Robert Altman spent the 80's teaching film at the University of Michigan and being ignored by Hollywood. Or exiled? Or was it self-imposed? It's open to interpretation.
Anyway, while there he got really into theatre and started filming plays, among them the Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone play Secret Honor starring, like the stage play, Philip Baker Hall as a washed up, paranoid, suicidal Richard Nixon. While the personality on display here may be true to life, the film is not meant to be realistic, presenting a Bohemian Grove-led conspiracy to take over the US using Nixon's presidency as the impetus behind Watergate. Hall's performance is one of the best pieces of acting we've seen, up there with Renée Jeanne Falconetti in Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc.

This week's Lost in Criterion episode is Secret Honor. Give it a listen on iTunes or LostInCriterion.com. And, if you could, like us on Facebook or support us on Patreon.