Secret Honor
Philip Baker Hall is one of those ‘character actors’ whose face and voice are incredibly familiar. You feel like you have seen him many times – because you have. He was Sidney in Midnight Run, and the IRS boss in Say Anything. He was the Police Commissioner in Ghostbusters II and Floyd Gondolli in Boogie Nights. He was Senator Matt Hunt in The West Wing, and Dr. Bowman in the recently released Bad Words. Yes, he’s that guy – the quintessential supporting actor. But did you know he also played Richard Nixon?
Secret Honor began life as a play, written by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone – who then adapted it for film. The project was directed by the legendary Robert Altman, with Philip Baker Hall taking the lead – and only role. Essentially a 90 minute monologue, Secret Honor sees a disgraced Nixon prowling around his study in his New Jersey home, in the late 1970s. Surrounded by CCTV, a loaded revolver, a bottle of whiskey and a tape recorder capturing everything for posterity, Nixon covers a multitude of topics concerning his life and career – all the while riding a wave of emotions, from sadness and rage, to suspicion and disappointment.
During this masterful and surprising tour-de-force by Hall, we see each of Nixon’s faces – the self-deprecating, unsure man of humble beginnings, the self-pitying martyr, the master of denial and the petty scam artist. Alternating between rage and reflection, Nixon eventually lays bare his truth about Watergate in such a way as to, once again, absolve himself of any wrongdoing. It was the fault of the American people, you see, because they just loved him too much, and he had to sabotage that strength of feeling before they had the chance to vote for him again. From his point of view, he sacrificed himself to save them from their own blind adoration.
For an actor who rarely carries an entire project, Secret Honor is astonishing. Hall inhabits Nixon and presents a man who is at times unravelling, at times trying to convince himself of his own virtue, and at times presenting himself for the approval of a perceived audience – those transcribing the tape he is recording on, and beyond. He fills the screen and keeps us engaged with him – alone – for the full 90 minutes, shouldering the responsibility of dialling the tension up and down as necessary, in an otherwise sparse production.
