certainly plausible. Hall sputters and rages his way through what is clearly a very difficult role (Hall says in an engrossing interview on the disc that when he was originally offered the role, he turned it down, as he didn't think the role was possible for any human actor, let alone desirable), but the specter of Nixon does not seem to be evoked in much of an authentic way here for me. In this sense, I prefer Anthony Hopkins' Nixon (which ALSO has a whopper of an ending), because I feel the former President's dark, brooding core is masterfully portrayed by the Welsh actor.Hall's bravado cannot be dismissed, however. I believe any real weakness from the piece comes from the original script itself, which places Nixon in a context I just don't feel he belongs. Why would Nixon take one night, years after the fact, to race through all of his misgivings about his fate, career, and life, in a rather traditionally theatrical way? That's just something that doesn't ring true for me, though some obviously disagree. I can't see Nixon doing many of the things that the script calls for. Truly taking on the awkward tag of "Political Myth" that it has may be of some benefit to viewers, though it's unclear what the term really means.Altman has some very nice moves here, topped off with a stunning conclusion, which makes certainly makes this picture worth a look. At the end of the day, I'm happy to have it in my collection.

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