Hearts on the Line

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"Whenever it wants, the past can come kicking the door down. And you never know where it's going to take you. All you can do is hope it's a place you want to go."

Adult Bobby (David Morse)

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I'm a fan of Stephen King, and I remember reading "Hearts in Atlantis" before I saw the movie, which hit the theaters on this day in 2001. It was not a single story. It was a collection of two novellas and three short stories that involved the same primary characters and were told in roughly chronological order. "Hearts in Atlantis" was merely the title of one of the pieces in the collection — and it wasn't even the title of the story that was told in the movie.

The movie was a dramatization of the first and longest story in the book, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." I suppose "Hearts in Atlantis" was considered a more marketable title — but its meaning had to have been virtually incomprehensible to anyone who saw the movie but had not read the book. In the movie adaptation, Atlantis was casually mentioned a couple of times, justifying the title

Having said that, I was impressed as always with Anthony Hopkins' work. He is already extensively recognized and praised, but I think that, in the future after he is gone, he will be seen in hindsight as one of the best actors of his generation — if not of all time.

Anton Yelchin, who played his young friend, might have been one of the best actors of his generation. Roger Ebert wrote that Yelchin "is not just a cute kid but a smart and wary one." That seems to have accurately described him as he grew and appeared in quite a few other movies. He didn't fall into the self–destructive trap in which so many child stars seem to fall, but tragically he died earlier this year in what can only be described as a freak accident.

The movie, Ebert wrote, "weaves a strange spell, made of nostalgia and fear. Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time." As he so often did, Ebert made the perfect observation.

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In my life I have learned that the best fiction writers are the ones who can vividly recall what it was like to be a child. The children in this story were living in 1960, which was before my time, but childhood experiences tend to be kind of universal, I guess. As such, I suppose it would be a natural assumption that anyone can write a story about being a child, which is not true. Anyone can feel a personal connection to such a story, but few can write the story. Fewer still can do it well.

I can think of no contemporary writer who is better at that than King, and "Hearts in Atlantis" really may have been one of his best — the best of the best. In the book, the novellas and short stories told the tale of Bobby (Yelchin), and that first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," was about an older man who was taken in as a boarder by Bobby's self–absorbed widowed mother (Hope Davis), who constantly complained about her late husband leaving nothing but debts when he died.

The story took place in the summer of Bobby's 11th year. His constant companions were Carol (Mika Boorem) and Sully (Will Rothhaar), but Ted (Hopkins) became his special friend, sort of a father figure for the fatherless boy.

In the book Ted and Bobby had a conversation about Carol that I was pleased to see was brought to the screen. Ted asked Bobby if he had kissed Carol; upon learning that he had not, Ted observed, "You will, and it will be the kiss by which all others in your life will be judged — and found wanting."

That isn't the sort of thing your typical 11–year–old wants to hear. But it is so true.

Having been an 11–year–old boy once, I know that most 11–year–old boys do like to talk about sports, and Bobby remembered his father telling him about seeing Babe Ruth and Bronko Nagurski. Ted told him about Nagurski's miraculous comeback. Six years after his retirement, Nagurski was persuaded to return to pro football because the NFL's teams had been depleted by World War II. He led the Chicago Bears to the NFL championship, as Ted said in the movie, but the victory he described over the crosstown rival Cardinals occurred on the final day of the regular season. It was not the NFL title game. That came against the Washington Redskins. Nagurski did score a touchdown in that game, but the Bears won that title game by 20 points.

Ted made it sound like Nagurski scored the touchdown that broke open a close game with the Cardinals, but that margin was 11 points. A little poetic license, I presume. Perhaps Ted knew that and just embellished the story a bit for Bobby's sake.

The movie was about the relationship between Ted and Bobby as much as anything — even though the movie began with the adult Bobby going to his old stomping grounds for Sully's funeral.

Ted recruited Bobby to be on the lookout for "low men," strange, mysterious men who wanted to have Ted under their control, apparently because of some kind of psychic ability Ted possessed.

"Some think of it as a gift," Ted told Bobby after confirming that the low men's pursuit of him was connected to the FBI's alleged recruitment of psychics in the war on communism, "but to me it's always been a burden."

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Although it received nary a nomination from the Academy Awards, I liked "Hearts in Atlantis," probably because it reminded me of my own childhood and adolescence.

Every young person should be fortunate enough to have a mentor like Ted. Not every one does, of course. The prisons are filled with folks who didn't have such a positive influence in their formative years. But I did. I called her Aunt Bess — as did everyone in my hometown. We talked about all sorts of things. Sometimes I read to her, much like Bobby did for Ted. And she shared her wisdom with me.

I guess she was sort of like a grandmother to me. My own grandmothers lived more than 300 miles away. I saw them a few times a year, usually around holidays. I could see Aunt Bess every week — and most weeks I did.

Aunt Bess wasn't psychic — probably, although she always seemed to know when I was fudging the truth. Maybe that is something all adults — or at least the ones who have been parents — know or seem to know.

The best ones aren't bothered when their young charges prove fallible. And Ted was one of the best ones. Even after he had been captured by the low men, as he was being taken away, he saw Bobby and told him he wouldn't have missed the experience of being Bobby's friend for anything — even though it was Bobby's mother who had played a key role in his capture.

'The Elephant Man' Was Blunt and Uncompromising

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"People are frightened by what they don't understand."

John Merrick (John Hurt)

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"The Elephant Man," which premiered on this date in 1980, was an extremely difficult movie to watch at times.

That does not mean it was a bad movie. Quite the contrary. Nearly everything about it was great. The acting was great. The directing was great. All the technical aspects of the movie were great.

The makeup was so impressive, in fact, that the Oscars were shamed into creating a new category for makeup and hairstyling the next year after Christopher Tucker's makeup work in "The Elephant Man" wasn't honored. Tucker wasn't overlooked deliberately by the Academy. There simply wasn't a category to recognize makeup artists.

Prior to that, two Special Achievement Oscars were awarded — to William Tuttle (in 1964 for "7 Faces of Dr. Lao") and John Chambers (in 1968 for "Planet of the Apes") — but there was no standing category for makeup artists (or, in Tucker's case, prosthetic work), and that was a mistake, considering the many great things that were done with makeup in the decades before "The Elephant Man."

The first recipient of the new Oscar — and, thus, the first beneficiary of the fallout from Tucker's snub — was Rick Baker for "An American Werewolf in London."

Tucker was recognized with an Oscar for Best Makeup a few years later.

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In all, "The Elephant Man" received eight Oscar nominations, tying it with "Raging Bull" for the most nominations that year, but it took none home. That may have been the greatest shock of that year's Oscars.

John Hurt was brilliant in the role of John Merrick (in reality, Merrick's first name was Joseph; I have no idea why it was changed for the movie), the grossly disfigured hero of the story, and he was recognized for his work with an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. (He lost to Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull.")

None of the other performers — Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller — were nominated, but the movie was nominated for Best Picture and David Lynch was nominated for Best Director. Both awards went to "Ordinary People."

It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. How on earth did it fail to win a single Oscar?

It couldn't be because the subject matter was regarded as too rough. The winner of Best Picture that year was "Ordinary People," a story about a family coming apart at the seams, and it could be every bit as difficult to watch as "The Elephant Man."

I suppose more people could relate to "Ordinary People" than "The Elephant Man," though. You never have to look very far to find a dysfunctional family, but Merrick suffered from a rare disease, one that hasn't touched a fraction of the people that dysfunction has. Still, even if far fewer people could relate to his circumstances, his character was every bit as sympathetic.

He endured all kinds of abuse in Victorian England as a result of his affliction — and abuse, unfortunately, is not uncommon, even in today's politically correct climate. Hurt's performance deserved all the praise that film critics were eager to heap on the movie.

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There were those in the movie who recognized what was happening. Merrick was a friendly and intelligent person, but he was hideous to behold, and that was what drove his treatment from others — and drove away those who might have been his friends.

"Can you imagine the kind of life he must have had?" pondered John Gielgud at one point.

"Yes, I think I can," replied Hopkins.

"I don't think so," Gielgud countered. "No one could possibly imagine it. I don't believe any of us can."

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Merrick was regarded as a freak by many; in fact, the movie opened with him in a carnival, advertised as the "Elephant Man."

It was early in the movie that the viewers began to get a real taste for the grim reality of Merrick's existence. By the time Hurt was introduced to Hannah Gordon, who played Hopkins' wife, most viewers must surely have perceived the irony of their conversation.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Merrick," she said.

"I'm very pleased ..." Merrick began but couldn't finish. He was overcome with emotion.

"What is it, John?" Hopkins asked, concern creeping into his voice. "What's the matter?"

"It's just that I'm not used to being treated so well by a beautiful woman," Merrick replied.

The fact that being told "I'm very pleased to meet you" upon being introduced to someone could be regarded as being treated well speaks volumes and is heartbreaking testimony to the life he led.

"The Elephant Man" was blunt and uncompromising. Hurt's performance may have been the most sensitive I have ever seen.

I still can't believe the American Film Institute did not include "The Elephant Man" in its Top 100 movies of all time list.

On The Road to Wellville

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Virginia (Camryn Manheim): The fresh air, the exercise and the pleasure of a leather saddle between one's thighs.

Eleanor (Bridget Fonda): Why, Virginia, what do you mean?

Virginia: Bicycle smile, I believe they call it.

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"The Road to Wellville," which premiered 20 years ago today, reminded everyone that every generation must deal with issues of bowel regularity. It is a normal biological function that no one seems to have fully mastered.

It was also a reminder that, while every generation may think it discovered sex, that is also a normal biological function that, in all of human history, no one seems to have fully mastered.

Consequently, there are always people whose mission in life it is to help those who struggle with such normal biological functions.

Such a person was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who ran a sanatorium in Battle Creek, Mich., preaching the benefits of diet, nutrition, exercise and enemas. He also advocated sexual abstinence.

If Battle Creek sounds familiar, it should. It has been the world headquarters of the Kellogg Company (founded by Dr. Kellogg's brother) for more than a century. Dr. Kellogg and his brother had a falling out over cereal recipes.

While it was based in fact, it is important to remember that "The Road to Wellville" was a fictional account of both Kellogg and his facility.

Dr. Kellogg was portrayed in "The Road to Wellville" by one of my favorite contemporary actors, Anthony Hopkins. He gave his usual stellar performance — but it just wasn't my favorite Hopkins role.

The character was a little too over the top for me, I guess. Maybe that's how Kellogg really was. Maybe it wasn't merely an artistic decision that Hopkins made.

If it wasn't an exaggeration, though, I have a strong feeling that Dr. Kellogg and I wouldn't have agreed on much.

Bridget Fonda and Matthew Broderick played a young married couple (with the delicious surname Lightbody) who came to Kellogg's sanatorium for help. They had been struggling with health issues since the death of their child.

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The movie followed them — and several others like them — in their journey to pure thoughts and clean living.

All Broderick really needed was some intimacy with his wife, and he knew it, but Kellogg's facility separated husbands and wives. He had a hard time coping with that. His wife, meanwhile, was becoming a devoted disciple of Kellogg's teachings, especially his stance against killing animals for food.

Broderick was forced to give his lustful attention to more accessible targets — a nurse (Traci Lind) and a fellow patient (Lara Flynn Boyle) — both of whom he imagined minus their layers of 19th–century clothes.

He did more than imagine with Boyle. That was against Kellogg's policy. In addition to being a vegetarian, Kellogg was opposed to sex other than for procreational purposes, and he forbade masturbation.

Dr. Kellogg obviously had some unorthodox ideas about good health — but, just as obviously, there must have been something to them if he followed his own advice. He lived to be nearly 92.

Of course, he may just have been a quack who got lucky and lived a longer life than most in spite of himself.

I didn't particularly care for "The Road to Wellville." It wasn't the people who were in it. As I say, I like Hopkins. I like all of the Fondas. I like Broderick. I haven't seen much of Lind or Boyle, but they were pleasant enough.

I guess it was the nature of the humor. Scatalogical humor is great when you're 7, but no 7–year–olds were allowed to see this movie without an adult when it ran at the theaters.

And that may go a long way toward explaining the indifferent response the movie received at the box office. It cost $25 million to make. It made $6.5 million in the theaters.

The Blood is the Life

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Dracula: They say you are a man of good ... taste.

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I read Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" when I was in my teens.

That already had been many years when the movie adaptation came out 20 years ago today so my memory of some passages in the book wasn't as clear as it would have been if I had just finished reading it, but my overall impression was that the Dracula of the movie (under the direction of Francis Ford Coppola) was inspired more by passion than by a desire for blood — and that marked a departure from most of the movie Draculas and generic vampires who had come before.

Gary Oldman, in the same kind of understated way that he approached the role of Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's "JFK," played Dracula. Prior screen Draculas were very sexual beings — in a taboo kind of way; Oldman's Dracula, on the other hand, was mostly a loyal monogamist. He exhibited a clear sense of grieving for his late wife and longing for the film's heroine, the mirror image of his beloved Elisabeta (both of whom were played by Winona Ryder).

It was often hard for me to spot Oldman on screen, his appearance changed so radically.

When we first saw him, it was as the young and virile Vlad Dracula in the 15th century, flush with victory over the Turks, but he was soon plunged into despair when he found that Elisabeta, who had been falsely told of Vlad's death, had committed suicide. In his rage, Vlad renounced God, stabbed a cross, causing it to bleed, and drank the blood.

"The blood is the life," he muttered. It was a recurring theme.

Later, as the host of a young solicitor (Keanu Reeves) a few centuries later, Dracula appeared as a much older man.

Then, he was a wolflike creature, assaulting Ryder's host (played by Sadie Frost) on a dark and stormy night (really).

And then he was a young and suave man in London, pursuing Ryder (whose love interest, in her incarnation as the modern–day Mina, was played by Reeves).

In a memorable scene from that portion of the film, Oldman turned Ryder's tears into diamonds.

That was something the boyish Reeves just couldn't pull off. (And, for the record, his British accent wasn't at all convincing.)

You know, I always thought — at least until I saw this movie — that the Bela Lugosi version of "Dracula" was the truly goth production.

But as I watched Coppola's adaptation, it occurred to me that it was more goth than Lugosi's. Maybe it was the way it combined elements of "The Exorcist" and "Willard" in his confrontation with Van Helsing (played by Anthony Hopkins).

I just found it spookier — what with its variety of shadowy figures and otherworldly characters in the background of scenes.

Even the first time that I watched Lugosi's version, I giggled at lines like "Listen to them ... children of the night. What music they make." It just didn't send that chill down my spine.

But this movie did.

Coppola supposedly wanted lavish costumes to show off his cast, and he invested a lot of money toward that goal.

I guess it paid off. Eiko Ishioka won an Oscar for costume design. The movie also won Oscars for makeup and sound effects. All well deserved.

But the actors got little recognition, as I recall. Probably also well deserved.

With one often overlooked exception. I would be remiss if I did not mention Tom Waits' performance as the insect–munching Renfield.

Although I thought Dwight Frye was great in the role in the 1931 film version, Waits was better, striking just the right balance for portraying an unbalanced individual.

It was a bit of a thankless role — I'm sure Waits didn't mind, though — that really didn't see that much screen time, considering that "Bram Stoker's Dracula" was more than two hours long.

But when Waits was on the screen as Renfield, he really stole the show.

Now, if only Lugosi had been paired with Waits ...

When the Past Kicks the Door Down

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"Whenever it wants, the past can come kicking the door down. And you never know where it's going to take you. All you can do is hope it's a place you want to go."

Bobby as an adult
Hearts in Atlantis

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I'm a fan of Stephen King's writings, and, a few years ago, I read "Hearts in Atlantis," mostly during my lunch hours at work.

I would pack a lunch — usually a couple of sandwiches — and go out to my car and read my book for about an hour. It was good, but it wasn't a single novel, like many of the King books I have read. It was one of his collections — some short stories and novellas that were linked (modestly and, to a great extent, chronologically) via some recurring characters.

And it wasn't the best of King's works that I have read. If I had to recommend any of his books — even a collection of his short stories — to someone else, I would never choose "Hearts in Atlantis."

The general theme of the stories in the collection is summed up by Peter Fonda's line from "Easy Rider" — "We blew it" — which is how King (or, at least, the narrator) opens the first story — and apparently feels about the postwar generation (also known as the "baby boomers") and its perceived failure to live up to expectations.

In a sense, I guess, that was a good simile for the movie, which was released 10 years ago today. It's kind of a Reader's Digest condensed version, emphasizing one story but trying to link elements of the others in the process — usualy without much context. At least the stories in the book were linked in ways that the reader could see clearly.

It was hardly clear in the movie, which was told as something of a flashback, with a now–grown man returning to his childhood home for the funeral of one of his childhood friends.

The title was explained in the movie only through a somewhat contrived comment that must have been created specifically for the movie. It actually comes from the name of the second story in the published collection, which takes place on a college campus, but the only story that was told in the movie, really, was the first, which was titled "Low Men in Yellow Coats." In that story, a young boy befriends an older man who moves in a couple of floors above the boy and his mother.

The man and the boy spend a great deal of time discussing books, and the man eventually works out an arrangement to pay the boy to read the newspaper to him, supposedly because his vision is not as good as it once was. As the two develop a bond, the man confides in the boy that he is being stalked by "low men in yellow coats," and he man tells the boy of the signs that warn of their presence.

Well, I don't want to give away the rest of the story, but it is a Stephen King coming–of–age story, in the mold of "Stand By Me" with some elements of some of his novels — and kind of a supernatural twist.

(The way King frequently focuses on childhood has often made me wonder if there was something traumatic in King's own childhood that perhaps the rest of us should know about.

(Well, he does what he does so well that perhaps we should be grateful that we don't know all the details ...)

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Anthony Hopkins was wonderful, as always, as the older man who comes to live above the boy and his mother. Sometimes I think Hopkins was born to play the older man roles, even though he has been appearing in movies since he was in his 20s.

At such times, I can't help but think the first 20 or 30 years of his career — as loaded with praise and award nominations as they were — were merely prologue for this phase.

And I thought 12–year–old Anton Yelchin did a good job as Bobby, the boy who finds himself torn between his mother and his friend, but I wasn't overly impressed with Hope Davis as the mother.

I rarely have been, I guess. I mean, I wasn't impressed with her supporting performance in "About Schmidt" as Jack Nicholson's daughter, and I guess that was her most noteworthy role after "Hearts in Atlantis." To be honest, I can't recall seeing her in anything, even though I know I have seen movies in which she appeared. Perhaps that will tell you how little of an impression she has left on me.

But, to be fair, Davis' character was not as developed in the movie as it was in King's original story, and that really isn't surprising. King was able to explore many of her fears, her motivations, her reactions to her experiences in ways that a movie never really could — especially if the director (Scott Hicks) showed no real interest in making the attempt, which, apparently, he did not.

That is odd, too, because screenwriter William Goldman was responsible for the adaptation of King's "Misery" in 1990 — and "Misery" was one of the better (although, like the rest, far from ideal) adaptations of King's work.

Davis' character was self–absorbed and bitter about her relationship with her late husband, for reasons that became less clear as the story unfolded. But, in spite of her seeming disinterest in her child, she did show her maternal instincts in both the book and, to a less obvious extent, the film when she fretted about whether Hopkins' character might be molestiing her son.

But King, as I recall, left some gaps in the readers' knowledge of the mother that might have been helpful in understanding why she jumped to the conclusions she did.

Her concern was unfounded, of course, and it appeared to be mostly based on her own experience of sexual harassment by her employer (an angle that was explored in more depth in the story than in the film), not on anything Hopkins' character had ever said or done in her presence. Although Hopkins' character was courteous when they met, Davis' character clearly did not like him from the start.

Maybe there was more to it than met the eye..

It's been several years since I read "Hearts in Atlantis," but it seems to me that Bobby's mother may have had issues with men in general that predated her relationship with her husband. Perhaps she had been abused as a child. Perhaps she had been raped even before her boss assaulted her. I could be wrong, but I don't think King ever got into that much detail.

I suppose you could debate whether it was wise to tell readers and viewers so little about what influenced Bobby's mother to make the decisions she did. But the story really wasn't about her. It was about Bobby, his childhood friends and his special older friend.

"I wouldn't have missed a single minute of it," Hopkins told Bobby when the low men finally caught up to him and took him away. "Not for the whole world."

I'm glad I didn't miss the book — or the movie.

On the Trail of a Serial Killer

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It was 20 years ago today that "The Silence of the Lambs" made its debut on the big screen.

In the long history of the Oscars, slightly more than three dozen films have been nominated for all of the so–called "Big Five" awards — Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and either Best Adapted Screenplay or Best Original Screenplay.

"The Silence of the Lambs" was the first in a decade to be nominated in all five categories. Only four films have been so honored since.

Even fewer — only three, in fact — have swept all five awards.

The last to do so was "The Silence of the Lambs."

It takes a remarkable film to achieve that, and I had every intention of going to the theatre to see it. Of course, I had no idea on this day 20 years ago that it would be nominated for the "Big Five" because that didn't happen until a year later.

But I had heard a lot about it, and I had read a lot about it — and I was eager to see it.

Unfortunately, I got sidetracked.

About a month after it hit the big screen, I learned that an old friend of mine in Arkansas was in the hospital. He had been diagnosed with an especially aggressive form of cancer that wound up taking his life within a few months.

I was preoccupied with that, as well as my studies in graduate school in Texas, and I never got around to seeing the film while it was in the theaters.

More than a year later, after it had been nominated for the "Big Five" and had become the first film to sweep all five awards since "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," it was featured in one of those free previews that the premium channels did in those days to try to attract subscribers.

(I guess they still do that, although not as frequently.)

I recorded the film, watched it and brought the tape with me on a trip to Arkansas to visit my friends. As luck would have it, my friends hadn't seen the movie, either, so I popped the tape in the VCR.

At left, you can see a picture of two of my friends, totally absorbed in the story.

And that was understandable. The film was a nearly perfect blend of crime and horror. It had a clear aura of realism, with the serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill" because he took sections of skin from his victims and the FBI's at times frantic efforts to pry useful information from another serial killer they had in custody.

It isn't really necessary to go over the plot, is it? Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster were ideal choices for their roles, and they certainly deserved their Oscars.

But, remarkably, Hopkins wasn't the first choice to play Hannibal Lecter. Gene Hackman was supposed to play the part, but he backed out. Other Hollywood heavyweights like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro and Sean Connery were offered the role before it went to Hopkins.

Foster, too, was a substitute choice. One of the most popular actresses of that time, Michelle Pfeiffer, was the first choice, but she turned it down. She told Barbara Walters she was nervous about the subject matter. Reportedly, there were about 300 other actresses who had applied for the part, including Melanie Griffith, Geena Davis and Meg Ryan, but it went to Foster.

In hindsight, it is hard to imagine anyone else playing either role. The American Film Institute named Hopkins the #1 film villain of all time and Foster the #6 film hero.

I can't picture Hackman or Pfeiffer doing any better.

The Shakespearean Drama of Richard Nixon

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There are many things about 1995 that I simply do not remember.

In hindsight, I guess that is to be expected. In May of that year, my mother was killed in a flash flood; after that, many things that happened in the world in the second half of that year simply didn't happen, as far as I was concerned.

By the end of the year, I guess, I was regaining my footing. And, in December, I went to see a movie I had been anticipating for quite awhile — Oliver Stone's "Nixon" starring Anthony Hopkins.

The movie actually premiered 15 years ago today — but I have rarely gone to see a movie on its first day, even when I was a teenager. In those days, when one saw a movie was often considered more important than actually seeing it.

I went to see it a few days after Christmas. It's safe to say Christmas was a difficult holiday in my family that year, and it is equally safe to say I was preoccupied with other matters until Christmas was over. But I did see the movie before the new year began.

I was a fan of Oliver Stone's work long before "Nixon" came out. And I will concede that he is probably the most overtly political filmmaker of our time.

What's more, he is clearly associated with the left–leaning political elements in America, and, presumably because of that, it was generally accepted that any biopic Stone would do on Nixon would be exceedingly negative.

I wanted to see it with my father, who remembered not only Nixon's presidency but his vice presidency as well. Oh, and he hated Nixon, too. (I think I may have mentioned that from time to time.)

Well, that, he said, was precisely why he wouldn't go see the movie.

"I hated Nixon so much," he told me over dinner one night, "that I won't go see it even though they trash him in it."

After Nixon resigned, I don't think Dad ever thought about him again — unless he was forced to do so, like when Nixon did his famous post–presidency interview with David Frost or when he had a stroke and lapsed into a coma — and died shortly thereafter.

Personally, I didn't feel that Nixon was "trashed" in the movie. Maybe that was Stone's intention — and maybe my response was all cockeyed — but I found myself sympathizing with Nixon — the dutiful son craving his mother's approval, the vice presidential nominee chastened by attacks on his integrity, the gubernatorial candidate who lashes out at the press on Election Night, the president who wrestles daily with his inner demons.

Nixon's story — how he achieved his heart's desire only to see it slip through his fingers and crash on the floor — was a drama of truly Shakespearean proportions.

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I don't agree with most of the things Nixon said. I still oppose many of his policies. But the movie didn't really explore the political side. It explored the darker, human side, the side where doubt and personal recrimination dwell.

I think there is at least a little of that in every human heart. Most people manage to rise above it to a certain degree, but Nixon may represent the opposite extreme. The dark side had its way within him so often they could have played "Darth Vader's theme" instead of "Hail to the Chief" when he entered a room.

We are truly the sum of our individual experiences, and sometimes that can be seen in unpleasant ways. More than anything, that may have been Stone's message.

The Nixon who blithely approved the Watergate coverup was driven, perhaps subliminally, by his memories of past humiliations — of his losing campaign for governor 10 years earlier and his desire never to experience defeat again, whether by a wide margin as in 1962 or a much narrower margin, as was the case in the 1960 presidential election — and those experiences had been, in turn, shaped by the perceived lessons that had been learned 10 years before that when Nixon resisted the attempt to have him dropped from the national ticket or a couple of years earlier, when Nixon was the beneficiary of the rough and tumble of high–stakes political campaigns.

An experience like asking viewers to express their support for keeping him on the ticket was another humiliation Nixon was not eager to duplicate.

At each juncture in his life, he was presented as a "new" Nixon — that may be the most persistent memory I have of Nixon, that he was constantly trying to reinvent himself — but it was always the same Nixon underneath.

I still hate Nixon — thanks mostly to my parents' influence, I suppose — but I feel that I understand him better for having seen Stone's film. That may be an unintended consequence.

Granted, Stone took what could be called poetic license with both his film about Nixon and his earlier film about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Neither could be called a literal history. Some events were not presented chronologically; others were condensed and/or combined, primarily (I presume) in the interest of brevity and, perhaps, more palatable ratings.

(Beware, high school or college students working on research papers about Kennedy or Nixon: Do not use these films as resources. They are dramatizations that are partly based on verifiable facts. Use those verifications as your sources.)

And I guess that would be my primary complaint about Stone's filmmaking style. His free association approach could lead to misinterpretation of the events, to say the least.

It was something that had to be done, really. You couldn't tell the story of Watergate — let alone the story of Nixon's life — in a few hours. You had to hit the high points and merge other things.

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But a few things were given a pretty accurate — and seemingly complete — treatment.

Like, for example, Nixon's visit to the Lincoln Memorial in the wee hours of May 9, 1970, only days after four students were killed in an antiwar demonstration at Kent State University.

That visit to the Lincoln Memorial really did happen. I couldn't swear that the conversation that was shown in the film was, word for word, the conversation that took place — although I know that Nixon did have the conversation about Syracuse football.

On that occasion, Nixon spoke with a group of young people who were preparing to participate in an antiwar demonstration in Washington. I've heard varying accounts of that meeting, and it struck me that Stone's re–creation was as faithful a retelling as one could expect.

Nixon, as we all know, secretly recorded Oval Office conversations, but no one, to my knowledge, was carrying a portable tape recorder at the Lincoln Memorial.

But, clearly, there were composite scenes in "Nixon," like the scene where Nixon discusses payment for Howard Hunt with his aides, then has his conversation with Bob Haldeman about opening up the "whole Bay of Pigs thing."

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Without going into much detail, any student of Watergate can tell you that such scenes are not literal retellings, merely combining known events.

I guess it also takes for granted that a viewer is fairly well acquainted with the story of Richard Nixon and the Watergate coverup.

But that's a pretty broad assumption, don't you think? It's been more than 35 years now since Nixon resigned, but, in my experience, most people still don't understand many things about Watergate or what drove Nixon to do the things he did.

I understand that. Watergate was a complex event. Nixon was a complex man. People my age and younger have no memory of the days when Nixon was vice president, when he was involved in some rather clandestine dealings.

As much as there is a desire for a simple answer to why things happened the way they did, I'm afraid there isn't one.

But perhaps the final scene of "Nixon" comes as close to truth as is possible.

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I remember watching Nixon's farewell address on the morning of his resignation.

Stone's version was abbreviated — which was just as well, I suppose, since I wondered as I watched the speech if Nixon was about to lose his grip on reality.

He didn't, of course. Instead, he provided, perhaps unknowingly, a moment of keen insight into his own personality when he told his staff never to be bitter or petty. "Remember," he said, "others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them — and then you destroy yourself."

I thought Hopkins did a remarkable job of re–creating that blinding moment of clarity in Nixon's presidency — in the very last minutes of his presidency.

Shakespeare himself probably couldn't have written a more compelling tragedy.

Happy Birthday, Sir Anthony

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It's been kind of a dreary, rainy New Year's Eve here in Dallas, and I have been looking out my window, thinking about the past.

My only sibling — my younger brother — will celebrate his birthday on Saturday. And I have been thinking about when we were children, and I took a certain amount of pleasure from making sure the adults knew I was the older of the two.

At some point, I guess, older siblings discover that being older is not an advantage after all. And, I wonder, when exactly does that happen?

Well, I don't know if Sir Anthony Hopkins has any siblings. But, if he does — and if any of those siblings are younger than he is — I doubt if Sir Anthony ever reached the point where he felt he didn't enjoy the advantage. And he's 72 today.

I guess, if you took a poll asking people to name Hopkins' most memorable role, it would be Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs." You might get some support for James Stevens in "The Remains of the Day" or Adolf Hitler in "The Bunker" or John Quincy Adams in "Amistad."

But, personally, I have always been fond of his performance as Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone's "Nixon."

I grew up during the Nixon years. I remember him very well. And I can tell you — beyond even the hint of a doubt — that Anthony Hopkins did not look like Nixon. And he didn't sound like him, either.

But he captured the essence of Nixon's introverted, paranoid personality. He was Richard Nixon, even though he neither looked nor sounded like him. For that, he was nominated for an Oscar. He lost, but that is beside the point.

That is the true test of Hopkins' skill. And it is the best reason I can think of why many people think he is the greatest living actor.