Creating the myth of JFK and "Camelot"

Rating: 8/10 (10 October 2017)

There is a scene about 1/3 of the way through "Jackie" where she and RFK are riding in the back of a hearse with the casket carrying the body of the slain President, after arriving at Andrews AFB, now proceeding to Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy. She and RFK had briefly discussed funeral plans, security issues, etc. She opens the glass partition and asks the driver and the other attendant what they remember about President Garfield and McKinley (who had both been assassinated in office) and neither knew anything about either. (I guess they skipped American History in HS) Jackie asked about President Lincoln and got this response-"Didn't he win the Civil War?"
So Mrs. Kennedy would decide to have a funeral that America and world would remember, to hopefully forever preserve a positive legacy of JFK's Presidency so he didn't merely end a footnote to history, like Garfield and McKinley and one must give her a A in this respect. In most polls from the public and historians JFK is rated as one of the great Presidents, even though by any true critical analysis his Presidency should be given an "I" for incomplete as his Presidency didn't even complete 3 full years, about 2 months shy, barely longer than such notables as Millard Fillmore and Gerald Ford. His most remembered accomplishment, the Cuban Missile Crisis, occurred partly because JFK had botched the Bay of Pigs invasion a year earlier which may have taken Castro out of power. So what has become most remembered about JFK was his horrific murder in a motorcade in downtown Dallas, leaving a young widow with 2 small children and the subsequent state funeral. I was in 3rd grade at the time and it's the first vivid historical memory I and millions have.
To be interested in "Jackie" I think you either have to be a JFK assassination history buff, a Kennedy devotee or someone old enough to have a memory of watching this on TV 50 some years ago. The film is going to sink or swim on Natalie Portman's portrayal, I think she does a good job despite some silly moments in the script. Like after she gets back to the WH alone in her bedroom, when she plays the soundtrack album from "Camelot" and between chain smoking, drinking vodka and taking pills, decides to play dress up, alternating between trying on various black funeral attire and some of her favorite gowns she wore at balls hosted at the WH, which we get to see in various flashback scenes. There is some fascinating behind the scenes type of stuff dealing with the political factions of the JFK and LBJ administrations but as I said, you have to have an interest in this sort of thing. The metaphor for JFK's reign as President and "Camelot" gets a bit overboard, something which is based on a false illusion promoted by a sympathetic press as "Camelot" debuted on Broadway, by absolute sheer coincidence, 1 month after JFK's election. Not sure, but I don't think the Camelot comparisons began till after his death.