A Thread about the film JFK

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!

I finished Summers and uh the assassination remains an enigma trapped in a mystery trapped in Mailer fiction. I finished the book thinking Oliver Stone's allegations were more correct than not (realizing that he and co-writer Sklar borrowed so much from transcripts reassured and discomfited at once).

A couple sly bits I was reminded of on last night’s rewatch of the first half:

In the opening montage, JFK leaves Allen Dulles hanging on an attempted handshake (motive!!)

After the assassination, when LBJ is getting down to the business of Vietnam, inserted into the news footage are quick abstract shots of LBJ that must be filmed by Stone, it lends a sinister note which you’d never notice if you’re weren’t looking for them.

Like very quick shots of maybe a head turn or an arm or something. I didn’t go back to freeze frame.

realizing that he and co-writer Sklar borrowed so much from transcripts

yeah i had no idea either. an inspired act of god should happen, and put a texan in the white house!

Costner's voice breaking as he delivers his closing statement to the jury, sounding like he just discovered one of Liz's hairs in his mouth and is trying to talk through it before surreptitiously spitting it out.

Garrison's son coming into the courtroom just in time for dad to play the head shot on the Zapruder film over and over.

You never spoke like that to me before, Jim Garrison.

reading the Summers book, which is to put it mildly critical of Oliver Stone and this film, i was also surprised to see how much Stone did stick to facts and transcripts. The guy by the knoll flashing a Secret Service ID to the patrolman, but later it's discovered no secret service guys were in that area.

I'm surprised Oliver didn't run with the father and daughter who gave brief pursuit to a vehicle driven by a guy fleeing the scene from the knoll area.

the book doesn't even mention Clay Shaw afaict, and only mentions Garrison to demean the investigation as a disgrace and a farce.

The guy by the knoll flashing a Secret Service ID to the patrolman, but later it's discovered no secret service guys were in that area.

afterward, it didn't ring true

He looked like a mechanic.
He had on a sports shirt and pants,
but he had dirty fingernails.

^^i love that this is actually true!

Summer treats the evidence as if he were William Wyler attempting a solid craftsman's interpretation of the material, but the conclusions are not dissimilar.

he's also very hard on the Posner book, which i did find convincing at the time, and iirc it did seem to explain Oswald's behavior as being perfectly in line with someone who was mentally unbalanced, which is something i think oft overlooked by conspiracy-minded types trying to find cold logic in events that are the result of unpredictable and illogical human behavior. this book is intriguing thus far, though.

XA-XA-XA!

I never did believe it.

i can't believe you're saying this in the courtroom!

I saw a girl the other day, she was pregnant -- you could see her whole belly, and you know what she painted on it? "Love Child."

You're out of order, Jim Boy! Now sit down!

well, i wanted to make sure that she was the same girl i sent away!

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, January 27, 2019 12:55 AM bookmarkflaglink

assuming this is direct from a transcript too now. always reminds me of gravity's rainbow

dlh, you're pickin' gnat shit outta peppa!

That polecat Lyndon

https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/19%20(541).jpg?bwg=1547224275

been digging into that Summers book a bit more. That Silvia Odio story, which gets a mere passing mention in the film, practically has an entire chapter devoted to it in the book and actually seems a bit more sinister than Stone made it out to be. Alfred, you've got to track down your source aka your buddy from years ago.

shit, omar, I can't remember what I did last night, let alone three years ago!

yeah, putting aside my buddy's anecdote about the Odio incident, that's one of the tributaries with the ring of truth, and Summers doesn't disbelieve her.

the thing that rings true is the notion that Oswald was perhaps a government asset or agent, and if that was the case: while his behavior seems really unusual and odd and obvious, it only seems that way now once we're looking at it under a microscope and putting it into context and i don't doubt there were hundreds of other assets or agents who acted with similar oddness and inconsistency because they were working for a larger U.S. agenda. like it's the type of behavior that if Oswald had never become mixed up in the Kennedy assassination (either by actually perpetrating it or being part of a plot or simply in the orbit of those who did kill him) no one would have ever noticed these inconsistencies. much of it rose to the surface after the fact.

I don't get it, though. The guy defects to the USSR and then comes back and hands out pro-Cuba leaflets but is in fact anti-Castro on the down low.

This is a weird little scene- Oswald goes into a store of an anti-Castro guy and says he can help him and then gets into a fight with him and is arrested. At the police station Oswald requests an interview with the FBI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Bringuier

he next day, Oswald again visited the store and left his Guidebook for Marines f

"Oh! What have we here?!"