Entertainment

Review: ‘Watergate’ Shocks Anew With Its True Tale of Political Scandal

The word “bombshell” pops up a lot in “Watergate,” Charles Ferguson’s comprehensive documentary about … well, you know. From the summer of 1972, when five men were arrested breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, until President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation two years later, the public was confronted with a barrage of shocking revelations. The morning papers and the evening news brought fresh reports of wrongdoing at the highest levels of government, unearthed by congressional committees, a federal grand jury and the diggings of journalists. Before the nation’s eyes, a “third-rate burglary” blossomed into a constitutional crisis.

Posted Updated

By
A.O. Scott
, New York Times

The word “bombshell” pops up a lot in “Watergate,” Charles Ferguson’s comprehensive documentary about … well, you know. From the summer of 1972, when five men were arrested breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, until President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation two years later, the public was confronted with a barrage of shocking revelations. The morning papers and the evening news brought fresh reports of wrongdoing at the highest levels of government, unearthed by congressional committees, a federal grand jury and the diggings of journalists. Before the nation’s eyes, a “third-rate burglary” blossomed into a constitutional crisis.

Ferguson has given his film the subtitle “How We Learned to Stop an Out-of-Control President.” In case the implications of the lesson weren’t clear, he ends with George Santayana’s well-worn aphorism about those who don’t study the past being doomed to repeat it. Whether we are living through a sequel to Watergate — or whether out-of-control presidents after Nixon might have learned to get away with their own crimes — is in some ways an idle question. History rarely repeats itself exactly. The lessons of “Watergate” have to do with the fragility and resilience of democratic institutions, and with the stark ethical challenges that sometimes arise in political life.

Serious stuff. But the movie — more than four hours long, split into two parts with a cliffhanger in the middle — also works, perhaps unexpectedly, as escapist entertainment. Like many of my fellow citizens, I spend a lot of time thinking about the current president, whether I want to or not. He’s ubiquitous on television, in social media, and as a topic of dinner-party discourse and water-cooler hobnobbing. For the entirety of “Watergate,” however, I didn’t think about Donald Trump at all. I thought about Richard Nixon instead, which while not exactly pleasant was at least different.

Ferguson’s narrative is so dense and complicated, and at the same time so dramatic, suspenseful and clear, that it absorbs all of your attention. You probably know the outcome, and if you’re a history-nerd child of the ‘70s like me, you’re probably familiar with many of the names and details. Haldeman. Ehrlichman. Kalmbach. Segretti. Sam Ervin. The Saturday Night Massacre. “I am not a crook.” It’s like a classic rock station on satellite radio. (The movie also has some fine musical cues of its own.)

Or maybe a deluxe remastered edition of an album you’ve left sitting in the back of a milk crate. Almost literally: Ferguson makes ingenious use of the tapes that play such a large role in Watergate lore. He films re-enactments that are more like staged readings, in which actors playing Nixon (Douglas Hodge) and members of his staff reproduce conversations captured by a hidden audio recorder. The point is not to embellish the record but to clarify it.

All the dialogue is verbatim, and its meaning registers with startling force. The president of the United States rants about Jews, plots against his perceived enemies in the press, and conspires to obstruct justice and undermine law and order in more ways than you can count. From a relatively safe historical distance, it’s possible to appreciate him as an almost literary character, a volatile and fascinating mixture of resentment, intelligence, paranoia and guile, with a disarming sentimental streak. No wonder so many fine actors (including Sir Anthony Hopkins, Philip Baker Hall and Dan Hedaya) have relished the opportunity to play him.

But though Nixon is of course at the center of “Watergate,” it’s very much an ensemble piece, a real-life pageant of the high theater of the state. Much of the drama took place before the television cameras — news conferences and live coverage of hearings, as well as bulletins from the likes of Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor and Frank Reynolds on the networks — and Ferguson makes brilliant use of the archival record.

He supplements galvanic television footage with lively interviews with survivors, including former U.S. Reps. Pete McCloskey and Elizabeth Holtzman, lawyers from the special prosecutor’s office and members of the Nixon administration. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein too, of course, and also Dan Rather and Lesley Stahl, then both at CBS News.

Collectively, they tell a story that is part political thriller and part courtroom drama, with moments of Shakespearean grandeur and swerves into stumblebum comedy. You can watch “Watergate” relishing the craziness of a bygone era and marveling at the styles of elocution, barbering and haberdashery that prevailed in that mad time, but the gravity of the tale is inescapable.

Ferguson is a forensic specialist in recent historical disaster — his earlier films are about the Iraq War (“No End in Sight”) and the 2008 financial crisis (“Inside Job”) — and he sticks close to the factual record. “Slow Burn,” the recent Slate podcast on Watergate, examines the same material from a wider, more interpretive perspective. “Watergate” scrutinizes individual motives and actions, suggesting that history can turn on the choices people make: to lie or tell the truth; to face reality or hide behind the veil or ideology; to swear loyalty to principle or to power.

The lesson shouldn’t be that difficult.

Production Notes:

“Watergate" is not rated. Running time: 4 hours 20 minutes.

Copyright 2024 New York Times News Service. All rights reserved.