Truly fascinating and brilliant film-making

Rating: 8/10 (22 July 2005)

I had never given much thought to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I am not nor ever have been any kind of conspiracy theorist, though that's not to say that I'm not a skeptic either. I was skeptical of the "official story" in the assassination. I suspected there was some kind of conspiracy involved and that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone, but never gave the matter much thought nor did I ever actually go back and look at any of the evidence in the matter.
Oliver Stone is different, though. For him, the world shook when shots rang out in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, and left the youthful, handsome, and charismatic President of the United States dead, the Governor of Texas severely wounded, and the nation in shock. The Warren Commission's official story of what happened that day really bothered Stone. It was a story he found hurried, inadequate, flawed, and highly suspect, like the Commission was desperate to make the facts fit a preconceived notion of one assassin and three shots. It bothered him enough that he made a movie offering, in his words, "my counter-fiction to the Warren Commission's fiction." "JFK" isn't supposed to be the definitive end-all explanation of what happened that fateful day but rather is supposed to get us thinking about it again, a task that it achieves with sheer brilliance.
Oliver Stone presents us with a unique set of characters: the straight-faced New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), the flamboyant low-life David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), a loudmouth male prostitute (Kevin Bacon), the snobbish businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), the "Deep Throat"-like mystery informant known only as X (Donald Sutherland), and the mysterious Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman). Except for Bacon and Sutherland's characters, who are composite figures, all the others are based on real people. What Stone is doing, though, is not retelling the story of how Jim Garrison brought forth the only prosecution in the JFK assassination. Even while this movie was in production, Stone was being criticized for making a movie for the purpose of "vindicating" the real-life Garrison, who many see as being interested only in his own glory. Stone, however, is not trying to vindicate anybody here. What Stone has done is use the real-life story of Jim Garrison as a jumping-off point to present his case, which is why Stone makes use of information (such as the whereabouts of Oswald right before the assassination) that Garrison did not have in 1969. Stone wants to cast suspicion on the Warren Commission's findings and uses Garrison as his medium to do just that.
In that sense, this movie is not really advocating any one theory but rather rejecting the Warren Commission's theory. People have criticized the final theory that Stone puts forth, but in doing so, they have achieved his goal, which is to get the dialogue going again on the JFK assassination. What he presents is not necessarily fact but is rather "counter-fiction." The first half of the film feels very much like a conspiracy theory, where I sat wondering how much of what I was being shown was true. In the scene where Garrison meets with X, where X talks about the question of *why* Kennedy was killed, the reasons put forth bring the conspiracy to the highest levels of the government and somehow manage to sound both outrageous and plausible at the same time. Throughout the movie, Stone uses a variety of film types and both color and black-and-white to present flashbacks and hypothetical scenarios so realistic that they achieve their goal of feeling like they are actual events.
The end result is a movie that offers not *the* answer but *an* answer, an answer that rejects the Warren Commission's theory of a lone assassin, with evidence to support it. Now, tons of movies have been made and tons of books have been written offering various answers. But what makes Oliver Stone's "JFK" so unique is its storytelling. "JFK" is thrilling and mysterious, grabbing us by the collar and leading us step-by-step through the eyes of Jim Garrison through one of the greatest unsolved crimes of the 20th century. At the climax, Stone uses the power of film to its fullest potential, using his own color and black-and-white footage, created with a variety of film types, alongside archived footage (especially the famous Zapruder film) to show his heart-pounding recreation of the assassination, with John William's exhilarating soundtrack playing in the background. It is quite simply one of the the most exciting and heart-pounding scenes I have ever seen in any movie. "JFK" won Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing and this one scene was enough to win both of those awards. It is a scene that is undoubtedly used in film schools to demonstrate a masterpiece of cinematography and editing.
After watching "JFK," I still can't say that I know what happened at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Did Oswald act alone? Was there a conspiracy? If so, who was involved? How many shots rang out? Was Oswald merely, as he claimed, a "patsy"? "JFK" asks these questions and wants us to ask them. It wants us to, if not reject, then at least *question* the official account and after watching it, it's impossible not to.