JFK

USA, 1991

Director: Oliver Stone

Production: Warner Bros./Le Studio Canal/Regency Enterprises/Alcor; color, 35mm, Panavision; running time: 189 minutes; director's cut runs 205 minutes. Released 20 December 1991 (U.S.A.). Much footage filmed on location in New Orleans, Dallas, Texas, and Washington D.C. Budget: $40 Million (approx.).

Producers: A. Kitman Ho, Oliver Stone; screenplay: Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar, from the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs; photography: Robert Richardson; editors: Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia; sound: Bill Daly (sound mixer: Dealey Plaza), Gregg Landaker, Tod A. Maitland, Michael Minkler, Wylie Stateman, Michael D. Wilhoit; art directors: Derek R. Hill, Alan R. Tomkins; original music score: John Williams; casting: Risa Bramon Garcia, Billy Hopkins, Heidi Levitt.

Cast: Kevin Costner (Jim Garrison); Sissy Spacek (Liz Garrison); Joe Pesci (David Ferrie); Tommy Lee Jones (Clay Shaw); Gary Oldman (Lee Harvey Oswald); Jay O. Sanders (Lou Ivon); Michael Rooker (Bill Broussard); Laurie Metcalf (Susie Cox); Gary Grubbs (Al Osner); John Candy (Dean Andrews); Jack Lemmon (Jack Martin); Walter Matthau (Senator Long); Ed Asner (Guy Bannister); Donald Sutherland (X); Kevin Bacon (Willie O'Keefe); Brian Doyle-Murray (Jack Ruby); Sally Kirkland (Rose Cheramie); Jim Garrison (Earl Warren).

Awards: Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing (Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia), 1992; American Cinema Editors Award (Eddie) (Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia), 1992; Golden Globe Award for Best Director—Motion Picture, 1992; British Academy Award (BAFTA) for Best Editing (Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia) and Best Sound (Gregg Landaker, Tod A. Maitland, Michael Minkler, Wylie Stateman, Michael D. Wilhoit), 1993.

Publications

Script:

Stone, Oliver, and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film, New York, 1994.

Books:

Garrison, Jim, On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy, New York, 1988.

Marrs, Jim, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, New York, 1990.

Beaver, Frank, Oliver Stone: Wakeup Cinema, New York, 1994.

Riordan, James, Stone: The Controversies, Excesses, and Exploits of a Radical Filmmaker, New York, 1994.

Kunz, Don, editor, The Films of Oliver Stone (Filmmakers Series, No. 55), Metuchen, New Jersey, 1997.

Articles:

Anson, Robert Sam, "The Shooting of JFK," in Esquire (New York), 1 November 1991.

Stone, Oliver, interview in Time (New York), 23 December 1991.

Crowdus, Gary, "Getting the Facts Straight: An Interview with Zachary Sklar," in Cineaste (New York), vol. 19, no. 1, 1992.

Crowdus, Gary, "Clarifying the Conspiracy: An Interview with Oliver Stone," in Cineaste (New York), vol. 19, no. 1, 1992.

Medhurst, Martin J., "The Rhetorical Structure of Oliver Stone's JFK," in Critical Studies in Mass Communication, June 1993.

Romanowski, William D., "Oliver Stone's JFK: Commercial Filmmaking, Cultural History, and Conflict," in Journal of Popular Film and Television (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1993.

Crowdus, Gary, "History, Dramatic License, and Larger Historical Truths: An Interview with Oliver Stone," in Cineaste (New York), vol. 22, no. 4, 1997.

Sharrett, Christopher, "Conspiracy Theory and Political Murder in America: Oliver Stone's JFK and the Facts of the Matter," in Jon Lewis, editor, The New American Cinema, Durham, North Carolina, 1998.

Rosenstone, Robert A., "JFK: Historical Fact/Historical Film," in Alan Rosenthal, editor, Why Docudrama?: Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, Carbondale, Illinois, 1999.

Winner of two Oscars, for cinematography and editing, and nominated for five others, JFK has been praised as a film but heavily criticized as an historical account of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. By 1991, when JFK was released, Stone was already well known as a maker of challenging and controversial films, notably about America's involvement in Vietnam. His attacks on the American government and justice system, for their pandering to big business over the needs of the people, are all the more remarkable given that they appeared in the 1980s and early 1990s, a period of conservatism in Hollywood and elsewhere. JFK, arguably his most impressive work as a director, consolidated his reputation as an argumentative and politically awkward filmmaker.

The film revives New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's 1967 theory that Kennedy was killed in an attempted coups d'état orchestrated by military and industrial influences within the American government. Their motivation, Garrison believed, was opposition to Kennedy's aim of withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Even before Stone began making the film, Garrison's theory had been shown to have little real evidence to support it, and JFK itself has since been picked over by critics eager to show the inconsistencies in Stone's account.

In attempting to provide as much detail as possible about Garrison's theory, most of it explained in Costner's deadpan drawl, Stone ran the risk of alienating much of his audience. The extreme length of the movie, which runs for well over three hours in its "director's cut," might also have discouraged filmgoers. Yet JFK was a commercial success, at least in part because of its subject matter, which also attracted many well-known actors and others to play minor roles. The most interesting of these cameos is the real Jim Garrison playing Earl Warren. Stone also extracts fine performances from his leading actors, particularly from Tommy Lee Jones, who projects a menacing sense of suppressed violence as Clay Shaw, the businessman with whose trial and acquittal the film ends. Kevin Costner's portrayal of Jim Garrison's single-minded determination to find the truth is compelling, and Kevin Bacon, Joe Pesci, and Sissy Spacek are also impressive.

The film is also very well made; JFK is a masterpiece of well-judged tension, dramatic revelation, and changes of mood. By switching between film stocks, blending documentary and "made" footage, and introducing a series of bizarre and sinister characters, Stone manages to drive the narrative along with vigor, despite its sometimes rather detached, obsessive feel. The repeated showing of the famous Zapruder home movie of the killing helps to lend authenticity to the action, while dramatic set-pieces, such as Garrison's timing a marksman as he attempts to fire three shots from a manual rifle, give a sense of documentary objectivity.

While the film is convincingly detailed and impressive as a detective thriller, its actual value as a documentary is negligible. Stone has rightly been criticized for presenting as true events for which there is no conclusive evidence. What is perhaps more worrying, however, is Stone's manipulation of evidence to prove his point. The blurring of the distinction between documentary and "made" footage is a showcase for the skills of the Oscar-winning editors, but it also obscures the point at which the real evidence begins and Stone's invention ends. Even the short Zapruder film was altered in an effort to suggest the existence of bullets entering Kennedy's body from different directions. Given the authority with which such "evidence" is presented, it is difficult to see any real difference between Stone's manipulation of the known facts and the deception his film identifies at the heart of the Warren Commission's investigation.

As a convincing alternative to the official account of the assassination, JFK has many shortcomings, and one of its more unfortunate effects has been to further mythologize the circumstances of Kennedy's death. But if Stone's intention was to challenge the American government's handling of the case, and renew public interest in finding out the truth about the assassination, JFK was a resounding success. Indeed, the film aroused so much debate and speculation that in an attempt to satisfy public curiosity the U.S. Congress passed the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, demanding the early release of almost all of the government's files on the case. Taking account of the controversy the film aroused, hardcore conspiracy theorists should note that Stone himself received no Oscars for JFK.

—Chris Routledge

KENNEDY, JOHN F. 1917-1963

President of the united states, 1961-1963

Seeking the Nomination

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a promising young U.S. Senator from Massachusetts when his nominating speech for Adlai Stevenson at the 1956 Democratic National Convention caught the attention of party leaders and nearly won him the vice-presidential nomination. As soon as the 1956 election was over, he put together an impressively efficient and knowledgeable campaign staff and began running for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. Overcoming doubts about his youth and the prevalent belief that, as a Roman Catholic, he could not be elected president of the United States, he won his party's nomination and faced Richard M. Nixon in the November 1960 election.

Campaigning for Change

Kennedy campaigned on the need for change, charging the Eisenhower administration with inaction on foreign policy matters such as growing Soviet influence in Cuba and on the economy, which was in a recession. His youthful good looks and ready wit so appealed to the American public that journalists began using the word charisma to describe his effect on campaign crowds, who were equally charmed by his beautiful young wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Turning his youth into an asset while at the same time convincing voters of his maturity, forty-three-year-old Kennedy overcame voters' qualms about his religion to win the closest presidential election in the twentieth century. He was the youngest president ever elected and the first born in the twentieth century.

The Torch Is Passed

Succeeding seventy-year-old Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the oldest man to have served as president, a hatless John F. Kennedy projected an image of youthful vigor as he stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on a freezing 20 January 1961 and pro-claimed, "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of human rights to which this nation has always been committed.…"

Foreign Policy Crises

Americans were fascinated by the new president and first lady, admiring their cultural sophistication and glamour, learning from their promotion of the arts, and enjoying the frequently photo-graphed hijinks of their two young children. Yet the first two years of Kennedy's presidency were fraught with crises. Although he had campaigned on promises to stimulate the economy, support civil rights legislation, provide federal aid to elementary and secondary schools, and create a Medicare program for the elderly, his attention during his first two years in office was diverted by foreign policy challenges from the Soviet Union and a growing Communist threat in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the Third World. The situation with the Soviet Union came to a head in October 1962 with the Cuban missile crisis. After he faced down Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, forcing him to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union gradually began to improve, and Kennedy was able to turn his attention to domestic affairs.

Domestic-Policy Wars

Although the Kennedy administration worked diligently and efficiently to enforce compliance with existing civil rights laws, much of its own domestic legislation became bogged down in Congress, where the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and northern Republicans cooperated to prevent it from coming to a vote. After Kennedy's death from an assassin's bullet on 22 November 1963, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, effectively invoked the fallen leader's memory to push Kennedy's legislative package through Congress.

The Kennedy Image

Immediately after his death, Kennedy's popularity, which like most presidents' had fluctuated during his tenure in office, rose to heights surpassed only by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the past hundred years. Airports, schools, roads, and other public facilities were named after him. Yet his presidency was one of unfulfilled potential rather than great achievement.

Sources:

Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988);

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965);

Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965);

Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (Pittsburgh: University Press of Pittsburgh, 1980).

JFK John Fitzgerald Kennedy (US president 1961–63)