The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 221 Days to go: 220
Movie #156: JFK
It’s important to remember two things about JFK. First, screenplay co-writer and director Oliver Stone has a long and storied (perhaps justified, perhaps overblown, perhaps both) bias against the Vietnam War. Second, JFK, like any biopic, is a feature film, not a documentary or even a historically accurate reenactment, and therefore embellishes and exaggerates certain material while altering or cutting out altogether other material all in the name of artistic license. That being said, however, there is no way I believe the long-held stance of the federal government that John F. Kennedy was killed by a single gunman, and therefore I have a lot of interest in the story of the man who sought to prove otherwise.
Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) was District Attorney in New Orleans when President Kennedy was shot. Based on some reports and tips that accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) had ties to New Orleans the previous summer, he questions a few people in the days following Kennedy’s death but ultimately leaves the initial investigation to the federally appointed Warren Commission. Upon the Commission’s findings, however, Garrison concludes that the investigation into Kennedy’s assassination was one of the sloppiest, most hurried and most railroaded investigation he’d ever known. And so in 1966 — three years after that fateful day in Dallas — he opens his own investigation, and ultimately proves to be the only person ever to bring anyone to trial for the Kennedy assassination.
The movie sets about building an elaborate structure of people and facts, actions and timelines that all seem to refute every possibility of Oswald acting alone — or even, possibly, acting at all. But whether you believe Oswald was an assassin or part of a conspiracy to assassinate or simply a convenient fall guy, Oliver Stone’s film is a thrilling and impressive mystery. There are so many people involved, so many facets to the conspiracy theory that the film suggests, it could all easily get bogged down in its own sprawling logic, and yet Stone layers the film so expertly that it never once feels out of control. It’s a long film, to be sure, and it probably could’ve been streamlined a bit in that area, but it doesn’t drag. It’s well-paced and captivating, accompanied by a rolling, thumping, insistent score that quickens the pulse and urges the film along.
JFK also boasts an impressive roster of actors — it being one of those linchpin movies that makes Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon so easy to play (or hard, if you’re trying to find people with more than two or three degrees of separation, tops) — from Joe Pesci as a peculiar little man named David Ferrie who was a possible co-conspirator, to Tommy Lee Jones as the man, Clay Shaw, whom Garrison brought to trial, to Sissy Spacek (as Garrison’s wife) to Ed Asner (as Guy Bannister) to Jack Lemmon (as informant Jack Martin) to Walter Matthau (as Senator Long) to Laurie Metcalf (as Susie Cox with ever-enlarging hair) to Wayne Knight (as Numa Bertel) to John Candy (as Dean Andrews). And of course, Kevin Bacon as male prostitute Willie O’Keefe. My favorite supporting performance, however, comes from Donald Sutherland as a former CIA operative who only refers to himself as X and who goes a long way in building a case for a government conspiracy to tie the assassination to the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and, as President Eisenhower warns in the footage that opens the film, “the military industrial complex.” Sutherland’s character is both secretive and authoritative, shown as having a wide knowledge of confidential procedures, protocol and information, and he’s largely responsible for connecting Garrison’s somewhat small-time collection of information to a much larger motive.
And actually, the mere act of establishing motive for the killing goes a long way into making the film feel as credible as it does. For all the hard-line declarations of Oswald as the lone gunman that have been offered as fact in our country’s history, no one has ever really established, or even attempted to establish, anything remotely like a strong enough motive — for JFK’s death or for the death of his brother Robert or for the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., which the film tangentially attempts to connect to this military industrial complex conspiracy, albeit rather unsuccessfully. This historical lack of any strong and clear motive on Oswald’s part certainly leaves the door open for people to create one, and that’s where Stone pounces, though he finds his greatest leverage more in the physical science of the case than in his elaborate suppositions. The most effective, logical point the film makes is when Garrison stresses the action taking place in the Zapruder film and details the supposed path of the infamous (and absurd) theory of the Magic Bullet. That’s his most compelling argument, by far, and it underscores why the jury was left believing there was a conspiracy at work, but couldn’t find any kind of proof that Clay Shaw was involved, thereby acquitting him of all charges.
I’m a person who likes answers. I like certainties. I like knowing what’s ahead of me and I like knowing the reasons for what’s come before. It can be a pretty frustrating way to be in real life, actually, but I’ve come to terms with it. When I’m stressed about money, I run all sorts of mathematical scenarios in order to calm myself. When I need a break, I plan vacations, even if I can’t take them. When I have writers’ block, I come up with character names for every letter of the alphabet and try to decide who each one is. These activities soothe me. I don’t like not knowing things, and I used to daydream that when I die, all the unanswered questions I’ve held onto in my life will be clarified. I’ll know why this relationship really ended and what happened to that thing I lost out of nowhere and who stole the money out of my purse that one time during gym class and, yes, who really killed President Kennedy. It’s a fantasy, I realize, but like I said, it soothes me. So in its way, JFK soothes me as well. It provides answers and options that weren’t there before, that hadn’t been provided before with anything other than illogical nonsense. It likely doesn’t get to the truth, but I feel like it gets closer than the currently accepted theory does. And more than that, it promotes Jim Garrison’s actions as necessary and patriotic — though he was often accused of the opposite — precisely because he doesn’t accept a government answer that doesn’t make sense. I admire that, I really do. And I hope someday, some more reliable answers will come to light.
Viable Option 