A Thread about the film JFK

(Okay, I forgot about that one. I'd have to see it again, though.)

sadly this important historical revelation is nowhere reflected in stone's film

"the parallax effect" and "three days of the condor" are two pretty good 70s 12-ft-lizard movies abt assassination politics

JFK is *made* by that mr. x/sutherland sequence,but yep those techniques of multi-film stock/editing craziness etc seemed brilliant/insane/eye-popping in '92. nobody else had done anything like that.
in fact 'nbk' was just re-hashing most of them shot for shot and
no-one noticed as they hadn't seen jfk in the 1st place. it was a seriously under-watched film at the time, but at 2 hrs 20 minutes
even in it's original non-director's cut that isn't surprising.

stone never ever ever said anything about it being the whole truth.
it was well known that x was based on prouty, although
obviously the waters are yet more muddied around the conspiracy by the fact that he goes too far the other way in trying to convince us of his version, but hey it asked a lot of questions, and it made people ask more questions etc etc.
empire magazine gave it some kind of weird 'inspiration' award about 5 years ago for some reason and stone showed up, gave a speech looking genuinely touched, moved etc.

there was an *astonishing* episode of DISPATCHES (channel 4, uk)
which i had seen early 90's ('91 ?) not long before seeing the movie,
and that was all facts no theory, it definitely helped to see something like that beforehand.

sutherland's fave bit of all his 80's/90's work he says.
3 months prep for 1 days' acting by all accnts. one day !

" does that sound like a bunch of coincidences to you mr garrison ? ...not for one moment"

Of course, Alexander will be when he stops blaming the gays and ethnics for everything that's wrong with the world. Naturally. I should really see Salvador. It's got James Woods and it's not a revisionist take on American history. Whew.

Yes, Sutherland was great. Though I really wish they'd given John Candy more scenes.

That documentary "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" and the follow up are also worth watching if you are interested in the Kennedy assassination. I think Stone nicked more from it than he would want to admit.

still a really good movie!

That's what I always say, too.

This pitch is copyright, btw.

(I must have time on my hands)

(posner quotes ballistics expert donahue to refute criticism of the "magic bullet" theory but gets his name wrong)

(ps my friend adair's decisive refutation of posner's book: "Jesus, look at that man's HAIR OIL!!") (this shd also have been in stone's film)

it claims the secret servicemen surrounding him DID know, but covered it up as it was an accident and oswald had already shot jfk fatally and why introduce irrelevancies which wd damage an innocent if clumsy colleague's career needlessly blah blah

the witnesses on the verge etc were anyway notoriously all over the place as to where the various shots came from in terms of puffs of smoke, drifts of smoke and sounds of shots complete w.echoes, plus already looking all directions away from the cars bcz oswald had already fired twice (missed car altogether first time, hit kennedy AND connaly second time)

hickey WAS armed with this gun: that's historically attested to, and visible in some of the photos, esp.the later ones where the motorcade is speeding to the hospital and he's holding it pointed upwards

plus also there's photographic studies of what direction a pumpkin wrapped in masking tape will lurch if you fire a gun into it

Blimey Mark. Full-on shit there. Er, I'll go with it, but LHO managed a fatal shot? Or maybe he *would* have if CIA guy hadn't? I'm well outta my depth, my Dad was mad into it and I was all yeah yeah: classic conspiracy scene: Annie Hall.

The motorcade sped on...

i think oswald did it end-of-story, but if you want a good conspiracy, menninger's is my favourite on aesthetix-of-slapstick grounds

Or just read Posner's book.

Quite honestly though the most despicable thing about JFK the film is that it names and implicates Clay Shaw as being involved in the killing, when in reality he was just a businessman with an extremely tenuous connection to the CIA. Garrison was a scumbag, really. Tried to indict a guy from Cali in the JFK plot, because he once wrote him the prez a threatening letter.

I have a friend who always gets pretty mad at historical inaccuracies in movies (esp regarding world war II movies).

obviously JFK complete and utter bunk as history, though of course donald sutherland makes the craziness seem almost plausible for a split second. one GOOD thing the movie did do was inspire the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act that got out a lot of previously classified documents and historical information about the era.

and i agree with gear the movie is hilarious.

people like that shouldn't watch movies!

"oh go back to sleep, Jim"

"Dammit Liz, I been sleepin for three ye-ahs"

Or the shrug with which he delivers the line, "I knew Allen Dulles very well, I used to debrief him..."

This specific stretch, as John Williams’ score swells, gets me every time:

Now this is significant, because it
is standard operating procedure,
especially in a known hostile city
like Dallas, to supplement the Secret
Service. Even if we had not allowed
the bubbletop to be removed from the
limousine, we'd've put at least 100
to 200 agents on the sidewalks,
without question! There'd already
been several attempts on de Gaulle's
life in France. Only a month before
in Dallas UN Ambassador Adlai
Stevenson had been spit on and hit.
We'd have arrived days ahead of time,
studied the route, checked all the
buildings...
We never would've allowed all those
wide-open empty windows overlooking
Dealey... never... We would have
had our own snipers covering the
area. The moment a window went up
they'd have been on the radio. We
would've been watching the crowds -
packages, rolled up newspapers, a
coat over an arm, never would have
let a man open an umbrella along the
way - Never would've allowed that
limousine to slow down to 10 miles
per hour, much less take that unusual
curve at Houston and Elm.

Gonna pour a glass of wine and watch this scene.

The reason the performance works so well is just the pure authority of his tale, coupled with the weary bemused air of, "look this is what happened, it's true, take it or leave it, I care only this much, but I DO care." He sells it so well. The pure sanity of that character. He grounds the entire thing, and single-handedly sells it.

yeah, he sells a character who still has shreds of humanity and actually hopes Garrison could crack the case -- until those precious few seconds when he sizes him up and says, dead-eyed, "I just hope you get a break."

He gave the best performance of the Ordinary People quartet: this big clumsy lummox who wants to love but can't.

We would have arrived days ahead, studied the route, checked all the buildings. Never would have allowed all those wide-open windows overlooking Dealy Plaza, never!

We would have had our own snipers covering the area the minute a window went up! They would have been on the radio.

We would have been watching the building, checking for baggage, coat under the arms... Never would have allowed a man to open an umbrella along the way!

Never would have allowed the car to slow down to 11 miles an hour, much less take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm!

You would have felt an army presence on the streets that day. But none of this happened. It was a violation of the most basic protection code we have, and it's an indication of a massive plot based in Dallas.

<3 <3 <3

oops sorry i didnt realize it had already been posted

army intel had a “harvey lee oswald” on file… but all those files have been destroyed.

well?

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 June 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Still good

Or the shrug with which he delivers the line, "I knew Allen Dulles very well, I used to debrief him..."

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 June 2024 bookmarkflaglink

In his house, many a time..

you know how many helicopters have been lost in vietnam? about five thousand. who makes them? bell helicopter. who owns bell? well, bell was nearly bankrupt when the first national bank of boston asked the cia to develop a helicopter for indochina use. how about the f-111 fighter? general dynamics, fort worth, texas. who owns that? find out the defense budget since the war began. seventy-five, going on a hundred billion. nearly two hundred billion will be spent before it's over. in 1949 it was ten billion. no war. no money.

The organizing principle of any society, Mr. Garrison...is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers.

Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War in his second term. He wanted to call off the moon race and cooperate with the Soviets. He signed a treaty to ban nuclear testing. He refused to invade Cuba in 1962. He set out to withdraw from Vietnam.

But all that ended on the 22nd of November, 1963.

Since 1961, they knew Kennedy was not going to war in Southeast Asia. Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies. Something's underway, but it has no face. Yet, everybody in the loop knows.

watched that scene again this morning, i mean his eyes, his face, where he's looking, when

masterful

everything is cellularized. no one has said, "he must die." there's been no vote; nothing's on paper. there's no one to blame. it's as old as the... crucifixion. a military firing squad: five bullets, one blank, no one's guilty. because everyone in the power structure who knows anything has plausible deniability. there are no compromising connections except at the most secret point.

but what's paramount! is that it must succeed. no matter how many die, no matter how much it costs, the perpetrators must be on the winning side, and never subject to prosecution for anything, by anyone. that is a coup d'etat.

-- i can't believe it. they killed him-- because he wanted-- to change things.

-- ...

-- in our time.

-- well they've been doing it all through history--

-- in our country.

-- kings are killed, mr. garrison! politics is power! nothing more!

Those of us who'd been in secret ops since the beginning knew the Warren Commission was fiction, but there was something...deeper. Uglier.

-- i knew allen dulles very well; i briefed him many a time in his house. but i can't for the life of me understand why dulles was appointed to investigate kennedy's death: the man who'd fired him. dulles, by the way, was general y's benefactor. i got out in '64. resigned my commission.

-- i never realized kennedy was so dangerous to the establishment.

-- ...

-- is that y?

"it's as old as the... crucifixion"

It sure the is!

You liberal, you don't know shit 'cause you never been fucked in the ass.

I always lock my files!

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.), Monday, May 23, 2022 10:33 AM

for some reason this line has had me rofling all morning

whaddaya mean you're gonna write a book

I'd ask Guy. We were friendly. Heart attack?

Well, he likes to work near his old pals.

We are standing in the heart of the US government's intelligence community in New Orleans. That's the FBI. That's the CIA. That's the Secret Service. That's the ONI. Isn't this a strange place for a Communist to spend his spare time?

Didn't Hoover say something about that? The leaves had fallen off in November?

yeah, hell yeah, i mean everybody knewabuh… everybody! yknow, they were all part of the netwoik!

You are so naive.

oswald?

yeah.

yeah what—

he was there too.

he was there—

[sudden no-big-deal voice] yeah, he was there!

One guy. I don't know who. Big. White hair. I saw him in the office once. He looked out of place. You know, a society guy. Can't remember his name, but Oswald was with him. He had something to do with money, because Banister never kissed ass...but he kissed his. Clay something. That was his name. Clay....

The "three shots in 5 and a half seconds" is on the face of it(*) one of the most convincing and objective problems with the lone gunman theory. But in the film when Garrison times the test shooting and he says it takes "between 6, 7 seconds" - if you time it it's actually under five and half seconds for all three shots! And under six seconds even if you count from when Garrison says "go".

(*) if the first or third shots missed then it's no longer a problem.

FBI tried two sets of tests. Not one sharpshooter could match Oswald's performance. Not one.

this presumes he was even aiming for that motorcade tbf

this is why the babushka lady never came forward

Counter-arguments: Dealey Plaza is much smaller in person than you think it is. Also even if you're a mediocre Goldeneye player, I'm certain you can make the low-speed headshot in JFK Reloaded. Hell, I made it and I didn't even grow up around firearms.

If ya believe what ya read in the papahs.