Let's discuss Nixon!

[Josh500 1,615]

What do you like about Nixon (score and/or movie)? Which are your favorite tracks, and why? Do you think this movie/score is over or underrated?

I gotta be honest, when I first heard Nixon, I was disappointed (that came right after JP, so quite understandable). However, over the years I've come to appreciate this score tremendeously. It gets a solid 4 stars from me. Especially "Turbulent Years," "Break-In," and "Mao" are my favorites.

This is one of the few JW-scored movies I have never seen... can anyone tell me if it's worth buying it on DVD?

Cheers!

[Quintus 5,399]

Let's discuss Nixon!

Lets not.

[Jeshopk 8]

It's very Mahlerian scoring as Oliver Stone said. I very much like the use of a large symphony for what is essentially a character portrait. The score is not without modernisms and synthesis as well. I find it to be a pretty bad recording of a great composition. If only the recording sounded as crystal clear and vibrant as Rosewood. I ran Miami Convention through a Todd AO scoring stage reverb impulse one time, and it sounded much better.

I very much like the clashing chords to describe the complexity of the emotions and the portrayals. Williams admired the Shawshank score according to one interview, and I thiink I hear a little inspiration in that it is simultaneously major an minor in many places.

The ominous white house music which is played as the camera dollies in through the front gates is quite humorous, and I can see Oliver and Williams deliberating on this moment. It is as if the White House has become Pankot Palace. This is almost a Family Guy moment and I feel it s intentional. Quite theatrical for a modern historical film. The solo piano music for the cue which plays as Nixon speaks to the Lincoln portrait is itself a portrait of a broken man. The meeting with Mao takes you into Mao's lair. The final track's mixed optimism is a portrait of Nixon's strange personality. Nixon used to listen to Victory at Sea and Mahler, and Williams has said he tries to write the music of the characters' inner souls (in an Angelas Ashes interview). I think he did as good a job as could be done at that task with Nixon - capturing paranoia, tragedy, grandeur, love and aggressive conquest.

I'm glad Williams did not score W, because that film was treated much less theatrically. It was more in line with your average docudrama and less boldly rendered. Dramatic music might have felt out of place there, but in Stone's style for Nixon, it works great.

[TownerFan 4,983]

I agree with Jesse's observations.

I always liked how Williams scored the picture as a kind of tormented musical portrait of a complex, ambiguous man. The film mixes a Shakespearean tone with modern film storytelling technique (a mixture of flashback and flashforwards), so I guess it wasn't a very easy task for the composer to find a perfect musical balance. The music is like a kind of recitative for the main character, accompanying him in his journey into the darkness.

Personally, my own favourite moments are the Americana writing for Nixon's childhood, the "Meeting with Mao" sequence and the bold, bombastic personality of the Overture (which was originally composed for the trailer, I believe). However, I have to admit that the first time I listened to "1960s: The Turbulent Years" I figured out Darth Vader walking down the White House aisles...

[Incanus 5,714]

I feel that Nixon is one of the most deft psychological portraits in music the Maestro has ever done. The score is singularly focused on Nixon. It leans heavily towards the Mahlerian and even Herrmannesque in how Williams depicts the main character's inner feelings, his triumphs, losses and inner darkness, I would call it the thirst for power, which in the end is his downfall.

 

The film feels very much like an homage of sorts to another great character portrait film, Citizen Kane. The White House opening of Nixon is clearly inspired by the Xanadu gates from Kane, the music adding an operatic sense of foreboding to the simple of image of camera gliding toward the fence and the presidential residence and if to say that drama and dark plots are waiting for the audience

.

The scoring alternates between nostalgic and optimistic and tragic, eerie and cold as we are shown all different aspects of the character of Nixon. It is like he has 2 personas in the film, one public to which he was a slave to, and the private one, which aspired to do good but in the end was thwarted by the corruption of power.

Williams once again provides a very leitmotivic and clever score for the film. He foreshadows and draws links to Stone's collage style of cutting which presents images from before and after present film time to form a web of interconnected ideas. Nixon's character has several themes, two of which are presented in the White House Gate cue. The Nixon fanfare, representing his lofty goals and good side of his persona is muted, twisted under the orchestral gloom, the Darkness/Loneliness motif follows in very eerily on synths with heavy explosion like accompaniment which refers to the tragedies of Vietnam. This motif is fully explored mostly in the present time of the film when Nixon's fall is evident, his resignation looming and he feels trapped, betrayed, alone and lost. This theme receives its longest variation in the I Am that Sacrifice cue after the resignation.

 

The Power theme which is the main theme developed through the film and represents the corruption of power Nixon succumbs to. This is heard in the Turbulent Years, Making a Comeback and many other cues. Superficial 3 note resemblance to Imperial March aside the theme is malleable enough for Williams to use it in clever ways in the score. The Love Field: Dallas, November 1963 sees the theme transformed into a countdown motif for the approaching assassination of Kennedy which is implied in the scenes. It also implies the power behind the throne so to speak, the people who back up Nixon and with who he is willing to make a deal for presidency. Making a Comeback presents a brooding, evil variation on the theme, the Miami Convention 1968 brings it together with the Nixon fanfare turning his victorious acceptance speech first so full of hope and personal triumph into a horrid depiction of tragedies performed during his presidency. Here we see the fall from grace in pictures and music as a collage. In trying to do good Nixon succumbed to horrible deeds. The music is blazing with power and marching victoriously only to be cut in abrupt brass fanfare and eerie finale.

 

The positive side of Nixon and his memories of home also receive a theme of their own. The Americana theme which is connected to the Nixon fanfare is very nostalgic, warm and homely when he reminisces about his childhood and home. It is used when ever a positive side of him is shown or we see his victories and successes.

 

Beautiful and tragic moment is Meeting with Mao where Williams composed an independent musical moment, still completely a part of the musical palette of the score, and to me fully captures the tragedy of the scene. There comes the ultimate realization to Nixon on how people see him, how he feeds his own hunger for acceptance and love with countless victims and how even more chillingly he decides to continue on that path. The music supports the notion and underlines the tragedy.

 

The Farewell Scene ends the film in a positive note. Here Williams composed a kind of reconciliation for the character using his positive theme and the fanfare. Nixon is only human after all, makes mistakes and finally accepted that. In his departure he is treated with respect by the film makers whether he deserved it or not.

As some might guess I really love this score and like the film very much.

[Hlao-roo 389]

[David Coscina 3]

It's very Mahlerian scoring as Oliver Stone said. I very much like the use of a large symphony for what is essentially a character portrait. The score is not without modernisms and synthesis as well. I find it to be a pretty bad recording of a great composition. If only the recording sounded as crystal clear and vibrant as Rosewood. I ran Miami Convention through a Todd AO scoring stage reverb impulse one time, and it sounded much better.

Jesse, you hear Mahler? I actually hear more Prokofiev, especially in those bi-tonal brass chords in Miami. Even in his "Nixon" theme with that rising string figure, the harmonic treatment sounds way more Sergei and Gustav whose chromatic harmonic sense was more fluid- Prokofiev liked throwing in misleading modulations in a very block-like sense, where a chord change was on a strong beat (partly the whole Russian school of composition with the emphasis on strong beat harmonic motion) whereas Mahler's later works especially were so contrapuntal that his tonal centre was obscured by constant motion in the inner voices.

I was puzzled when Stone himself mentioned the Mahler thing in an interview because I'm a Mahler nut and I didn't here Gustav in the score. But I think the standout tracks are outstanding. I wish someone would release an expanded score with the music that accompanies Harold's funeral- I love the string elegy that beautiful resolves into the rising Nixon figure. Just awesome writing.

I also agree that Nixon was Stone's Shakespearean take on history and to a larger extent, the nature of people in politics just like Henry V. Or Titus.

[Jeshopk 8]

I felt it was slightly Mahlerian in the feelings it gives me more than the particular techniques - with personal light and dark combined and taking turns - first movement of 5th symphony as an example - as well as well as in the idea of painting a complex biography in huge symphonic terms. Mahler's symphonies are said to be about himself, and this score was almost like an autobiography bu Nixon. I hear what you mean about the Russian influence, if we are talking something like Nevsky.

[David Coscina 3]

I felt it was slightly Mahlerian in the feelings it gives me more than the particular techniques - with personal light and dark combined and taking turns - first movement of 5th symphony as an example - as well as well as in the idea of painting a complex biography in huge symphonic terms. Mahler's symphonies are said to be about himself, and this score was almost like an autobiography. I hear what you mean about the Russian influence, if we are talking something like Nevsky.

Jesse, thanks for the clarification. Yes, I do agree with the way the music is composer with its slightly bi-polar approach. Mahler can be offputting to some because his music takes all these emotional turns and I do agree that Williams captured the duality of Nixon in his score which is dark but also pastoral at times.

To me, Stone's NIXON is the equivalent of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible Pts 1 and 2. A complex portrait of a flawed character in a turblulent setting. Prokofiev's score to Ivan was also beautiful, and I personally find it more layered than Alexander Nevsky although I love that one too.

[Jeshopk 8]

I felt it was slightly Mahlerian in the feelings it gives me more than the particular techniques - with personal light and dark combined and taking turns - first movement of 5th symphony as an example - as well as well as in the idea of painting a complex biography in huge symphonic terms. Mahler's symphonies are said to be about himself, and this score was almost like an autobiography. I hear what you mean about the Russian influence, if we are talking something like Nevsky.

Jesse, thanks for the clarification. Yes, I do agree with the way the music is composer with its slightly bi-polar approach. Mahler can be offputting to some because his music takes all these emotional turns and I do agree that Williams captured the duality of Nixon in his score which is dark but also pastoral at times.

To me, Stone's NIXON is the equivalent of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible Pts 1 and 2. A complex portrait of a flawed character in a turblulent setting. Prokofiev's score to Ivan was also beautiful, and I personally find it more layered than Alexander Nevsky although I love that one too.

Someone put the beginning of Ivan up as Phantom Menace Music in 1999 as a hoax. Good thing I had heard it because I would have been shocked. I agree with you here. It is crazy music. I do like the simplicity and tongue in cheek of something like Lt. Kije for Prokofiev musical portraiture.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Score: 3

Film: I'm not familiar.

[Datameister 2,042]

I'm not familiar with either.

[Wojo 2,453]

I've never found interest in the movie, and never felt a compulsion to buy the score.

[Ollie 1,059]

Can I have some?

Well I do enjoy the score, I guess I would give it a 3.5 actually.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I don't enjoy the movie or the music, really.

[Josh500 1,615]

Thanks, Jeshopk, Maurizio, and Icanus for your insightful reviews... I think I will shell out the 8 Euros after all and get the DVD, so I can appreciate this wonderful and amazingly complex score even more...

[John Crichton 4]

The Turbulent Years is a very good cue, everything after is Ambien in music form.

[QMM 4]

I'm really enjoying the comments in here, really insightful stuff.

[Josh500 1,615]

The Turbulent Years is a very good cue, everything after is Ambien in music form.

That's what I thought when I first got it 14 years ago...

But now, as I said, I've rediscovered the score, so to speak...

[Jarbas 1]

The score is amazing! In the same level of other Williams/Stone collaborations.

I've used The Turbulent Years as a Main Title for my Williams' The Incredible Hulk score.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

The Turbulent Years is a very good cue, everything after is Ambien in music form.

"Growing Up in Whittier" is another highlight for me. Has a unique atmosphere to it, at the same time nostalgic and unsettling.

[Josh500 1,615]

I love what JW does halfway through "The Ellsberg Break-In and Watergate." Is anyone else reminded of the unreleased cue from The Lost World (might be a bit of a stretch, but you know what I mean)? Anyway, what that's percussion called?

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

The Turbulent Years is a very good cue, everything after is Ambien in music form.

Reading this thread is Ambien, period!

I'd give both movie and score 4s.

[A24 4,331]

Do people here think Hopkins was the right choice? I love Hopkins but not in a role where he portrays a famous American. I never believed him and so the movie was a failure to me.

Alex

[Quintus 5,399]

He was by far the best thing about the movie, as always. I thought his performance was incredible, from what I remember (its been many years since I watched it).

[Incanus 5,714]

Do people here think Hopkins was the right choice? I love Hopkins but not in a role where he portrays a famous American.

Alex

Hopkins' performance is good but it is not an imitation of Nixon in mannerisms or even accent. He just can't do a good American accent. He tends to play all American characters with one accent that veers toward Irish American no matter where they are from. I think he does a fine performance in depicting the inner turmoil, the isolation, the haunted and driven personality of Nixon. The posture of the character, rigid, vary always self conscious, shoulders stooped, nervous. These are the good qualities I think he brings to the character while also showing us the rare sight of the personal and warm Nixon. Hopkins himself was a bit unsure whether to take the role but finally agreed to it because of the chance to work with Stone. Interestingly other actors Stone briefly thought for the role were Gene Hackman, Robin Williams and Tommy Lee Jones and finally Warren Beatty who wanted too many script changes so he wasn't cast. The studio wanted Tom Hanks or Jack Nicholson.

[A24 4,331]

Hopkins' performance is good but it is not an imitation of Nixon in mannerisms or even accent. He just can't do a good American accent. He tends to play all American characters with one accent that veers toward Irish American no matter where they are from.

That's it, I guess, and that's why I don't like to see Hopkins playing Americans (save for Hannibal in Silence Of The Lambs). The accent kills everything.

Alex

[Josh500 1,615]

Aside from the accent (maybe), Anthony Hopkins is a tremendously gifted actor... and that makes up for a lot!

I haven't seen Nixon yet, so I can't tell, but I wouldn't have wanted to see Robin Williams or Tom Hanks as Nixon...

[A24 4,331]

I tell you what movies he's good in:

The Elephant Man

The Bounty

84 Charing Cross Road

The Silence Of The Lambs

Howards End

The Remains Of The Day

The Edge (American accent?)

Titus

The World's Fastest Indian (Australian accent?)

[Josh500 1,615]

Listing the movies where he wasn't good in would be easier, I think.

[Quintus 5,399]

that's why I don't like to see Hopkins playing Americans (save for Hannibal in Silence Of The Lambs). The accent kills everything.

Speaking as an Englishman, Hopkins' Welsh-American always convinces

[Josh500 1,615]

Hey, question to those who know the score AND have seen the movie:

Are most of the tracks on the OS actuallly used in the movie? Alternately, are most of the highlights of the score on the album?

[Incanus 5,714]

Hey, question to those who know the score AND have seen the movie:

Are most of the tracks on the OS actuallly used in the movie? Alternately, are most of the highlights of the score on the album?

Yes the cohesion between the album and the film is much better than say in JFK which was scored in a very different way in any case. Williams of course has combined music from different sections on some tracks of the album but most of the pieces appear to be intact in the film.

Some highlights are missing from the album. Nixon losing the election against Kennedy cue where he discusses the defeat with his wife contains a wonderful melancholy piano led piece which leads to his memories of his childhood in Whittier and some of his Good theme on piano. Similarly the scene of his brother's funeral contains wonderfully emotional writing in the vein of Shmi's funeral music in Episode II. But most of the highlights are on the CD. Of course as a huge fan of the score I would not mind a complete presentation of it.

[Josh500 1,615]

Has everybody seen this clip? One of the best trailers, I thought...

I wonder whether "Turbulent Years" was composed just for the trailer... like in the case of Hook. Anyway, I have GOT to get the movie.

[Trumpeteer 302]

The theme for Nixon's brother gives me goosebumps. Just listen to those strings in "Losing a Brother." I'm not sure why the theme is used in "November 1963," though I haven't seen the movie in many years and cannot recall the images associated with it.

Using the snare drums from "JFK" in "November 1963" was a cool choice, though I doubt the casual filmgoer picked up on it (these drums aren't on the album).

And the music for the Watergate break-in is reminiscent of music in "JFK," but still enjoyable on its own.

I like the score much better than the film, and I think it lies in the fact that Stone made two movies: the Nixon portrait film and the anti-Vietnam film. They seemed to clash often.

[Incanus 5,714]

The theme for Nixon's brother gives me goosebumps. Just listen to those strings in "Losing a Brother." I'm not sure why the theme is used in "November 1963," though I haven't seen the movie in many years and cannot recall the images associated with it.

Using the snare drums from "JFK" in "November 1963" was a cool choice, though I doubt the casual filmgoer picked up on it (these drums aren't on the album).

And the music for the Watergate break-in is reminiscent of music in "JFK," but still enjoyable on its own.

I like the score much better than the film, and I think it lies in the fact that Stone made two movies: the Nixon portrait film and the anti-Vietnam film. They seemed to clash often.

Love Field: Dallas, November 1963 is composed of 2 cues, first the Nixon doing a deal with the Texan business men and the approaching Kennedy assassination where Williams utilizes the Power theme as a countdown motif for the assassination and to illustrate the seduction of power that is offered the Nixon. The snare drum JFK motif is obviously tracked in which is no big surprise in a Stone movie. Then the track jumps a few minutes ahead in the film and presents a small part of a longer cue which underscores the images of Nixon's childhood and his younger brother dying which uses the Nixon Family/ Good Nixon theme (4;12->end).

Losing a Brother presents the Nixon Family/Good Nixon theme again (1;43->). I don't remember which scene this track underscores in the film though. It does not appear in either of the scenes where Nixon's brothers die. Harold's Funeral contains a beautiful short string elegy which sadly is not on the album.

[TownerFan 4,983]

Has everybody seen this clip? One of the best trailers, I thought...

I wonder whether "Turbulent Years" was composed just for the trailer... like in the case of Hook.

Yes, Williams composed the piece for the trailer.

[Josh500 1,615]

Has everybody seen this clip? One of the best trailers, I thought...

I wonder whether "Turbulent Years" was composed just for the trailer... like in the case of Hook.

Yes, Williams composed the piece for the trailer.

Is there a source?

Did JW maybe say that on the hard-to-access interview hidden on the Nixon album?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It's well known.

[Maestro 147]

I love this score. It is, as many have pointed out, so many different things: tormented, villainous, tragic, beautiful. I adore the "Growing Up in Whittier" material (any time Williams and Tim Morrison get together it's a good thing). Of course the Mao scene is gorgeous. The complexity and bipolarity really enhances this score rather than detract from its aesthetic enjoyability.

The film is a huge (guilty?) pleasure of mine. I feel that Hopkins turns in a magnificent performance. I never was bother by any accent discrepancies, and it is all the more magnificent when you look at the context of his body of work; the man is so versatile. It has such a strong ensemble cast of great actors. The style and depth of the film really makes for an engaging experience. And, even though Stone made the film clearly not liking Nixon the man, this film piqued my interested in Richard Nixon in an indescribable way, and he has become one of my favorite characters in history, and probably the one I am most fascinated by. Stone may take tons of liberties with history in his films, but they sure whet my appetite to learn more about American history from WWII on. I became obsessed with the JFK assassination after watching his film, and like I said, Nixon made an enormous impact on me as it gave me the man Nixon to read about and study for the last several years.

For what it's worth.

[Josh500 1,615]

I love this score. It is, as many have pointed out, so many different things: tormented, villainous, tragic, beautiful. I adore the "Growing Up in Whittier" material (any time Williams and Tim Morrison get together it's a good thing). Of course the Mao scene is gorgeous. The complexity and bipolarity really enhances this score rather than detract from its aesthetic enjoyability.

The film is a huge (guilty?) pleasure of mine. I feel that Hopkins turns in a magnificent performance. I never was bother by any accent discrepancies, and it is all the more magnificent when you look at the context of his body of work; the man is so versatile. It has such a strong ensemble cast of great actors. The style and depth of the film really makes for an engaging experience. And, even though Stone made the film clearly not liking Nixon the man, this film piqued my interested in Richard Nixon in an indescribable way, and he has become one of my favorite characters in history, and probably the one I am most fascinated by. Stone may take tons of liberties with history in his films, but they sure whet my appetite to learn more about American history from WWII on. I became obsessed with the JFK assassination after watching his film, and like I said, Nixon made an enormous impact on me as it gave me the man Nixon to read about and study for the last several years.

For what it's worth.

Yes. I think this is Oliver Stone's last really great movie...