JFK

"JFK" is not only one of the most interesting movies that I have ever seen, it is also a paragon of technique and filmmaking. The movie also proves that when Oliver Stone makes a movie about the 1960's, he is almost infallible (see "The Doors," "Platoon," or "Born on the Fourth of July.") In its time (1992), "JFK" was very controversial. Several famous journalists called it a wacky conspiracy theory that had more speculations than truth. However, to view "JFK" like a History Channel special is to miss the point entirely. Oliver Stone is not very adept at fact (see "Alexander," his blunderbuss of a movie). Instead, like many talented directors, he is skilled in emotion and complexity. "JFK" is not asking its audience to believe 100% of its assertions. It is asking us to recall the emotions felt by America on November 22, 1963. More importantly, it is demanding that we always challenge authority in the pursuit of truth. "JFK" is not a source of truth, but it is an exercise in the complexity of cause. In my opinion, this movie stands at the apex of using film to explain complicated historical inquiries (notice I wrote inquiries and not fact).

From the moment that John Williams' beautiful score begins to play its military drums, you will be hooked. Stone brilliantly portrays Kennedy's assassination as a military execution. We are shown pictures of Kennedy riding in his limousine to his eventual demise. Additionally, Stone gives us a brief history lesson, which acts as an overview of the events that will come into play later on. He presents us with introductory snippets that will make more sense at the end of the movie. Cinematically, the audience will be taken from 1963, where everything was a bundle of confusion, to 1968 where a lone district attorney has begun to make sense of all the small tidbits and the nearly impossible complexity. This tactic, which is only five or so minutes into the movie, is inspired and engaging.

The main outline of the story goes like this: Kennedy is shot in Dallas, Texas. A district attorney named Jim Garrison in New Orleans is left with an uneasy feeling after the government submitted the Warren Report, which asserted that a lone assassin named Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy from the Texas Book Depository on Dealey Plaza. Garrison begins to investigate and comes upon an intricate web of interesting facts. Eventually, Garrison forms his own theory which asserts that Cuban exiles, angry military leaders, and the mafia all conspired together to murder a President who shook up conservative government policy, especially in regards to Cuba.

At this point of the review, it is necessary to take a step back and reflect on how difficult it is for a filmmaker to portray the above story. Stone has two contradictory objectives. First, he must show the confusion, dead ends, unanswered questions, and slow progression with which Garrison comes upon his theories. Second, he must also present the vast amount of information in a coherent form for the audience to understand by the end of the movie. Furthermore, the information to be included sometimes only fits together by small strands of logical thinking or speculation. In a way, just as Garrison must prove his case in front of the jury by the end of the film, so must Stone make his case by using primary evidence.

In a movie that has many great attributes, it is the landmark editing that stands as the best aspect. Through small flashbacks and recreations of intricate events (such as the day of the shooting) intertwined with present events (such as Garrison's investigation and the trial of Clay Shaw at the end), the audience is able to understand the growing body of information that explains Kennedy's assassination. Moreover, the chaotic nature of the splices makes the audience understand the just anger with which Oliver Stone made the film. We realize how the government took advantage of pandemonium and fear in order to nonsensically assert that one gunman killed Kennedy. To give an example: in a segment discussing Lee Harvey Oswald's past and how the men who killed Kennedy set him up as a scapegoat, Stone splices in shots of an unknown person fabricating the famous Time Magazine photo of Oswald holding a shotgun and a Communist newspaper. In effect, as Garrison explains the set up, the audience is shown a metaphorical yet real comparison. My favorite part of the film is the final trial of Clay Shaw. November 22, 1963 is reconstructed in the courtroom and in a long live action sequence. The audience is shown what probably happened, what could have happened, and what the government asserted happened.

Jim garrison is an odd yet fitting person to have as the hero of the movie. On one hand, he a rogue district attorney from Louisiana who investigates a crime out of his jurisdiction using resources of his home state and commences a questionable prosecution against a man suspected (at best) of being a CIA contractor. In short, because of his location and choice to prosecute someone without smoking gun evidence, Garrison is not a very good lawyer in the case. On the other hand, given the movie's anger against the government, Garrison represents every man who searches for truth. He speaks for all of us when he asks what happened to our President in 1963 and why the government was not forthcoming about it. Despite a competent but not stellar performance by Kevin Costner, Stone does a fantastic job of making us respect and even empathize with Garrison, even if he is acting beyond his jurisdiction.

The only aspect of the movie that has come under fire after its release is its validity. Legitimate journalists panned Stone for engaging in a crazy conspiracy theory with little or no evidence. Perhaps the best example of Stone reaching to prove his points is the part of the movie involving Mr. X, an ex-military general who provides evidence that high ranking military leaders (which may or may not include Lyndon Johnson) had Kennedy killed to commence a coup de etat of conservative foreign and domestic policy in America. Admittedly, I also question the movie's validity on this point. However, I am not sure that Stone is providing a documentary on JFK in this movie. Stone's purpose is to provide all of the information whether valid or not in order to demonstrate what the public did not know and what we should have questioned after Kennedy's death. Thus, Mr. X is not fact; he is an indication that we should investigate all leads in a crime, even if they produce a dead end.

After "JFK" premiered in the early 1990's, the House of Representaives released a number of documents that actually proved many (but not all) of the assertions in the movie. Oswald was more than a lone gunman; he was a military trained communist defector. The CIA had many covert operations with unquestioned and unlimited funding. An angry group of Cuban exiles funded by the CIA could have planned the assassination. The government covered up many parts of the investigation because of its unknown support of this CIA terror cell. In the end, Oliver Stone has not proven who killed John F. Kennedy on that balmy day in November. But what he has done is capture a nation's anger and frustration. He has encouraged viewers to leap out of the dark and search for answers. Stone used "JFK" to get the ball rolling. In the process, he has created one of the best made and most memorable movies in American cinema.