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Looking through the eyes of an assassin
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio
January 20, 2005

Sean Penn plays Sam Bicke, an ordinary guy who tried to kill Richard Nixon in 1974. (Image courtesy of ThinkFilm)

In February 1974, a failed hijacking at an Ohio Airport received little attention. The story got lost in the coverage of the growing Watergate scandal. It was only revealed later that the would-be hijacker intended to kill the president. Now the story has been turned into a film, "The Assassination of Richard Nixon." The film's director says the making of the movie had as many strange twists as the real story.

St. Paul, Minn. — About 10 years ago, Niels Mueller began writing the screenplay of what was to become his directorial debut. His wanted to write a story about an assassin whose attempt goes unnoticed. He'd written about 30 pages when he was stopped short by a name he found in his research -- Sam Bicke.

"His story is a little-known footnote to American history," Mueller says. "He is somebody who tried to assassinate Richard Nixon in 1974."

Mueller found startling similarities between Bicke and the fictional character he'd been creating. Sam Bicke's real life story came out gradually in the days after his hijack attempt. Several prominent Americans, including conductor Leonard Bernstein, received audiotapes mailed by Bicke. On them he described how he had intended to kill Richard Nixon, and why.

Sam Bicke was a mediocre salesman with a marriage on the rocks; an ordinary shmoe whose frustration with life at a socially turbulent time turned into a rage against the president. The Small Business Administration turned down Bicke's application for a loan. In the film, Mueller portrays that as the tipping point for his character.

"Many assassins that I read about, there were personal failings that combined with at least perceived systemic failings," says Mueller, "as they see things failing in the system or society, that make a character like Sam combustible."

Mueller changed his focus to Sam Bicke. He finished the script in 1999, and was overjoyed when Sean Penn agreed to play the lead. It's never easy for a director to get money for a film, and having a big name star on board really helps.

But there was to be another twist.

In 1974, the reason Sam Bicke tried to hijack a plane was to force the pilot to crash into the White House. It had all seemed an unlikely scenario. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In the weeks after, Mueller wondered whether he could still make the film.

"There were people who said, 'Love the script. Can't make the film with an ending like this. Can you change it?' And I said, 'Maybe I could have changed it before 9/11 because it was such a little-known incident, but to change it now would be a complete whitewash, and you have to go towards the relevance,'" says Mueller. "Fortunately, I was able to find producers who didn't ask me to change anything, because the script that we finished in 1999 is the script we shot in 2003."

The film premiered at Cannes, then headlined at Toronto. It's now on release in selected theaters in the U.S., and it opens this weekend in the Twin Cities. It's received critical acclaim, especially for Sean Penn's portrayal of the everyman who turns assassin.

Mueller says Penn's Sam Bicke evokes sympathy -- right up until his tortured thinking drives him to violence.

"He's this morally ambiguous character, so audience members have to make their own decisions about the character along the way," he says.

Mueller says he deliberately shot the film from Sam Bicke's perspective, so the audience sees exactly what Bicke sees. Mueller says that allows viewers to get inside the character's head. He admits the film makes some viewers very uncomfortable, not least because of the current political climate.

"If you want to win a popularity contest, this is not the film to make," he laughs. "We are living in such a polarized society right now, and if you are going to go at issues of society -- and certainly it has taken on a political sort of resonance much more than when we were writing it. The film has taken on this mirroring effect -- Nixon's America up against Bush's America."

Yet, Mueller says he still has been able to tell the story he wanted to tell.

Sam Bicke never finished what he intended to do that day in Ohio. He was killed in a shootout with police before the plane he was trying to hijack left the ground. It's the story of a desperate, lonely man -- driven, but ultimately forgotten.