Millhouse, a White Comedy

Millhouse follows the form of Antonio's earlier films in that it is almost entirely composed of carefully selected newsreel material that is allowed to speak for itself. Only the context in which the extracts are presented, and the occasional use of music to satirise a sequence, indicate Antonio's actual manipulation of his material. Millhouse is entirely concerned with Nixon's political career, backing up the early material with interviews with some of his opponents at the time. Most of the speeches he made then were terrifying in their implications, not merely for the content itself but for the cold-blooded way in which Nixon can be seen to support only those policies he reckons most popular (the death penalty for dope peddling, nuclear war as preferable to an American defeat in South East Asia, etc). It's certainly a funny film (commie-baiting Nixon 'discovering' microfilm in a bed of pumpkins), but the strength with which it reveals the full horror of Nixon's personality is devastating. JDuC.