The University’s Center for Politics has released a trailer for their upcoming documentary about John F. Kennedy, entitled “This is the House that Jack Built.” The documentary is a collaboration between the Center for Politics and Community Idea Stations.
“’This is the House that Jack Built’ touches on familiar themes of JFK's life and his ascent to the presidency, his mistakes and his triumphs,” a press release from the Center for Politics read.
According to Glenn Crossman, the Center for Politics director of programs and associate producer of the documentary, the film started as a way to tell some lesser-known facts about Kennedy that the Center discovered in writing “The Kennedy Half-Century.”
“There were several very interesting stories in [the book’s afterword] ... and then we just collected a lot more stories that we thought were either not known by very much people at all or fairly unknown, either facts or stories that different people came forward to tell us,” Crossman said.
These include stories about Buell Frazier and several White House staffers in the JFK administration.
“Buell Frazier, who was the gentleman who drove Lee Harvey Oswald to work the day of the assassination, a lot of his stories have never really been told,” Crossman said. “We have a few former White House staffers that worked in the JFK administration who told some different stories. Robert Dallek, who is a well-known historian, has a lot of interesting little nuggets that he told us about Kennedy's time in the Senate and the White House.”
The documentary tells the story of JFK’s life, starting at his childhood, going all the way through his time as a senator and president and ending with his assignation and a look at his legacy.
The Center for Politics has created three Emmy-award winning documentaries in the past. Most recently, “Feeling Good About America: The 1976 Presidential Election” won an Emmy for Best Historical Documentary last month. Crossman said he believes the newest documentary will get nominated for an Emmy.
“That would be our fourth Emmy,” Crossman said. “The excitement of winning an Emmy never goes away. It's always very exciting for the Center to win an Emmy.”
This is a part of a year of JFK-themed programming from The Center for Politics, which included panels, speakers and a photo exhibit last semester. Earlier this summer, the center hosted the Virginia Political History Project, a program for local children that taught them about JFK through a series of activities. Coming up in September, they will be hosting JFK in the Space Era, where the director of the JFK Library Foundation and several representatives from NASA will come speak.
The documentary will premiere in Richmond Oct. 4 and in Charlottesville Oct. 11.
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