A Thread about the film JFK

And the Rooker! How can you forget Michael Rooker?

...

I seriously need to stop raving about all this before I stain my pants.

Never stopped Stone!

And Stone was up front (eventually, maybe? I don't remember if he said this all along) about the history being fucked; "it's a myth, yeah, but it's a myth to counter the equally-false one we've been handed by the gov't," sentiments to that effect. Hell, I'd like to see more intentionally-fucked history in movies, without it being played for laughs; there could be a lot of material there.

As for the ensemble cast thing: anything else about the movie aside, has the "huge cast of famous people" thing been done better than in this? Altman's good with that, but I don't know if he ever did it quite this well, especially if you don't count Short Cuts.

(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).

the story about oswald being (supposedly) impersonated in mexico city before the assassination -- a photo of a guy who looked nothing like him, a recording of a different guy's voice -- is pretty wild.

According to his Marine buddies, he got Maggie's drawers. That means he wasn't any good.

Pipe the bimbo in red. Mm-mm.

If I answer that question you keep asking...if I give you the name of the big enchilada...then it's bon voyage, Deano. Like a bullet in my head, you dig? You're a mouse fighting a gorilla. Kennedy's as dead as that crabmeat. The government's still breathing. You want to line up with a dead man?

Stop eatin' that crab meat and listen!

i like the visual, comparing Kennedy to dead crab meat.

this movie was probably as much fun to make as Wet Hot American Summer (which could have been a working title based on the southern sweat in this)

I didn't pay two bits for a target, just to have someone else shoot it!

no honest working man can afford to buy a car in this goddam country anymore. maybe i'll have to go to RUSSIA. to buy a car.

really duuuum dye-log

Still unsure if Americans in the 20th Century ever used to say "two bits."

At the time of the shooting, there seemed to be some commotion. I'm just unable to describe...a flash of light or smoke or something, which caused me to feel that something out of the ordinary had occurred on the embankment.

GODDAMN

NO

oswald was no ordinary soldier! he was-- he was probably military intelligence, that's why he was trained in russian. it's no accident. he was IN RUSSIA.

go back to sleep!

Ah've been sleepin' for three years, Liz!

we should perform this as an ILX cast stage play.

i tore through a bunch of jfk-related books a few years ago and summers' was probably the most balanced and convincing one.

btw thanks j.d. (again), bought and read this in a gluttonous ~30hrs after this post. highly recommended, feels as comprehensive as anything i've read and yeah it is v carefully not trying to convince you of anything, which is probably why came out of it finally believing in a second shooter lol

had previously always been an "oswald acted alone and the govt covered up because a real investigation would have revealed too much about the intelligence services, both wrt oswald and more broadly" guy but have felt myself moving to "mobsters instigated a hit via a mafia architecture that in places had become indistinguishable from the intelligence services (and the govt covered up because etc)"

oswald really does act for a long time just like someone in something like cointelpro might act but i am still loath to reduce (inflate?) him to a conscious employee because i am infatuated w a read of him where he considers himself always the protagonist and always a step ahead of whomever he is telling whatever or doing whatever for. for me the beautiful idea is that I'M A PATSY is a moment of real-time realization not (or not just) that he has been set up by [santo trafficante/e howard hunt/fidel castro/allan dulles/lyndon johnson/marx's ghost] but more spookily that here on the other side of a finally achieved ambition to become an immortal mover of history he has suddenly realized he cannot stop also being something's agent. that this figurative existential discovery-- a standard part of life imo-- is naturally superimposed over what may have been a literal and v specific discovery-- "i'm in the cold war and i lost track of who's paying me"-- is why oswald/jfk remains the penultimate in "o no the hall of mirrors of the psyche" spy stories: above tinker, below hamlet.

I just got Summers' book from the library!

I just placed a hold on it at my library!

also just got JFK from the library since I hadn't seen it in several years (or should i say, "yee-ahhs")

haha what have i wrought?? (you're welcome guys)

i can see myself watching this every few years from now on

one edit i really love: Garrison's reading the Warren Commission report, going through the testimony of the shitkicker Dallas police sergeant, we see him on the stand talking about "tramps and ho-bos", the close up on his insignia, reflecting in the light to jump cut to 1963.

lil transitional things like that (my fave example is cutting from john candy saying "i never met the dude" to his meeting the dude while positioned exactly the same way in the frame, so that present john candy and past john candy collaborate on the motion of a single seamless drag from their cigarettes) impress me cuz they reveal the movie's style was not created in the editing room

haha what have i wrought??

not so much a recommendation as... an organic phenomenon. it grew. changed shape. developed... appetites.

the Candy scene is so good. again, of course:

"hell no -- like i told that Bertrand cat right off ("cashew piece?") this ain't my scene, man."

one likes friends that have friends.

i was watching the Clay Shaw interview scene and it's amazing how the actual interview is just denial after denial and finally Garrison loses his cool and based on nothing thinks he's nailed the guy (well, based on the editing of the film in which we see "the truth").

the actual interview is not incriminating, when Shaw says "you're reaching!" he's correct. Love it.

AM I?!

people like you don't have to, i guess.

may i go?

people like you just walk between the raindrops.

...may i go.

I ALWAYS LOCK MY FILES!

so what is precisely the point of the woman who accosts Garrison in the street to remind him that they sang together during his reelection party ("You're the Cream in My Co-ffeeeeee....")?

My favorite editing touches happen when Stone flash forwards within scenes with visuals (Jack Ruby talking while his body is wheeled out) or sound (Clay Shaw introducing himself to the Garrison crew while a doorbell tinkle announces the arrival of O'Keefe years earlier).

i thought that woman in the street was in there to show -- Jim Garrison, Man of the People

I thought so too but Stone is not a director of ancillary moments.

I don't believe I ever mentioned this (maybe to dlh in private): watching JFK in high school with me, my buddy gasped when Silvia Odio's name was mentioned. "She's an old friend of my mom's."

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 30, 2019

So I cheated and skipped head in the Summers book to read about the Odio episode. Apparently he found her and her sister's account credible.

i think there are a few throwaway moments throughout showing Highly Respected Jim Garrison, like immediately after he goes into that restaurant and he's greeted by the maitre'd who knows him personally and even leaves the adjoining table empty so they can have privacy. He's supposed to be Jimmy Stewart!

martini waiting for him!

i really love the bug-eyed FBI agent who accosts Bill Broussard outside Ferrie's apartment. one of those nicely cast tiny roles, they needed a guy who could plausibly intimidate Michael Rooker.

You listen. You listen real hard. Get in the car.

a doorbell tinkle announces the arrival of O'Keefe years earlier

this is terrific yeah, almost posted about it the other day-- the sound is triggered by garrison saying o'keefe's name, plays over a deadpan shot of shaw denying he's heard it while it literally rings a bell in his head, and immediately turns out to be a J-cut into answering the door.

afaict the cream in my coffee lady is there so u know garrison is cool w black people, it's kinda cringey. worse imo is the scene where an anonymous and unspeaking black father+son are tendentiously arranged near kennedy's graveside, presumably to be seen paying tribute to all jfk did for civil rights in contrast to his monstrous usurper

but omar otm that the former is also part of a set of little "this guy's a pillar of the community!" moments, which i don't mind in general. you have to establish that he begins as a comfortable square.

yes exactly garrison is a man of ALL the people

though it's wild that a film taking place in a city which in the '60s was probably 40% black has like three or four speaking roles for black actors (by speaking i mean like one or two lines) and barely more who even appear onscreen.

yup

altho i will go ahead and defend the part where thankless burn-hollywood-burn role "mattie" gets the line "i never did believe it", like she saw thru the veil w her magic black eyes all along, because it prob is worth making the point that many americans don't need as much convincing as jim garrison to decide something's rotten in the state

I also like the bit where Liz has her one moment of curiosity about the case: peering over Suzie's shoulder as she explains the fraudulent photo.

Liz was woke for the late '60s though, she accused her husband of waging a campaign against Shaw because he was gay.

lol Stone has no sympathy for Liz at all. "Some people don't understand that they are higher things" or, my favorite, after the big Liz-Jim fight, "I wrote this based on a fight with my ex-wife while I was on mushrooms...someone has to take our country back."

Reminds me of the charming New Yorker story I read in 1994 in which Stone admits to recently spiking a woman's drink to sleep with her.

Join the rest! They'll say I'm crazy. Plenty of people will tell you I'm crazy. You won't have any problems filling out divorce papers. But somebody's got to try, goddamn it! Somebody!