News, Notes & Bylines

Meenal Vamburkar

The distrust of government and air of executive secrecy the United States has experienced during the Bush administration is nothing new, as a quick look back at the Watergate era will show.

Boston University journalism professor Bob Zelnick stood in as former President Richard Nixon when preparing talk show host David Frost for his 1977 series of televised interviews with Nixon.

Now, actor Oliver Platt is playing Zelnick in the Ron Howard film, Frost/Nixon, a movie based on the interviews Frost held with Nixon, in which he probed him about the Watergate scandal and his alleged abuses in foreign and domestic policy. The movie is based on a Peter Morgan play of the same name.

“I feel pretty good about it,” Zelnick said. “Any time that a 5-foot-6-inch guy like me can be portrayed by a 6-foot-5-inch fellow like Oliver Platt, I feel I’ve gained something.”

Zelnick’s role as executive editor for the Frost interviews involved researching Watergate and preparing Frost for the interviews by playing the role of Nixon.

“David would ask me the questions that he would expect to ask Nixon, and I would respond with the way I thought Nixon would answer,” Zelnick said.

In the film’s production notes, Platt said a lot of research went into making the movie, and he went through “a big box of clippings, books, DVDs of research” to get a better sense of the Zelnick’s role.

BU journalism professor Anne Donohue said the movie parallels America’s current political situation.

“We’re at a period now where we’ve come off of eight years of a not terribly honest or forthright presidency,” she said. “I hope it’s a good reminder to people that we need to keep tabs on our government and watch it carefully.”

This is an important movie for the younger generation to see, and BU should have a screening of the movie on campus, journalism lecturer Terry Ann Knopf said.

“I find that students’ knowledge of recent history is not very great,” she said. “So I think as a history lesson, a film like this can be very important.”

Zelnick’s students said they were excited to have their professor portrayed in the important role he played in history.

“I was aware of his prestige when I took the course, so it doesn’t come as a surprise,” College of Communication graduate student Solomon Syed said. “I think it’s great, and I wish I could have gone to the premiere.”

Zelnick attended the movie’s New York City premiere Monday and said it was an excellent movie that allowed him to relive an important episode in his life.

BU Evergreen Program student Victor Darish said he felt honored to be auditing a class with Zelnick.

“I think it’s unbelievable,” he said. “To be able to listen to someone who was involved at the time is very exciting.”

Zelnick said although the movie is not completely accurate, he expects people who see it to have a good time and see a new backstage perspective of a well-known historical scandal.

“I think that people will gain some insight into what the event was all about, even though it’s more like a historical novel than history,” he said. “It’s fun anyway.”