A Thread about the film JFK

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Norma Jean and Marilyn

Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:06 (twenty years ago) link

Here it is: subliminal scenes in Oliver Stone's JFK

Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:06 (twenty years ago) link

The best JFK assassination movie: Executive Action

Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:08 (twenty years ago) link

Actually, Radio would be great as a JFK assassination movie. As would be Finding Nemo.

s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:08 (twenty years ago) link

ET, have you seen Winter Kills?

s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:09 (twenty years ago) link

I thought you had linked to Executive Decision for a second there.

s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:10 (twenty years ago) link

Also check out Interview With The Assassin

Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 05:12 (twenty years ago) link

As history JFK is questionable to say the least, though supposedly so is the Warren Report. As viseral cinema it is phenomenal in its energy and detail, examples that previous posts by Slutsky and Girolama point out. The Lee Harvey Oswald bio montage, opening Bay of Pigs newsreel overture, and the aforementioned Sutherland monologue are key examples of why Stone was nearly unmatched as a filmmaker in 1990s Hollywood.
Executive Action has the hilarious closing V.O., which is stangely eerie, about how one witness to the assasination was killed by a "karate chop to the neck".
The more intellectually thoughtful artistic works to be inspired by the Kennedy assasination include Don Delillo's fictionalized Oswald bio "Libra", which theorizes a series of events that are scarily realistic with respect to human nature. And Bruce Conner's short film REPORT uses footage taped off of television to give a powerfully expressive montage account of what (I imagine) it was like to experience the event as a television viewer. Conner uses repetition brilliantly in the piece.

theodore fogelsanger, Wednesday, 15 October 2003 16:38 (twenty years ago) link

i dreamt last night that the cause of jfk's assassination was bob-a-job week

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

mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 16:52 (twenty years ago) link

'parallax view' you mean i think . terrified me aged about 13 that.

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"

piscesboy, Thursday, 16 October 2003 13:14 (twenty years ago) link

man, donald sutherland's voice is one of the greatest things about the 20th century

s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 16 October 2003 14:53 (twenty years ago) link

canadians already rule the world = the REAL conspiracy here!!

mark s (mark s), Thursday, 16 October 2003 15:09 (twenty years ago) link

I should note that when I talk about manipulative and misleading bullshit I'm not just talking about the JFK conspiracy stuff. I'm also talking about stuff like the closing summation from Costner that didn't exist in real life cuz Garrison's assistant actually gave the closing speech. I'm more complaining about the way Hollywood (and Stone is DEFINITELY Hollywood, sorry) always bleaches movies based on real life. A Beautiful Mind being a classic example. It always seems to me that the real story is more interesting, cuz, well THAT'S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life. Stone's "alternative myth" is such a case of two wrongs not making a right, though I'm even more grossed out by Nixon, where his visual style became much more random and simplistic.

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.

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 16 October 2003 15:16 (twenty years ago) link

That's kind of the problem with all movies ever.

s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 16 October 2003 18:40 (twenty years ago) link

Except for "Who's Harry Crumb?"

NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 16 October 2003 19:01 (twenty years ago) link

They better not touch that scene where he's lying flat against that big skylight.

s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 16 October 2003 22:39 (twenty years ago) link

I hope someone actually get the cash to make James Ellroy's books "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand" into a miniseries. Those two books are much, much further over the top, ugly and entertaining than either "JFK" or "Libra".

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.


earlnash, Friday, 17 October 2003 00:35 (twenty years ago) link

JFK is really massively entertaining and beautifully put together, but of course total bullshit. I saw it around the same time I read a handful of conspiracy books by the likes of Jim Marrs, Gerald Posner, and some others. Posner's was the most convincing, and he thinks Oswald did it. And if you've ever met some of these astonishingly influential conspiracy theorists (I worked on a bad cable TV show that had a couple of them on...Marrs and the guy who wrote Best Evidence), you can see how loony they are. Marrs also believes that UFOs attacked Los Angeles in the '40s. Logic just doesn't prevail in the case of JFK....

still a really good movie!

Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 17 October 2003 05:00 (twenty years ago) link

It always seems to me that the real story is more interesting, cuz, well THAT'S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life.

That's what I always say, too.

oops (Oops), Friday, 17 October 2003 05:06 (twenty years ago) link

We need more films this insane!! Stoney shd do the Florida election in the same style. Gay Cubans agogo, neo-con cabals in smoky rooms, lurking Ay-rab terrorists... k-classic.

This pitch is copyright, btw.

Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 12:50 (twenty years ago) link

Too bad you can't copyright ideas... ;)

Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 17 October 2003 14:08 (twenty years ago) link

You sure about that? It's written, anyway.

(I must have time on my hands)

Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:12 (twenty years ago) link

if only stone had based jfk on this theory

(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)

mark s (mark s), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:19 (twenty years ago) link

WTF? Witnesses? I like ballistics, they are fun. But -- well, are there not easier ways of finding out here? Man stands up with sub-machine gun? In plain sight? And says 'I wan you to meet my liddle fren'

Knoll Edmonds (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:26 (twenty years ago) link

the description of hickey's movements on the web-page is inaccurate: the book suggests he fell BACKWARDS when the cars speeded up, and so wd not particularly have LOOKED as if he was firing a (single acc.theory) shot, just as if he was falling over backwards

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

mark s (mark s), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:42 (twenty years ago) link

More details - just arrived.

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...

Steinski (Enrique), Friday, 17 October 2003 14:53 (twenty years ago) link

haha i tried to find one of the pix in question but found myself on a page where some loony was claiming, based on a photo blown up so large you couldn't make out ANYTHING AT ALL, that one of kennedy's SS-men is "grinning in an evil way" hence etc etc

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

mark s (mark s), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

If you've ever been to the School Book Depository and gotten a look from up there, you'd have no doubt that it's an easy shot, for the most part. As for the whole "he didn't have enough time" thing, they don't take into account that the first shot fired was a complete miss. One in the trees, one in Kennedy and Connolly, one in Kennedy's head.

Or just read Posner's book.

Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 17 October 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

People believe this conspiracy shit now for the same reasons they think Saddam partially orchestrated 9/11: they don't know jack about the case, the circumstances, the evidence, and how illogical it is that a shooting like that would be carried out with the shooters (who allegedly weren't of the Sirhan Sirhan "I just don't give a fuck" school of thinking, but wanted to get away) mere feet away from dozens of people, cameras everywhere, etc.

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.

Gear! (Gear!), Saturday, 18 October 2003 03:19 (twenty years ago) link

if stone had based the movie on the slapstick theory then it would have been nowhere near as exciting of course.

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

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 19 October 2003 17:59 (twenty years ago) link

no but it wd be funny, which is better than exciting

mark s (mark s), Sunday, 19 October 2003 21:31 (twenty years ago) link

what about something that's funny and exciting? like your beloved spaceballs!

s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 20 October 2003 01:24 (twenty years ago) link

death isn't funny mark ;)

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 20 October 2003 09:32 (twenty years ago) link

i rewatched Winter Kills last night and it is still quite bad

jones (actual), Tuesday, 21 October 2003 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

two years pass...
this movie is hilarious! if you watch it like a comedy, the stuff gets funnier. like the incongruous bit during one of those crazy Cuban + sociopathic gays meetings, when tommy lee jones makes note of his own erection and says, "more champagne!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:14 (eighteen years ago) link

i adore this movie and its absolute unbridled INSANITY. it's also brillantly done, in terms of editing technique and all that shit. the over-acting, complete lack of subtlety etc. brings it into a whole new level. i actually like kevin costner in this, i think he anchors the movie quite well despite his accent.

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.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:43 (eighteen years ago) link

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

people like that shouldn't watch movies!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I get mad at historical innaccuracies in movies, but I get more mad at blatant bold-faced lying. This movie has both in spades, but I might still have been okay it if not for the fact that Costner and Spacek are so god-awfully unwatchable and that the whole film plays out without one iota of suspense.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link

my favorite "inaccuracy" in a WW2 film is in The Longest Day, when Robert Mitchum leads the charge across the beach, just running across with his soldiers, pistol in hand, ducking the pesky gunfire from the lightly armed Germans.

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 22:59 (eighteen years ago) link

favorite Costner line delivery in the movie: when he flings open the door and stands in the hallway shouting after Sissy Spacek, "Well so am I, goddammit!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link

my favorite: "he'd have about as much use for russians as a cat needs pajamas!"

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link

"that's like saying Touchdown here isn't very smart because he beat me only 2 games out of 5 at chess"

"oh go back to sleep, Jim"

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

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:11 (eighteen years ago) link

roffle!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:19 (eighteen years ago) link

"I didn't think much about it at the time. Just bullshit, y'know, everybody likes to make themselves out to be something more than they are. 'Specially in the homosexual underworld. But when they got him I got real scared. And that's when I got popped."

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:24 (eighteen years ago) link

"You don't know shit 'cause you've never been fucked in the ass!"

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I wonder if this is the macho Showgirls. (This assumes Road House is not macho, but I'm not really sure WHAT Road House is besides being genius.)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link

you know there's nothing more macho and man-sexy than a gold-paint covered Tommy Lee Jones being smacked across the face by a "foppish dandy"-attired Joe Pesci, while a stoned Kevin Bacon masturbates himself behind them.

gear (gear), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link

All of a sudden Alexander finally makes sense.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link

correction, this is the paranoid, batshit INSANE showgirls.

who could forget the scene where bacon, jones, and pesci are parading about painted in gold watching homoerotic silent 1920's sports footage!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Actually Stone should have directed Hannibal. Now imagine how that would have turned out.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 October 2005 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link

(2m 37s in that clip)

Elvis Telecom, Monday, 11 September 2023 01:53 (seven months ago) link

three weeks pass...

Coming soon to 4K UHD from Shout Select

JFK (1991) 4K UHD #4KUltraHD #4K #Bluray #PhysicalMedia #Movie #Movies #Film #Cinema #FilmTwitter #JFK #KevinCostner pic.twitter.com/TuWhdNh4i4

— Dawn of The Discs (@dawnofthediscs) October 2, 2023

peanut filibuster parfait (Eric H.), Monday, 2 October 2023 18:11 (six months ago) link

According to the site:

RUN-TIME
205 / 188 min


So here’s hoping we are getting the theatrical version in 4K

peanut filibuster parfait (Eric H.), Monday, 2 October 2023 18:14 (six months ago) link

Camelot in smithereens!

hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 2 October 2023 19:27 (six months ago) link

three weeks pass...

I don't think John Williams is given enough credit for this film's score. It's traditional American epic by way of Morricone's score for The Thing. It really gives a sinister, eerie undercurrent to so many of the scenes. It's off-kilter, and elsewhere when he engages in some patriotic marching band motifs, it morphs into a horror score (like the opening assassination scene.)

omar little, Sunday, 29 October 2023 16:56 (five months ago) link

Fuck yeah!

hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 29 October 2023 17:15 (five months ago) link

i missed the 4K announcement somehow. Lord, wake me. I must be dreaming.

omar little, Tuesday, 7 November 2023 16:39 (five months ago) link

Unfortunately, that set's theatrical release is only BR, not 4K, but honestly, that's still better than I'd hoped for given Stone's preference for the idiotic director's cut.

Dwigt Rortugal (Eric H.), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 17:31 (five months ago) link

I haven't seen this film since it came out. I've gone down the Dave Emory rabbit hole, I feel like I should rewatch this and also watch JFK Revisited.

immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 17:38 (five months ago) link

the director's cut really is pointless, all of the additional conspiracy backstory stuff feels so blatantly extraneous, and i actually think unlike a lot of DCs where there's gold mixed in with runtime padding, there's absolutely zero added value to the film from any of it.

omar little, Tuesday, 7 November 2023 21:44 (five months ago) link

I dunno.

We got back from touring a distillery this afternoon and I was in the office restroom, standing in the common space buckling my belt, stifling the urge to go, "Mr. Garrison! Mr. Garrison! I have something for you!"

pplains, Thursday, 9 November 2023 03:26 (five months ago) link

Like the directors cut, your encounter could’ve been a half hour shorter

Dwigt Rortugal (Eric H.), Thursday, 9 November 2023 03:33 (five months ago) link

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/friend-secret-cia-agent-think-190000508.html

this theory is LIT

omar little, Monday, 20 November 2023 16:51 (four months ago) link

^^ the woman who's the subject of that book would be fascinating regardless of any connections to the JFK assassination, but her admission that she was in Dallas that day and flew out immediately after the assassination is hugely implicating!

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, 20 November 2023 18:54 (four months ago) link

holy shit! yeah i love this one

jerrie cobb is legit incredible even without this, can confirm
(also any fans of For All Mankind tv show she was the basis for Molly Cobb’s character)

werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 November 2023 19:01 (four months ago) link

babushka lady all set to fly oswald INTO SPACE

^^my take

mark s, Monday, 20 November 2023 19:38 (four months ago) link

The Texas theater (theater they arrested Oswald) has an absolutely amazing itinerary for JFK assassination 60th anniversary. pic.twitter.com/LDmCwV2sCj

— pugmane 🦃 🐾 🐛 🥫 (@pugmane) November 19, 2023

𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 20 November 2023 19:52 (four months ago) link

I think the only way to read the warren report is a hallucinatory late-night session

Her book even builds a convincing case for Jerrie being a CIA agent with the cryptonym QJWIN, whose role was to recruit killers for an assassination squad that originally targeted Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

She is anxious to point out, though, that hers is not a “case closed” type of book, saying: “Books that claim to have those answers are probably not as credible as books that present the evidence and let people decide.”

I have decided this is insane, but amazing.

omar little, Monday, 20 November 2023 20:09 (four months ago) link

Babushka Lady sort of fucked up really, getting caught on camera dressed up all like a CIA op in a tan trench coat, calmly stood on the grassy knoll - while all other bystanders had hit the deck!

vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 20 November 2023 20:24 (four months ago) link

I was thinking about all this shit yesterday as I finally finished off The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins.

vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 20 November 2023 20:28 (four months ago) link

one of the best books table has recommended

I hope you like squab!

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 01:29 (four months ago) link

How was your mousse?

omar little, Thursday, 23 November 2023 02:49 (four months ago) link

“Frankie!”

active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Thursday, 23 November 2023 04:05 (four months ago) link

don’t you— don’t you think THIS has something to do with THAT?

difficult listening hour, Thursday, 23 November 2023 07:57 (four months ago) link

i promise [grits teeth] i'll make more time for jasper

difficult listening hour, Thursday, 23 November 2023 10:45 (four months ago) link

My life is fucked, Liz! And yours is, too!

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 10:51 (four months ago) link

in fact, i admired president kennedy. a man of true panache. wife with impeccable taste. [brief cut to liz at ruined brunch]

difficult listening hour, Thursday, 23 November 2023 10:56 (four months ago) link

Christopher Wallace 🐊
@Wallace_Chris12
DeSantis is our generations JFK
He’s

- A family man
- Faithful to his wife
- Young gun who brings energy to the party

I see no reason why we shouldn’t nominate DeSantis

---

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JFK was not faithful to his wife

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 23 November 2023 11:30 (four months ago) link

Ask not if my party can bring the young gun with the energy...

pplains, Thursday, 23 November 2023 16:11 (four months ago) link

The only reason to get him on Elm is you got him in a triangulated crossfire. You put a team there down at the fence. Frontal shot. Flat, low trajectory. Put a third team down in this building on a low floor. When Kennedy gets in the kill zone, it's a turkey shoot.

omar little, Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:18 (four months ago) link

That's a Texas Live Oak, boss. It sheds its leaves the first week of March.

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:32 (four months ago) link


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