Back in high school, there was nothing I loved more than coming back from a potato-taco lunch to one of my oh-so-boring general requirement classes to find out that it was movie day.
Movie day was a welcome and common occurrence in my history class. Showing “Glory” or “All Quiet on the Western Front” freshened up long lists of dates and names for apathetic high schoolers who were simply looking to get the right GPA for college.
Without such works of both old and new historical fiction, history would have been my least favorite subject, besides science of course.
Last night, I had the distinct privilege of catching a sneak peek of the historical-fiction film “Frost/Nixon,” directed by Oscar winner Ron Howard. The UCLA student screening also featured a question-and-answer session after the film.
For his entire directing career, Howard has demonstrated his affinity for historically based films. His films not only serve to remind the audience that lived through the period of what happened and what greater purpose it served, but they also manage to paint an in-depth and interesting picture for those of a younger and disconnected generation, like myself.
Without being too much of a spoiler, “Frost/Nixon” is based on the Tony-award-winning stage play of the same name and follows the story behind four 1977 televised interviews between British journalist David Frost and former President Richard Nixon three years after his resignation.
While my generation has lived in a “politics is always corrupt” type of world, the film was able to accurately depict Nixon’s influence on this stereotype due to his involvement in the fallout from the Watergate break-ins and the subsequent “cover-up.”
These days we may throw around the -gate suffix for anything under the sun even slightly controversial (e.g. Janet Jackson’s “nipplegate” and “Rathergate” of Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes controversy).
There is no way for us as a younger and different generation to truly understand what the entire nation went through between the Watergate break-in and August 8, 1974, when Nixon resigned from office, except through such recreated first-person perspectives as movies offer.
While movies may serve as a surreal escape from the bars of reality, especially over the past few years with the increase of a large range of biographies from the political to the musical persuasion, they can also serve as important educational tools for our society, our nation and the world at large.
Many times movies have to smudge the facts to make the film a little more dramatic, but it’s still much more effective to learn the emotional turmoil of a movement or controversy that has shaped our environment rather than memorize the battle names and locations of the physical turmoil.
As not only a film buff but a student, I’ll take a two to three-hour movie over a generic U.S. History textbook any day of the week.
At the end of “Frost/Nixon,” an epilogue flashes about Nixon’s death in 1994 and more importantly about his 1,000-plus page memoir released after the 1977 Frost interviews that failed to garner much attention even though the TV interviews drew record audiences.
In a memoir or a book, we can be moved by a sentimental line if read in the right context or feel sympathy toward an entire group of people, but the emotion and the honesty of the visual is almost undeniable.
Movies may be better known for the popcorn flicks and big budget blockbusters that have the ability to take us to a galaxy far, far away.
However, maybe there is some benefit to becoming more familiar with our own history and heritage through these fact-based visual works that hold a three-dimensional advantage over a the same old text routine.
If you prefer history textbooks to history films, e-mail Stanhope at kstanhope@media.ucla.edu.