"Evaluate the historical value of three films treatment of the end of Nixon's Presidency."

I like it, thanks for the suggestion Mr Wright!

This weekend I'm going to be at the state library researching what ACTUALLY happened, (even though I have a pretty good knowledge that leads me to understand Nixon was in the same sort of league as Mao in my books), giving what reliable information I can to set the situation of the real event. Then I'll compare them to All The Presidents Men, Frost/Nixon and the movie Nixon (the semi-biographical one, still more of a movie that it is factual)


Few questions though:

- When I'm doing this though, should I be putting the directors into their own context? ie. What age / situation they were in during his resignation, their political views or any other factor that might change the portrayal of the end of his presidency?

- Should I also include things like dramatic techniques which may exaggerate tension or heightened emotions for commercial purposes?

- As for the actual film themselves should I look into how realistic and accurate they are as opposed to how much Hollywood has polarised them in order to make a major film ?

- Maybe a small delve into human emotions? Perhaps things like conflicting emotion about Nixon in the movies (Like Nixon/Front) where the director attempts to create sympathy for the situation of Nixon, portraying him as the 'broken, lost, lonely man who made a lot of mistakes which cost him his life" type person. This, I suppose, is an interesting thing to assess, whether this spin on the character comes from the Director (Ron Howard) own personal context or whether it was just employed to make Frost/Nixon a good film. Perhaps it is the loathing you feel suddenly challenged by the directors appeal to look at Nixon in a sympathetic light after all the atrocious things he did is a good thing to evaluate and assess

- When I go about writing my Proposal and eventually my practise essay, should I be assessing the film based not only on historical values but on influences from Hollywood, Target Audience and the Directors personal Context?

- HISTORICAL VALUE: Are we talking how accurate? Once again, are we addressing how the influences previously mentioned affect this?

-Should I perhaps look at the film from differing perspectives? I'm not quite sure if this will work, I'm just thinking that by using broader scope such as this I'll be displaying strong analytical abilites.

If anyone (and I really mean, anyone) wants to discuss, answer or tell me I've written something useless up here, PLEASE TELL ME! This stuffs going to help me with my proposal, and I'd love feed back!