ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602020046
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELEANOR RINGEL COX NEWS SERVICE
Let's consider a tale of two Tricky Dicks.
Tricky Dick No. 1 is Richard Nixon, the man actually saddled with the sobriquet and now the subject of a film by Oliver Stone called ``Nixon.''
Tricky Dick No. 2 is Richard III, Duke of Gloucester, a 15th-century English monarch who, in his time, was called a lot of things worse than Tricky Dick. He, too, is the subject of a film - a magnificent adaptation of Shakespeare's play, ``Richard III,'' starring Ian McKellen.
The Stone film has created a tidal wave of controversy over its accuracy. Nixon's family has denounced it as ``character assassination.'' An ad in last month's Los Angeles Times touted the Richard Nixon Library by pairing a photo of the film's Anthony Hopkins with one of Nixon. The copy read: ``You choose. If you prefer fact to fantasy, come to Yorba Linda.''
If only it were that simple. The relationship between art and history has always been far more complex than fact vs. fantasy.
Samuel Butler once observed that ``God cannot alter the past, but historians can.'' Frankly, historians are amateurs compared to dramatists. As Stone himself pointed out to his critics, something called ``drama'' has existed between fact and entertainment ever since the Greeks.
Perhaps that's why I was so happy to hear from the Richard III Foundation, which sent a flier protesting the McKellen film. To wit: ``Shakespeare portrayed King Richard . . . as a deformed murderer in the name of tragedy. The tragedy, however, is that individuals continue to accept his dramas as true history. Such quiet acceptance is comparable to theatergoers believing that `Monty Python and the Holy Grail' is the true history of England in A.D. 932.''
Actually, folks have been fuming about Shakespeare's smear job on Richard for centuries. They point out, quite rightly, that he was writing for a Tudor monarchy that traced its power and lineage to Richard's enemies, the Lancasters. Portraying Richard as a power- mad hunchback who murdered little princes in the Tower was, well, brown-nosing has been around at least as long as monarchies.
What Richard's defenders like to point out is that he was famously loyal to the brother he succeeded. That he was pro books, free speech, etc.
Maybe so. Though it is worth noting that one of Shakespeare's major sources was a book by Sir Thomas More, who gave his life, literally, for the truth.
But let the historians debate. The point is, art is art and history is history and the twain meet in some unpredictable corner of the public consciousness. How much of our image of the Young Mr. Lincoln is Lincoln himself? And how much is John Ford and Henry Fonda? How much do Spike Lee and Denzel Washington have to do with shaping our view of Malcolm X? Did Shaw clarify the passion of St. Joan or shortchange it?
In Shakespeare's case, Richard may well have gotten short shrift. After all, if history is written by winners, most historical dramas are written for winners. Conversely, Henry V, a Tudor ancestor, came out smelling like a Lancaster red rose.
Similarly, Stone's movie is a dramatic interpretation of Richard Nixon. Accurate or not, it's surprisingly compassionate.
Picasso has said, ``Art is the lie that tells the truth.'' Whose truth? The artist's truth, no question. And that's no small thing. Because art gives us essence. It distills a complicated web of fact and conjecture into an artist's emotional truth. In ``Nixon,'' Stone is trying to tell us something he felt he learned after studying Richard the 37th. That's probably what Shakespeare did after studying his Richard.
Whether either gave us the ``real'' Richard is beside the point. They have given us Richards who loom large in our imagination. And that's the invaluable, humanizing role of drama.
Eleanor Ringel is film editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB