Stone, like Moore, finds it impossible to separate entertainment from politics, and has even gone on record to blame the financial failure of his recent epic Alexander (2004) on an aggressive right-wing agenda to make homosexuality a wedge issue. Commenting on Alexander's poor critical and audience response in Weekly Variety (Dec. 27 - Jan. 2) he said, "They called him Alexander the Gay. That's horribly discriminatory, but the film simply did not open in the South, in the Bible belt. There was clear resistance to the homosexuality. On JFK, I gambled on the audience's intelligence and won. Here, I lost the way I did on Nixon [1995]."
JFK (1991) was indeed a huge hit. Unlike Alexander, which was made for more than $150 million and has barely breached $34 million domestically, JFK was made for $40 million and grossed over $200 million, worldwide. It also won two Oscars® for Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson) and Best Film Editing (Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia), and was nominated in six other fields, including Best Picture (A. Kitman Ho, Oliver Stone), Best Sound (Michael Minkler, Gregg Landaker, Tod A. Maitland), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Director (Oliver Stone), Best Music Original Score (John Williams), and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar).
When the 35th president of the United States was assassinated on November 2, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, there was bound to be a lot of speculation surrounding his death, but even after several decades of seemingly exhaustive studies, books, and theories, this speculation has only grown and caused its own kind of rift in the U.S., one that preceded the current rift between the red states and blue states, one that neatly put folks in either one camp or another on the subject of Kennedy's assassination. You either believed Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, or you believed he did not act alone. For this reason, Stone's choice to have Kevin Costner play the lead role of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only man who has ever attempted to bring anyone to court in connection with Kennedy's assassination, is nothing short of inspired. True, others were considered, with Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson both turning down the role due to its highly political nature, but Kevin Costner was a far better choice. After all, what better way to bridge the divide between those who believe in the lone gunman theory versus those who believe in a conspiracy than to have the same actor who played Crash Davis from Bull Durham (1988), transmuted into a more skeptical patriot. In fact, in Bull Durham, Davis (Costner) serenaded Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) with a moving monologue that includes the quote "I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone." In JFK, Garrison (Costner) says, "A single bullet now has to account for the remaining seven wounds in Kennedy and Connelly. But rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further, the Warren Commission chose to endorse the theory put forth by an ambitious junior counselor, Arlen Spector, one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people. We've come to know it as the 'Magic Bullet Theory.' This single-bullet explanation is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of a lone assassin. Once you conclude the magic bullet could not create all seven of those wounds, you'd have to conclude that there was a fourth shot and a second rifle. And if there was a second rifleman, then by definition, there had to be a conspiracy."
In Stone: The Controversies, Excesses and Exploits of a Radical Filmmaker by James Riordan, the director stated, "I believe the Warren Commission Report is a great myth. And in order to fight a myth, maybe you have to create another one, a countermyth...I wanted to use Garrison as a vehicle for a larger perspective, a metaphoric protagonist who would stand in for about a dozen researchers. Filmmakers make myths. D.W. Griffith did it in Birth of a Nation [1915]. In Reds [1981], Warren Beatty probably made John Reed look better than he was, but remained true to the spiritual truth of Reed's life. I knew this would make Garrison somewhat better than he was and, in that sense, we'd be making him more of a hero. I knew I would catch a lot of flak for that, but I figured it was worth it to communicate...some truth in an area that had been steeped in lies for nearly thirty years."
Speaking of the Warren Commission, and showing a bit of ironic humor, Stone cast the real Jim Garrison to play Earl Warren. JFK has such a rich mix of archival footage and general casting choices that the film is often omitted by casual players of "Six Degrees of Bacon Separation" as too easy to include in any effort to bridge Kevin Bacon with any other star. After all, aside from Kevin Bacon JFK runs the gamut from key roles for such acclaimed actors as Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau (incidentally, JFK was the first film to star both Lemmon and Matthau and NOT have them share a scene), to a whole slew of bit parts that seem minutely calculated despite their brevity. For example; who better than Edwin Neal, "The Hitchhiker" from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) to play in the brief role of an interrogator? It's also fascinating to consider who might have starred in the film if Stone had gone with some of his earlier considerations such as Cybil Shepherd as Liz Garrison, Charlie Sheen as Lee Harvey Oswald, and Gregory Peck as Clay Shaw.
Stone's attention to detail in JFK was praised by some as genius, but alluded by others as almost a form of madness. Reconstructing Kennedy's Oval Office from archival footage for $70,000 but then using only eight seconds of it on film (and in black and white)? Recreating the Trauma Room where Kennedy is first officially declared dead, down to the exact shade of green (even though, again, its brief moment on film was in black and white)? With 24 researchers involved and such obsessive control over the material could Stone finally recreate a slice of history that was beyond reproach? Not a chance. Stone is notorious for what might be termed "emotional truths" rather than any attempts at a more pure and objective approach, such as might be found in a documentary by the Maysles brothers. An example of this would be in how Stone allows Garrison a polished and stirring speech at the end of JFK that is really a collage from several speeches and book excerpts by Garrison. This is certainly a case of a director tampering with history, somewhat, but aside from polishing Garrison's exposition, it's certainly not misrepresenting him.
The whole notion of deceit and manipulation are frequent complaints leveled against such directors as Stone and Moore. It is one that accuses them of having an agenda first, and manipulating the facts to then meet that agenda. With JFK, the Internet Movie Database noted that "the film generated intense controversy upon its release with many accusing Stone of making up many of the facts. In fact, Stone published an annotated version of his screenplay, in which he justifies and attributes every claim made in the film." Again, this was very similar to what would play out with Michael Moore and his film Fahrenheit 9/11, with some websites devoting articles to debunking Moore's polemics, scene-by-scene, and Moore responding to these by debunking the debunkings on his own website. As always, the devil is in the details, with those being guided by whoever is behind the typewriter. And, while it'd be nice to think that if you get enough monkeys and enough typewriters you'd eventually get to the truth, or a Shakespearean sonnet, so far the results show a lot of screams, howls, and fur flying all around into one big Rorschach mess that is left for the viewer to interpret on their own.
What Oliver Stone has done with JFK is to painstakingly sort through one of America's most famous messes and condense a mountain of data into a tightly edited entertainment that runs over three hours long. However one may feel about his conclusions, it's hard not to admire Stone's audacity and the film's sense of urgency. Beyond its financial clout, beyond its success with audiences, JFK had the power to even move politicians when, after being screened in 1991 to all of Congress, it helped inaugurate the 1992 Assassinations Disclosure Act.
Producer: A. Kitman Ho, Oliver Stone, Clayton Townsend
Director: Oliver Stone
Screenplay: Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar
Cinematography: Robert Richardson
Film Editing: Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia
Art Direction: Derek R. Hill, Alan Tomkins
Music: John Williams
Cast: Kevin Costner (Jim Garrison), Kevin Bacon (Willie O'Keefe), Tommy Lee Jones (Clay Shaw), Laurie Metcalf (Susie Cox), Gary Oldman (Lee Harvey Oswald), Beata Pozniak (Marina Oswald).
BW & C-189m. Letterboxed.
by Pablo Kjolseth
