Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Holdovers,’ on History as ‘An Explanation of the Present’)

Paul Hunham [played by Paul Giamatti] [on a “field trip” through a Boston museum with a student]: “There's nothing new in human experience, Mr. Tully. Each generation thinks it invented debauchery or suffering or rebellion, but man's every impulse and appetite from the disgusting to the sublime is on display right here all around you. So, before you dismiss something as boring or irrelevant, remember, if you truly want to understand the present or yourself, you must begin in the past. You see, history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.”—The Holdovers (2023), screenplay by David Hemingson, directed by Alexander Payne