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

Masculinity in Oliver jewels NixonI. Introduction When electric chair Nixon was going the White House, Henry Kissinger comforted him by saying, History will litigate you kindly, to which Nixon replied, That depends on who writes the level (Hamburg xiv). 1 Watching Oliver gemstones 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 2 ways first, in the directors fixation on Nixon as a image of the corrupt political landscape after President bottom Kennedys assassination, and, second, his fixation on Nixon as a symbol of a fai lead patriarch or an ineffective father figure who led the country into further turmoil. Stone has argued that he hoped to elicit sympathy for Nixon, provided I will show that the directors emphasis on Nixon as an epic poem tragedy, especially in conjunction with the Beast thesis, does non allow for sympathy or unde rstanding of the man or his politics. 2 My psychoanalysis primarily focuses on Stones film Nixon, but it is singular to mention JFK, since both films were embroiled in heated debates regarding historical genuineness and artistic license. In JFK, Stone pieces together several conspiracy theories as to who was responsible for President Kennedys assassination from real primary texts, discussion footage, ear and eye witnesses, and the Zapruder film, among others. In Nixon, Stone uses similar techniques to posit every bit 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 occurrence and speculation Of course, theres license and speculation, but they are found 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 of import 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 breathing in 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 position historical facts that are shown in Nixon.