Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon tells the story of the famous interview between Richard Nixon and David Frost three years after Nixon's resignation. This interview would be the first televised interview that Nixon would do after the watergate scandal. The movie dramatizes both sides of the story showing Frost, a talk show host, struggling to come at Nixon with a hard line getting responses he wants and Nixon working hard to maintain an image throughout interview. In the movie it suggests that he chose to be interviewed by Frost because he did not believe that a talk show host would be much of a threat to his image but in an article published by Nixon's biographer he says that the real reason was the $600,000 offer that Nixon needed badly. That money was alos portrayed in the film to be somewhat of a greedy reason for Nixon but as Jonathan Aitken says in his article it was really the money Nixon needed to maintain his staff and home.

I was most interested in the interactions the Frost and Nixon are shown to have outside of the interviews because these are of course less documented than the interview itself which is covered almost word for word. Aitken says that the way that Frosts team is portrayed as being sneaky and outwitting Nixon was not really factual. In all reality most of the questions in the interview had been spoken about before the interview and he even goes so far as to say that when Nixon appears to be caught of guard it may have been staged. A critical part of the movie is when Nixon calls Frost and reveals some weakness. Aitken says that this phone call almost certainly did not happen and was added only for dramatization. Whether this interview was mostly staged or caught Nixon off guard as much as it appeared it was one of the most famous post presidential interviews ever and interesting to boot.

Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1127039/Nixon-v-Frost-The-true-story-really-happened-British-journalist-bullied-TV-confession-disgraced-ex-President.html
http://www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/132-spring-2010/3919245-frostnixon-historical-accuracy-and-pressgovernment-relations
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-drew/ifrostnixoni-a-dishonorab_b_150948.html