Why Hollywood Still Loves Watergate: Fifty Years Later, Scandal Inspires ‘Gaslit’ And More

In the new Starz oil lamp, On Sunday, Watergate’s main figure, John Dean, will be premiered by Dan Stevens. In white house fittersDean will play Domnal Gleason in HBO’s upcoming limited series. In Last Witness: WatergateDean Himself, CNN’s upcoming four-part original series, will “defy his own involvement in the biggest presidential scandal of the 20th century,” as the network put it.

As we approach June 17, 1972, the 50th anniversary of the Watergate raid, the “third degree heist” that overthrew the president, Hollywood is still working on a scandal for a series of stories about new perspectives and problems. While many of the central figures are long gone, the notorious aspects of Watergate have been erased from memory, and DC has captured many other abuses of power that are likely to have far more consequences. (Note: January 6).

“Watergate is one of those stories where arrogance leads to hostility,” said Tim Naftal, public service clinical associate professor at New York University and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “That’s when it got our attention. So Watergate is the story of a president who abused power, got involved in a criminal conspiracy, and then resigned disgracefully as the first president to do so, at the ultimate loss: the presidency.

“The story is a spicy drama with weird and wonderful characters, including Martha Mitchell, but also played out differently than we’ve all seen it. I think it will also be the source of questions such as how we have changed since the 1970s, how the media has changed, how the Republican Party has changed,” he said.

The perception of Watergate was shaped not only by the flood of books and documentaries that followed Richard Nixon’s resignation, but also by film and television projects that perpetuated the scandal to measure everyone else.

Every President’s Man It’s one of the best classics of all time to make a movie, and it probably did more than any other movie to keep Watergate in the current space. But this is just one of the last fifty years in the genre of Watergate-inspired projects like Oliver Stone. Nixon; miniseries Washington behind closed doors Y Last days; And even funny satire. CockerelDean’s post-Watergate memoirs, filmed in the late ’90s blind ambitionTurned into a forgotten mini-series in the late 1970s, this time Martin Sheen stars.

Dwight Chapin, who served as Nixon’s appointing secretary and deputy assistant during his presidency and wrote the most recent book on his experiences, president’s mansays there’s a constant factor of curiosity, partly due to the tendency for any scandal to mark the “door”. However, he argues that the constant fascination has many facets of history.

“He says they are holding focus group discussions as part of the Richard Nixon Library renovation,” and Watergate would have wondered. What was this? And, of course, the simple answer is that this is an occupation called the Watergate Hotel, the headquarters of the Democratic Party. But there are many aspects to it for people new to Watergate. “It can be very complicated trying to explain it to someone.”

What some of the new projects have in common is the focus on Nixon outside of the Oval Office. Universal is developing an adaptation of the Rachel Meadows podcast bag manA scandal involving Vice President Spiro Agniu, who was forced to resign after being accused of tax evasion in 1973, tells the story of another chapter of the era. collapsed. netflix Documentary, Martha Mitchell Effect, It focuses on the Attorney General’s wife and later the Nixon campaign chairman, John Mitchell.

oil lampThe eight-part series focusing on Watergate’s lesser-known and even forgotten figures, including the head of Nixon’s re-election campaign and former Attorney General Mitchell and his wife, was inspired by a podcast. slow burning.

Every President’s Man Played like a thriller and a stone Nixon It’s like a tragedy but Watergate oil lamp It emphasizes human weakness, complicity, and absurdity.

“John Oliver called the Trump-Russia scandals ‘Watergate stupid’ and I always looked at them and thought, ‘Well, Watergate was stupid. oil lamp – Says Executive Producer Robbie Pickering. “I think we’re all on a basic, stupid level, and that comes from emotional needs and emotional turmoil. But the Watergate stories, I think, feel right because maybe it’s a way of wish fulfillment, because it’s one of the only situations where the strongest are blamed.

He says the show uses dramatic license, but “without violating what we see as the truth of what happened.”

oil lamp Mitchell’s relationship, starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn, is what Pickering describes as a “Virginia Woolf-style” marriage: loving but extraordinarily stormy.

By 1972, Martha Mitchell became a well-known figure whose love for the press helped her gain positions in plays and talk shows. She was even nicknamed “Person of the South”. But she also found mental health and alcohol problems. Gaseous. However, he also appears as one of Watergate’s heroic figures in the limited series, posing the ultimate threat to the President’s men as he quickly binds the administration to the offensive.

On the weekend of the robbery, he and Mitchell attended a fundraiser in Southern California. After being notified of his burglary arrest, John Mitchell returns to DC and leaves his wife at the Newporter Inn, Newport Beach, under guard and custody, with no phone access. In oil lamp, Her arrest ends in a violent confrontation with a guard chosen by her husband. The glass falls off the table and eventually catches up and calms down.

“Most Martha stories see her as an object of laughter, irritation, or sadness,” Pickering said. “And it’s like, ‘Man, this woman spoke the truth in front of everyone.’ Who cares if it’s mental health issues, alcohol issues or something else? “He’s been there all along, planning and just in a moment. a certain way. You look at him and he’s just witnessing for convenience, so why is John Dean a hero for the rest of his life? happens and Martha is forgotten?

Dean, a White House adviser, is represented. oil lamp It’s a little more opportunistic than other Watergate retrospectives, focusing on the key witness role during the 1973 trial, where Dean testified about a cover-up that went back to the President. The project also focuses on the fraught early relationship between Dean and his future wife, flight attendant Maureen Kane (Betty Gilpin).

not consulted oil lamp, As Pickering said, there was already an extensive public record of his story. Dean declined to comment on Deadline, but the upcoming project promises “more under oath than ever before, it will shed new light on the rear grooves, rear pedals and rear shock absorbers.”

Says Pickering: “The story has its own side. Martha Mitchell didn’t have the opportunity to do that. “The only person I want to talk to is or their children, but their children are extremely personal.”

oil lamp EP Robbie PickeringThe Watergate stories are told all the time because, in my opinion, this is one of the only instances where the strongest respond, because that kind of wish can be fulfilled.

Chapin spent nine months in prison after being tried by a grand jury for lying, but his case was not about breaking Watergate or covering up. not represented oil lamp He didn’t see it, but he talked about it. oil lamp And other projects are entertaining dramatizations, including the ones in which he is animated. “It’s very difficult to relate to that because that’s not exactly how it happened,” she says.

The last 50 years have seen a plethora of drug reactions in the first few years after Nixon’s resignation. “This is an ongoing part of what really happened at Watergate,” Chapin said.

In his book, Chapin offers a questioning look at Dean’s image, not as a heroic figure, but as those who had the great responsibility of enjoying the White House and keeping Nixon in the dark. He claimed that his confession was obtained through torture and that his confession was obtained through torture. [chief of staff} Bob Haldeman, his boss, or Richard Nixon that he knew anything, so Nixon is in the dark.”

“Nixon viewed [Watergate] This was his last campaign, as he actually used the term. And lost. “But it was a campaign to win it over,” Chapin said.

This is a different version than the one shown in various movies and books, including those that will be revealed in the coming months. Chapin says he met reporter Carl Bernstein while living in East Hampton, New York, and the historical narrative became the subject of controversy. Chapin said that over breakfast and lunch, they argued over his version of events. 180 degrees from Nixon. I’m on one side, he’s on the other.”

Chapin also brings a more sophisticated perspective to Martha Mitchell. He claimed that his confession was obtained through torture and that his confession was obtained through torture.

Chapin writes in his book that while Martha was drinking and trying to call the White House to contact the President, it was Chapin who picked up the phone and was called offline. Husband. Chapin writes in her book that as Watergate began to develop, Martha “claimed to know and, in some cases, actually said she did, which posed a huge problem for our management.”

Garrett Graf’s book Watergate: a new storyPublished earlier this year, it confirms a number of details about Mitchell’s arrest at Newporter’s, although they were also leaked to the press at the time, “the city has already ruled out that.” He was not a strong player; I had fun. ”

When he died in 1976, Mitchell was in the spotlight in Hollywood, not forgotten by any means. For years, actress Diane Lady has been working on a project about her life, and Ryan Murphy has been involved in a project featuring her story starring Meryl Streep.

“I hope this helps us rethink the stories we tell ourselves about history, the characters we create, and how picky we are about those characters,” Pickering said. “Regardless of what the show is saying on a certain level, the story sometimes picks people up because they’re a guy with great hair and he’s supposed to be a hero and this woman was an alcoholic and had mental issues and that’s why she goes. to be forgotten. “