Stone the Hypocrite

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2002)

As a movie, taken simply as a movie, JFK is a very good movie (and I don't even like Stone--he continually decries the (news) media, yet doesn't realize that he himself creates a form of media, a very powerful media that can be just as misleading and untruthful as any news program). But too many people treat this movie as some kind of proof, but in the end, there is a major contradiction. The movie makes the point that the truth will not be known until the Warren Commission's papers come out, yet the movie repeatedly refers to altered documents and testimony within those reports (how does anybody know that, anyway?). What truth will come out of doctored history?
And here we come to the main thing that's wrong with JFK--its undying belief in its own "truthfulness," despite the fact that it is a movie--a total fabrication, no matter how accurate its sources are. Maybe I'm a bit more sensitive than I should be about the subject of truth and memory, having taken classes in Creative Non-fiction and Memoirs and discussed quite often in various classes the accuracy of memory and point of view (check out Robin Hemley's memoir, "Nola," or David Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"), but I think Stone and Garrison weren't shining enough skepticism on eyewitness testimony and the memories, which would have given the movie true didactic balance. After all, if Stone wants us to examine our "rulers" more closely, then shouldn't we examine everything more closely?
On a personal note, the dedication at the end irks me. For one thing, Oliver Stone is older than my father. But more importantly, he links youth to change as if every young person has exactly the same opinion and are by their very nature slowly progressing to some better state of who knows what. I'm sorry, but I know a lot of young people who fear change just as much as the old crones Stone seems so deadset against, and I know a lot of swinging people older than Stone that are even more about changing the world than the young people around me. Those kinds of broad statements marr what could have been the greater truthfulness of JFK--not what really happened to the president, but what it was really like to live during those events.
I don't know what happened to Kennedy, and nobody will ever be satisfied with the truth if it ever comes out (despite what Stone says, the media feeds off conspiracy theories and unexplained events--there are still reports of Elvis sightings and UFOs). What I do know I think I know is that John F. Kennedy was not the saint the Hippies and (oh god!) the MEDIA make him out to be. The constant Julius Caesar/Brutus/Judas references were tiresome to me, and I thought I'd laugh my ass off when Kevin Costner told us to "remember our fallen king." Seems to me Oliver Stone bought into the media perception of JFK.