"JFK" (1991) uses long monologues to keep the audience riveted.....the Oliver Stone and Co. screenplay is the star of a great show! Here's why......

Rating: 10/10 (13 May 2013)

"JFK" (1991) uses long monologues to keep the audience riveted.....the Oliver Stone and Co. screenplay is the star of a great show! Here's why......
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If a Nobel Prize for movie screenplays resulting in incredible movie results were awarded, the writers of the "JFK" (1991) screenplay should get the first one..........
Here are the official screenplay credits for "JFK (1991) starring Kevin Costner: Oliver Stone (screenplay) Zachary Sklar (screenplay) based on the Jim Garrison book "On the Trail of the Assassins" and the Jim Marrs book "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy" Two screen writers who used two books to fashion a truly hypnotic screenplay resulting in a wonderful, satisfying, riveting movie.
"There are no good movies without good screenplays" saith the movie god sage, and this often repeated in "How To Write Good Screenplays" type books, of which there are many (many worth reading).
How true! The current (2013) fashion and mania and center stage status of comic book, superhero "action" movies packed with special effects and computer generated images (CGI's!) is all about the LACK of good screen writing available to the movie industry, which serves a huge and profitable market (aka the world wide audience reading and willing to pay big money for the distraction from their awful lives provided by a good, entertaining movie), and substitutes video game type psychedelica (both visual and audio images and sounds) to dazzle without the need for mental logic or coherent ideas.
Well......good screenplays are hard to come by, always were.
The "JFK" (1991) screenplay resulted in a wonderful, magnetic, riveting movie packed with long, long, long compelling monologues delivered by wonderful, verbally capable actors (Kevin Costner, Donald Sutherland, others) which "action heroes" of fame and note (e.g. Clint Eastwood, bless him) could never have, and will never deliver.
Clint, even in his 80's, can jump out of windows and slug bad guys, but he can't provide articulate, sustained intelligent long, long monologues filled with polysyllabic words and complex but logical ideas which go on and and on and on..and keep us all on the edge of our seats, and make us grateful we were lucky enough to see a great movie with almost NO "action" and visual crutches the "no ideas" "silent super hero" movies based on Marvel Comics types shove at us in current times (2013).
Only well educated and articulate actors can "talk the talk" and present long, intelligent arguments, and "JFK" (1991) does that well, to it's credit.
For those who don't know, "JFK" (1991) is a Kennedy assassination conspiracy movie based on Jim Garrison's assertions, legal actions, and book with help from yet another Kennedy assassination conspiracy book..
What the brilliant Oliver Stone and his co-authors have done is simple and wonderful.
They have taken a "single issue" argument and "cause" well known to the public and famous everywhere, and made a movie consisting of long, long monologues presenting in logical and articulate detail various related arguments in such zealous detail, any lawyer advocate of ability would be dazzled.
And dazzled we, the audience, are....by this movie and it's simple device......logical long monologues presented by well equipped (for monologues) actors which are implicitly dramatic and appealing.
"Single issue" causes (such as the Kennedy assassination conspiracy arguments) are dramatic and satisfying.
They provide the audience with a good time for the same reason a good football game provides good times to onlookers.
Logic, oddly, has very little to do with it all.
"Single issue" causes not seriously challenged or contradicted (the case in "JFK" 1991) SEEM logical and deliver a delicious satisfaction to the audience.
This has nothing to do with whether or not the "cause" presented is worthy or whether the conclusions advocated are accurate and true.
It's all about the psychological satisfaction of hearing a good one sided case well presented which we've all heard about before, and can never know about completely....nobody can for most famous "single issue" causes of fame.
And there are many, many, MANY "single issue causes" of fame over history which could ALSO be presented in movie form using the techniques of screen writing used in "JFK" (1991), which would make incredibly successful and satisfying movies (again, let us emphasize that logic has little to do with emotional and mental satisfaction...a good "single issue" movie filled with monologues must avoid on-screen challenges to the case it presents....the fact it's one sided is what will make it a successful movie!
Richard Hofstader's brilliant book titled "The Paranoid Style In American Politics" (1952 Harvard U. Press) discusses the fame and success of single issue causes.
Hofstadter states, rightly, that single cause writing (which the "JFK" 1991 screenplay definitely is) is successful due to "the fierce logic of the one-idea mind, the firm conviction that complex social issues can be unraveled to the last point, that social problems can really be solved, and solved by simple means." The back up materials which can feed a movie screenplay of the "JFK" (1991) type are copious and available almost in tidal wave proportions.
What is Hollywood waiting for? It's time for more "single issue causes" movies with many long, long monologues delivered by good actors......
The movie makers will get rich, and the lucky audiences will be endlessly satisfied!.
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Tex (David) Allen is a retired SAG-AFTRA movie actor who taught movie history 5 years in Baltimore MD USA area colleges from 2004-2009.