American Fact? Or American Fiction?

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2005)

In 1969, New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison brought noted New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw to trial for conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy. To date, this is the only trial of any individual in reference to the Kennedy assassination. This controversial 1991 film follows Garrison's investigation into the Kennedy assassination from the day of Kennedy's death to the conclusion of the trial--and it has prompted almost as much controversy as the assassination itself.
How much of this film are we to take as fact and how much of it are we take as fiction? Critics have noted that as a historian, Stone is a great filmmaker, and with JFK Stone creates a vision so extreme that even some conspiracy theorists have denounced it as completely impossible. But that may actually be part of the film's point: that we live in a society that typically subverts the truth, a world in which facts are hard to come by and in which speculation runs wild.
However you wish to take the film, there's no denying that it is exceptionally well done. Much of its power rests on visuals. JFK is presented on different film stocks with various grains and color qualities, and these scenes--some of them lasting only seconds--are combined like pieces of an jigsaw puzzle to create a slowly emerging picture of American politics at its worst. The script, largely based on Garrison's book ON THE TRAIL OF THE Assassins, works in much the same fashion, shifting rapidly from scene to scene and back and forth in time. In combination, cinematography and script have a cumulative power that is most impressive, and Williams' haunting score adds greatly to the effect.
The ensemble cast is easily one of the best I've ever seen. Kevin Costner is not, perhaps, ideally cast as Jim Garrison--but he plays in an extremely low-key manner completely devoid of any "star" trappings, and thus throws focus on the myriad of characters who swirl through the story. Gary Oldman is uncanny as Lee Harvey Oswald. His performance is such that you're often unsure if you watching Oldman or news footage of Oswald, and Brian Doyle-Murray achieves a similar effect with the smaller role of Jack Ruby.
But perhaps the most memorable are the host of actors who appear in unlikely roles and who acquit themselves exceptionally well. Joe Pesci gives a typically aggressive performance in the strange role of a right-wing paramilitary homosexual, Kevin Bacon is completely unexpected and flawless as a hard-bitten gay prostitute, and Tommy Lee Jones is impressive as the influential Clay Shaw. Other memorable performers include Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, Laurie Metcalf, Sally Kirkland, and Donald Sutherland--and in a wicked twist of irony Jim Garrison himself appears as Justice Earl Warren.
The film is available on VHS and in several DVD packages, including a "director's cut" special edition that includes a number of extras, including an often interesting director's commentary, an interview with famous conspiracy theorist Prouty, and a documentary on certain intriguing records recently declassified by Congress as a direct result of this film's impact.
Historians and theorists will probably wrangle over the JFK assassination for decades, perhaps centuries to come. But whether you buy into Oliver Stone's scenario in whole, in part, or not at all, film is both extremely well-done and provocative to the max. If you want to stir conversation, this will do it. Recommended.
Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT