Masculinity in Oliver Stones Nixon :: Film Movie American History President Essays

Masculinity in Oliver rock musics NixonI. Introduction When professorship Nixon was passing the White House, Henry Kissinger comforted him by saying, History will compensate you kindly, to which Nixon replied, That depends on who writes the fib (Hamburg xiv). 1 Watching Oliver gems Nixon (1995) and the directors earlier film JFK (1991), it is difficult to have kind thoughts about Richard Nixon. Stones investment in the figure of the president manifests itself in dickens ways first, in the directors fixation on Nixon as a symbol of the corrupt political landscape after President conjuring trick Kennedys assassination, and, second, his fixation on Nixon as a symbol of a failight-emitting diode patriarch or an ineffective father figure who led the country into further turmoil. Stone has argued that he hoped to elicit sympathy for Nixon, nevertheless I will show that the directors emphasis on Nixon as an epos tragedy, especially in conjunction with the Beast thesis, does n ot allow for sympathy or understanding of the man or his politics. 2 My analytic thinking primarily focuses on Stones film Nixon, but it is renowned to mention JFK, since both films were embroiled in heated debates regarding historical legitimacy and artistic license. In JFK, Stone pieces together several conspiracy theories as to who was responsible for President Kennedys assassination from real primary texts, parole footage, ear and eye witnesses, and the Zapruder film, among others. In Nixon, Stone uses similar techniques to posit equally troubling theses the first that Nixon, while Vice President, was involved in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, and, second, that Nixon was directly or inadvertently responsible for the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy. Stone elects to create scenes and embellish information but defends his mixing of particular(prenominal) and speculation Of course, theres license and speculation, but they are establish on reasonable assumptions which weve discussed with highly reliable technical advisers who lived through the history were recounting in the film (Monsel 206). 3 Regardless of historical inaccuracies, it is semiprecious to analyze how Stone constructs Nixons personae, as well as the epic thesis of the Beast in American politics, because, through both, Stone deconstructs the American ideology of the ideal man, as well as the American imagine of success. II. American Capitalist Ideology and Marketing of Nixon and JFK. 4 The marketable nature of Stones controversy is elaborated in the ideologies he chooses to emphasize and the whitewashing of particular historical facts that are shown in Nixon.