The Lies, The Truth, The Guesswork -- Everything At Once

Film critics who ply their trade as armchair historians usually despise Oliver Stone's JFK. Not because of the facts it puts on the screen, but because of the fiction. The Kennedy assassination is a subject that so infuriates people -- rightfully so -- that any incongruity to their theories, their beliefs, and what they read is cause to completely dismiss any book/film/newspaper article on the subject. Psychologists call this "confirmation bias." This is sad, truth be told, because when it comes to something as nebulous as history, it's healthy to take in as much data as possible, rather than as little. No one should refer to a historical drama to win an argument, of course, but anyone who considers him or herself a student of the JFK assassination case would do well to see this film.

That's neither here nor there: anyone who's looking for a fierce, visceral, jigsaw puzzle of a film experience would also do well to see the film. It's a stunning sensory experience and a breathtaking, towering achievement. It's remarkably convincing; a thorough, systematic collage of information, testimonies, television clips, and dramatic recreations, using two champion editors, Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, to achieve optimal visual impact. Those two, along with directory of photography Robert Richardson, and top-notch sound and production design departments, are brought under the reins of director Oliver Stone to construct a magnificent, awesome work of cinema. With this film and with 1994's Natural Born Killers, Stone has taken Eisenstein's techniques of montage -- once full of so many potentialities in perfecting the cinematic art form, long ago relegated to gimmicky transitions and documentaries -- and revamped them, revitalized them, and put them to extraordinarily effective use. He's a brilliant director.

The story, as everyone knows, follows New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) as he tries to solve the mystery of the assassination, and prove that it was a conspiracy, not the work of "lone gunman" Lee Harvey Oswald. Key to his success is the implication of Clay Shaw, a high profile New Orleans businessman, into his theoretical model. The equation: if anyone besides Lee Harvey Oswald had anything to do with the assassination, then by definition it was a conspiracy. If it was a conspiracy, it proves the Warren Report wrong. If it was wrong in that respect, it undermines its overall credibility, or at least provides an excuse for people to ask, "Well, what else is incorrect?" Garrison's case was thrown out, of course, but the film makes a very convincing argument that it should not have been, and then some.

I'll point out the weaknesses: the domestic squalor with Sissy Spacek and company gets to be a bit much (it's probably her most thankless role), and there are two spectacularly silly scenes in the director's cut: one in an airport bathroom, one on a '60s TV talk show, each serving only to paint Garrison in a more paranoid light. They are both very embarrassing. They do about as much damage as spitballs on corrugated steel roofing, though -- the film just flicks them off as if they're nothing.

Inaccuracies abound, but they aren't so much inaccuracies as speculations, conjectures and "what-ifs," and the careful eye and ear will be able to discern the difference. Like the recent Michael Mann film, The Insider, it would be foolish to mistake JFK for a documentary, but in a legacy of politically charged, post-WWII docudramas, such as The Battle of Algiers, Z, Midnight Express and Missing, JFK honors its subject while thrilling its audience.