In a strange sense of timing that the publicity-minded Nixon might have found amusing (or infuriating), Frost/Nixon’s wide December 25 release has been preceded by the death of a central – and until recently, mysterious – character in the Watergate universe. W. Mark Felt, a.k.a. Deep Throat, passed away on December 18 at age 95. Felt was the associate director of the FBI during the Nixon years. When the White House began its efforts to cover up the failed break-in at Democratic Headquarters, it put pressure on the FBI to back away from its investigation. This, Felt believed, was obstruction of justice, and he took it to the press. But rather than phone the city desk at the Washington Post, Felt embarked on a double-life of secret, underground meetings straight out of a pulp novel. As if anticipating an “I Remember the 70s” special on VH1 three decades later, Felt assumed the moniker of a popular porn movie of the day as his alias, and kept the Watergate story humming through Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The Deep Throat saga reeks of Hollywood altruism (capitalized on in All The President’s Men (1976), of course), but, Watergate being Watergate, no one’s hands were clean. Felt knew a thing or two about illegal break-ins, authorizing a few of his own as Nixon’s downfall unfolded. In 1980, Felt was convicted in a trial in which Nixon begrudgingly testified on his behalf; he was later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. If the cycle of break-ins, cover-ups, and pardons teach us anything, it’s that there were no heroes in this mess. Washington was rotten by 1972, if it had ever approached anything resembling nobility in the first place. “I let the American people down,” Nixon laments. That’s indisputable, but perhaps in so doing, he did the American people a favor. There were terrible presidents and malodorous scandals before Dick Nixon, but Watergate took our blinders off. Today, a man who spent large parts of his life working to improve inner-city Chicago, or a man beaten within an inch of his life in Vietnam, is guilty until proven innocent of being untrustworthy and selfishly ambitious (at the very least) when he runs for president. It comes with the territory when you’re in the business of trying to be liked. Nixon didn’t create America’s skepticism of government and politicians. He awakened it.

I won’t be spoiling anything by saying that for Richard Nixon, the years remaining were mostly wilderness. He advised subsequent presidents, published numerous books, and visited foreign countries whose people warmly regarded him as his own never could. Nevertheless, he failed to shed the albatross of Watergate, and our collective memory will never divorce the two. Still, in the end Ron Howard’s otherwise brilliant film falls into the same trap as Langella’s Nixon, by proclaiming unambiguous victory over its antagonist. As with all of the battles Nixon – man and image - fought and will continue to fight, ambiguity messes up the picture, coloring outside the lines and leaving us with something more abstract than a single close up frame from a television show can provide. For the American people, Frost/Nixon is compelling and entertaining evidence. For Richard Nixon, the trial continues.