JFK. 1991. Directed by Oliver Stone.

(10/6/00-10/8/00)

The Kennedy assassination was a major event in American history and American mythology. It was a mysterious event--no one knows what really happened. It smacks of a conspiracy--even the government admitted this in later years--and a cover-up which was largely successful. Most people don't believe the official explanation, but nobody knows what really happened. The event has developed a fascination for the American public and a hold on its imagination. It is thus an irresistable subject for a film. Oliver Stone accepted the challenge.

The result is a lot more compelling than Nixon. One of the reasons for this is simply that JFK himself was a more glamorous and charismatic figure than Nixon. His administration was a time of hope, a hope that was cruellyshattered in November 1963. This glamour-boy was president for less than three years--people didn't have a chance to get bored with him. And they don't have a chance to get bored with him in the movie because he only appears fora few minutes at the beginning. JFK is a film about his absence, not about his presence.

Yet, there is a main character--Jim Garrison. Garison was the New Orleans D.A. who brought one person to trial for being a part of the conspiracy. Kevin Costner plays Garrison in a low-key style. He is earnest and dignified. It's the story of a man fighting a corrupt system. It's reminiscent of Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but with a difference. Mr. Smith won. Garrison didn't, but subsequent events have vindicated him to the extent that it was admitted that Clay Shaw did work for the CIA and the government found probable cause to believe that there was a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. But Garrison's struggle is not a simple, unequivocal triumph.

Oliver Stone is not an idealist like Capra. His story of a man against the system is a more realistic and mature one. Garrison wins simply by having brought the case to trial, by making the information he collected available, by discrediting the Warren Commision report and by the subsequent vindications already mentioned. His accomplishment was not small, but it wasn't as simple and neat as in the Capra film.

The climax of JFK is the trial in which Garrison presents the information he has uncovered and then addresses the jury about its duty to seek out the truth. It is a fine scene, but it is not quite believable when Garrison accuses Lyndon Johnson of being an accomplice in the Kennedy assassination. Even if that were true, Garrison would have known better than to say that out loud to a jury. Yet, the speech wasn't written for a jury; it was written for the audience and Stone isn't going to worry about a trifling detail like that.

Stone presents a whole theory as to how and why JFK was killed. He was killed because he was going to end the Vietnam war. This was not acceptable to those who were profiting by the war. The assassination was engineered by the CIA, presumably with Johnson's blessing. A lot of it is speculation, but it's a convincing explanation.

Other people can and have debated just how likely all this is, but to myself and others sitting in that theater it comes across as a convincing explanation. It satisfies something.

(But it does make me wonder. If the American economy depended so much on war, then how is Clinton able to get away with cutting as much from the defense budget as he has? He's survived two terms.)

Garrison meets with a man who will not give his name--just X. "X" is played by Donald Sutherland in a haunting scene which takes place in Washington. He talks about "black ops"--how American intelligence interfered in foreign politics. The Kennedy assassination was a "black op" done at home. Morrison is incredulous at his account and says that he doesn't believe him. It's the same kind of disillusionment that Jefferson Smith had to undergo.

The scene with X is marred by music on the soundtrack which makes it hard to hear what he is saying. And X's hope that if Garrison can get a conviction it will cause a chain reaction and the whole thing will crack open seems a little naive.

Except for a few scenes the whole film seems to be saturated with the color brown. It is a sober color for what is basically a sober film. There is a lot of black-and-white footage, too, as is common with Stone in the 90's, but here black-and-white is used for flashbacks, emphasizing that what we are looking at is taking place in the past.