The movie Nixon has created a lot of controversy because of arguments over whether individual scenes are true or not and over whether the filmmaker should have drawn certain conclusions about Nixon, specifically that Nixon had a part in attempts to kill Castro, felt guilty about the death of John F. Kennedy as a result, and was willing to drop the atomic bomb if necessary to get himself reelected. The film is a problem if the viewer takes it as history and as the absolute truth of history, while it is a more interesting work if the viewer sees it as one man's artistic expression in response to and based on his own perceptions of Richard Nixon.
Critics who are arguing that the film should not be accepted because it is not true miss an important point--no one source should be accepted as "the" truth when dealing with complex historical issues. The movie makes viewers think about Nixon and may make them seek out other books and films to learn more and to find out what is true and what is not. The fear seems to be that much of the audience will never see or hear anything about Nixon except what they find in this movie and that this will distort their view of history, but that could be said of most dramatic versions of historical events. History and drama are simply two different things.
This particular drama is based on real events and real people, and the actors do a good job of impersonating the different real people involved. Director Oliver Stone also does a good job of recreating the time periods involved, and the film covers all of Nixon's life in some degree, with some scenes from his childhood and many from different eras in his political life. The emphasis is on the political life, though the style of the man is related here to is childhood and the fact that no one loved him when he was growing up. The psychology of the film is a bit simplistic, but it was not created by Stone, who is only echoing something said by ...