Robert Altman’s adaptation of Donald Freed and Arnold M Stone’s one-man show. A bold historical speculation, shot in a week with students from the University of Michigan (where Altman was teaching), the film hinged on Hall’s colossal central performance, the definition of a tour de force.
Ranting and raving but vaguely sympathetic in repose, Hall’s Nixon ranks among the screen’s great portraits of compromised political power, suggesting – in Time Out’s verdict – “a sometimes lucid, sometimes lunatic incarnation of mediocrity, irredeemably tainted by fame and failure”.
The New York Times called Hall’s performance “as astonishing as it is risky – for the chances the actor takes and survives”.
As Altman understood, Hall’s gravity could also be wildly funny. Further evidence presented during his guest appearance on a 1991 episode of Seinfeld as Lt Joe Bookman, an officious detective tracking an overdue library book.
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