Frank Langella makes men accustomed to obedience interesting when they have to persuade. We value the charm and vulnerability he brings to authority, particularly when his films are less willing to complicate matters.
Fi1m perspective
In Frost/Nixon (2008), Frank Langella makes the effort to remain in control visible even while Nixon is being charming. He lets us see a man who wants a sympathetic hearing and knows how to encourage one. We felt uncomfortable sympathy during the interviews because his need to be understood kept showing through the calculation. Salvatore Totino’s close views give that struggle enough space to hold our attention without diversions. Langella leaves just enough doubt about the charm for us to wonder how much of it has been rehearsed.
His early film work included Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) and The Twelve Chairs (1970), before Dracula brought wider fame on Broadway in 1977 and on film in 1979. His career moved between stage work and supporting film roles, with seductive and villainous typecasting limiting some of the opportunities. The later prominence of Nixon, played on Broadway in 2007 before the film, was a return to wider attention. The attraction of that part is how often his authority seems in need of reassurance.
In George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), his William Paley makes the network’s commercial pressures harder to dismiss. Langella plays the network president without turning him into a monster, giving us reasons to listen when the journalists’ convictions meet the business of broadcasting. The film can be thin on the lives of its supporting characters, but Paley has a credible concern beyond endorsing the newsroom’s sense of duty. We rate this performance particularly highly because he complicates a film that usually makes it clear whom to support.
Ron Howard gives him more room in Frost/Nixon, though the film’s clear-cut contest sometimes makes too little of the danger in his performance. Michael Corenblith’s unobtrusive television setting helps keep our attention on the men and their efforts to control appearances. The film’s eagerness to make Nixon sympathetic risks softening a performance that can still suggest manipulation. That is a limit of the film rather than a reason to discount the acting. Start with Good Night, and Good Luck., then try Frost/Nixon with some caution about how firmly Howard tells us whom to back.
Biography
Frank Langella is an American stage and film actor. He was born on 1 January 1938 in Bayonne, New Jersey, and graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in drama in 1959. He made his Broadway debut in 1966.
Langella has won four Tony Awards: for featured roles in Seascape (1975) and Fortune's Fool (2002), and leading roles in Frost/Nixon (2007) and The Father (2016). He received an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Richard Nixon in the 2008 film adaptation of Frost/Nixon.
His film credits include Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), Dracula (1979), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) as William Paley, Superman Returns (2006), Frost/Nixon (2008), Captain Fantastic (2016) and The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).
