'Our Nixon' on CNN tells the same old story of disgraced President

Bettman-UPI

"Our Nixon" examines the President through the lenses of his trusted lieutenants, H.R. Haldeman and John Erlichman, who shot home movies in the Oval Office.

For a while, it looks like ?Our Nixon? will give us a different perspective on one of the most documented men in modern history, the late President Richard M. Nixon.

Right around the time it hits Watergate, though, it falls onto a familiar path, concluding he planted the seeds of his presidency?s own doom.

We sort of knew that.

?Our Nixon? promises early to see Nixon?s White House years ? literally ? through the lenses of his trusted lieutenants, H.R. ?Bob? Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

Both are dead now, as is Nixon. Their lenses live on. Long before iPhones, both were compulsive filmers, shooting more than 500 reels of Super 8 home movies while they worked in the White House.

The filmmakers weave excerpts in with contemporary news footage and commentary, as well as audio excerpts from the notorious Oval Office taping system.

Those tapes, which Nixon envisioned as a record of his legacy, turned into the smoking gun that shot him right out of the Oval Office. ?Our Nixon? wryly acknowledges this with an excerpt where aide Alexander Butterfield first explains to Nixon how the voice-activation system works.

?Our Nixon? has glimpses like that. He rails about ?glorifying homosexuality? on ?All In the Family.? Grainy footage from his famous trip to China suggests his excitement at how he was going to amaze his friends and stun his enemies.

Seems he thought that way a lot, and soon ?Our Nixon? slides into a catalog of the neuroses that triggered his downfall.

This is all instructive and valuable. It just feels redundant.

Perhaps little or nothing on the home movies lent itself to a richer portrait. Nixon was so guarded, that?s entirely possible.

But there?s a fuller story waiting to be told.

dhinckley@nydailynews.com

Source: http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/nydnrss/entertainment/tv-movies/~3/5y-Vif32v3c/nixon-cnn-tells-old-story-disgraced-president-article-1.1413906

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