“One of the most scathing, lacerating and brilliant movies of 1984... Nixon is portrayed by Philip Baker Hall ... with such savage intensity, such passion, such venom, such scandal, that we cannot turn away...”
Screened in tribute to Philip Baker Hall (1931 - 2022)
Holed up in his study with only a bottle of scotch, a tape-recorder and a gun for company, disgraced President Richard Milhous Nixon sets off on a long dark night of the soul in a passionate (and increasingly unhinged) attempt to defend himself and his political legacy. Based on the original play by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone, and starring Philip Baker Hall in a tour de force solo performance, Robert Altman’s Secret Honor (made for TV during Altman’s commercially fallow patch) is a searing interrogation of the Nixon mystique and an audacious depiction of unchecked paranoia.
