Stone Probes Character, Not Conspiracy

The first image in “Nixon” is a title card, white letters on a black screen, that reads “This film is an attempt to understand the truth of Richard Nixon, thirty-seventh President of the United States. It is based on numerous public sources and on an incomplete historical record.

In consideration of length, events and characters have been condensed, and some scenes among protagonists have been conjectured.”

With those words, director Oliver Stone seems to be issuing a pre-emptive strike against the criticism that doubtless will greet the release of his 12th film, an exhaustive look at the life of Nixon, from childhood to his resignation from the White House in 1974.

Stone has been here before - with 1991’s “JFK,” his examination of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. That film, which freely mixed fact and fiction in daring, assaultive cinematic style, prompted a wave of angry editorials and magazine essays attacking the director for passing his theories off as truth.

In essence, these critics claimed, Stone was trying to rewrite history.

His response? So be it. “I think history NEEDS to be rewritten, because the facts are not agreed upon. I am very proud of ‘JFK.’ … Was I more careful (with ‘Nixon’)? Yes and no. We’ve gotten into open conjecture in the movie. We’re open to criticism, and we’ll probably get some from both sides. But it’s not as much of a conspiracy movie. It’s more of a character study.”

Stone is feeling a sting from the “JFK” experience. He has published a book preceding the release of “Nixon” - the entire annotated screenplay, with footnotes indicating the sources used by Stone and writers Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson.

He published a similar book for “JFK,” but only after the criticism began to snowball.