Review of JFK (1991) by Brandon S — 14 Jun 2011

JFK follows New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) as he latches on to loose ends poking out of Kennedy's assassination, and becomes obsessed with unraveling the threads. As the narrative plays out, we are treated to some of the most notable actors of all time who appear quite awkwardly. The long list of notables includes Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and Sissy Spacek as Garrison's wife who is all but ignored as Garrison concentrates on conspiracy. Oddest of all is the appearance of Joe Pesci and Tommy Lee Jones, both of whom sported a bizarre hair-and-makeup job. But the real kicker is how Stone intersperses footage he shoots for the movie with newsreel footage of famous and infamous events and figures associated with the Kennedy assassination, the 1960s and Washington politics. This emotionally charged montage of images includes footage of crosses burning, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as the Cuban missile crisis and of course the assassinations of Kennedy and Oswald. Most manipulative of all is the way Stone uses the newsreel footage with his own faux-aged footage to distort the past and blur the lines between reality and "stonality", for lack of a better word.

To be fair, Stone had somewhat noble motives in developing JFK - to remind the American people to not "sin with silence" (a quote from the movie), but as the saying goes the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Clearly, Stone advocates questioning leaders, holding them accountable and never letting government grow too powerful or dangerous. But film is the most powerful medium and when does revisionism and film manipulation grow too powerful or dangerous? Like a schoolyard bully who doesn't know the size of his own muscles, Stone creates such a powerful illusion, convincing narrative and emotionally loaded series of images that - as far as an ignorant populace is concerned - his film essentially unseats history in favor of its own agenda. What is that agenda? Stone's Garrison says it directly after the initial montage of footage ends: "Today I am ashamed to be an American". If JFK airs at least every year, that shame can be perennial.

A new generation of moviegoers sees the Kennedy assassination not through history's lens, but through Stone's, forever impacting public perception about the most visible national tragedy next to 9/11/01. I won't get into an analysis of all the ways Stone's account differs from reality or the reasons he ignores and massages facts. For that I recommend an excellent Atlantic article, JFK: Oliver Stone's Fictional Reality, by Edward Jay Epstein, a real associate of the real Jim Garrison, as opposed to the make-believe associates of the make-believe Garrison, played by Costner. To Stone's fans who adore the film and believe it to be art and a great constitutional call to arms, I would caution that it is the height of irresponsibility in artistic license to use the death of a leader and a country's mourning as the launching pad to replace fact with fiction. Of course, Stone also works his own voice through Garrison's mouth in telegraphed ways - mostly about the military industrial complex, but also when Liz Garrison wants her husband to be with their kids. "You know I don't like these tribal rituals," Garrison says of an Easter egg hunt.

Like many figures whose lives have actually intersected with Stone's work, including Ray Manzarek of The Doors and Edward Jay Epstein of Jim Garrison's team, I find Stone's film not just irresponsible and factually inaccurate but purposefully manipulative in a reckless way. This review will no doubt generate its share of controversy, but that is what Oliver Stone invites: controversy.