JFK
50 years after the fact, the JFK assassination remains still the biggest obsession for the collective American psyche in history, with the idea that an organized conspiracy worked together to literally and physically remove a President from office through the act of cold blooded, deliberate murder still boggling people’s minds with the mass speculation and psychological fallout being as such that those with great power will probably never attempt such an act again, an extremely beneficial circumstance for controversial later Presidents such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Oliver Stone’s 1991 film about the event, an absolute technical marvel with incredible editing and cinematography, along with an ensemble cast so deep in the depth of its star power as to be almost overwhelming, can in many ways NOT be looked at as an accurate recreation of what the real conspiracy probably was, but more as a treatise on how We The People should always feel obligated to question everything we see and are told by our government, not just about Kennedy but literally EVERYTHING that comes on in this era of 24/7 news coverage in order to get at the epitome of freedom in its purest form, which is truth. The story follows that of New Orleans DA Jim Garrison, whom in the immediate aftermath of the assassination made some local inquiries into the case before turning the matter over to the FBI, then three years later reopens it after taking the time to pore over every volume of The Warren Commission Report, and finding it so full of holes and shoddy investigative work (keeping in mind that Earl Warren stated at the time that much of what they found out was suppressed in the interests of national security and would be revealed at “a later date”) that he endeavors to take it upon himself to use his initial leads to bring the killers to justice in his own court of law. In the lead role of Garrison, Stone managed to secure the services of Kevin Costner, at the time the top movie star in the world and widely thought of as a bona fide slice of Americana itself. Indeed, the role of Garrison is a composite of three men it would seem, one being Garrison himself, said by some to be a reprehensible man who would drug and / or hypnotize his witnesses so they would perform better on the stand and further his agenda; the second being Stone, who became consumed in his own right with finding out as much as he could about the possible conspiracy, and managed to incorporate the elements of his own findings into the character that the real Garrison never got into; and the final being Costner himself, bringing his own passion and conviction to the role, particularly in his emotional closing speech at the trial (which the real Garrison never gave). At the target of Garrison’s indignant wrath is Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw, a real life businessman whom many felt Garrison went after because of his homosexuality, mostly due to the testimony of a shady, alcoholic private detective (Jack Lemmon), and so Garrison builds his case, even as Jones deftly manages to inject his role with equal doses of both sinister and sympathetic, scoring a Supporting Actor Oscar Nomination in the process. As it would turn out in this context, the masterminds of the JFK killing would seem to be a gang of far right wing homosexuals consisting of Shaw, David Ferrie (an absolutely insane yet amazing Joe Pesci), and the fictional Willie O’Keefe (Kevin Bacon, also very good), along with a batch of bitter anti-Castro Cubans and Oswald himself seeming to be like a fly on the wall, with Shaw using his connections to the CIA (never proven) to pull everything needed together to carry it out. And while Garrison and his team (Laurie Metcalf, Michael Rooker, Jay O. Sanders, Wayne Knight, and Gary Grubbs) dig deeper, so we are treated to appearances by such great names as Sally Kirkland, Ed Asner, Vincent D’Onofrio, Sissy Spacek as Garrison’s wife, Brian Doyle-Murray as Jack Ruby, Walter Matthau, Pruitt Taylor Vince, John Candy, Garrison himself as Earl Warren, Donald Sutherland as a mysterious insider who gives Garrison some important info even though it was Stone, not Garrison, who was approached by this man in real life and Stone wrote it into the movie, Bob Gunton, Lolita Davidovich, John Larroquette, Ron Rifkin, and Frank Whaley, although the most acclaimed acting honors of all would have to go to Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald himself, seemingly not so much a case of performance but rather literally possession, playing one of the most enigmatic figures in World History in such a way that we literally feel like we get to know him (in the way that Stone wants us to), and feeling equal measures of sympathy, fascination and fear, and why Oldman was not awarded an Oscar just on principle is astounding. As it turns out in the end, the Clay Shaw case itself was in no means intended to be some definitive end, as in recent years even Stone himself has stated that he believes in Shaw’s innocence and that the elusive truth is still out there, as those who still believe in The Warren Commission’s Oswald as Lone Gunman conclusion, must still admit that on top of the many files the government has on Oswald that remain classified to this day, if Oswald had indeed acted alone, the circumstances that enabled him to actually pull it off proves that God was really NOT on John Kennedy’s side that day, and if there was a conspiracy, it probably consisted of The Military and The CIA working with The Mob (and having them do the dirty work while they supervised) with Oswald being part of the shooting team at The School Book Depository and, with him being considered an unstable, loose cannon misfit, had him set up to take the blame afterwards, with Jack Ruby sent in two days later to finish the job, murdering Oswald in cold blood on national television and making sure the world would talk about this forever. And for that, this viewer has Stone to thank, for learning to think freely and on his own with his own voice and own opinion, after watching this work of genius that rewrites history with passion and inspiration…
10/10