`JFK' a Gripping Look at a Shattering Moment
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4 Friday, Dec. 20, 1991 The Philadelphia Inquirer `JFK' a gripping look at a shattering moment By Desmond Ryan Inquirer Movie Critic -MOVIE REVIEW In Platoon and Born on the Fourth JFK **** of July, Oliver Stone reopened the Produced by Alex Kitman; directed by still festering wounds of the Vietnam Oliver Stone; written by Oliver Stone and war. With JFK, he takes up the terri- Zachary Sklar; photography by Robert Richardson; music by John Williams: dis- ble day that changed history and our tributed by Warner Bros. lives and, in a movie that fuses mol- Running time: 3 holes, 10 mins. ten rage with cool argument, pre- Jim Garrison Kevin Costner sents the death of a president as a Liz Garrison .............. Sissy Spacek cancer that has metastasized Lee Harvey Oswald__ ....... Gary adman through the body politic. Clay Shaw Tommy Lee Jones. Call JFK — which may not be quite David Ferris Joe Pesci the best movie released this year but Parent's guide: R (violence, profanity, is certainly the most important - adult themes) paranoid, polemical and distorted. Showing et: area theaters True believers in the bitterly disput- ed conclusions of the Warren Com- mission report may use those words truth is the first casualty of assassi- if they are feeling polite. But the nation reports as well as war — that truth is — and JFK is entirely and Stone is asking you to leave your relentlessly devoted to the idea that (Continued on Page 41) Continued from Page 4 murky reality. The evidence of what normal movie-going assumptions happened in Dealey Plaza and who and responses in the lobby. was responsible is as vast as it is Superficially, JFK is a turbo- contested by a dizzying selection of charged piece of propaganda that, theories. Further, suspicions of a for more than three mesmerizing hasty whitewash were only com- hours, dramatizes the claims of, pounded by the incredible sloppi- among others, former New Orleans ness (or was it deliberate mishan- District Attorney Jim Garrison that dling?) of the investigation in the President Kennedy's murder can be chaotic days after the murder. laid to a massive, far-flung conspir- To assemble it into a taut, coherent acy. But at its core, JFK is a scenario narrative — and this from a film- that forces us to reconsider the seis- maker often charged with incoher- mic political and moral repercus- ence — is a stunning achievement. sions that still reverberate almost In the last analysis, it doesn't matter three decades after the shots rang whether you go along with all or part out in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. For Stone, the aspirations of minor- ities and the hope of avoiding a trag- ically wrong war died with President Kennedy on that day. If Watergate destroyed our trust in once-revered institutions, the murder of John F. Kennedy dealt a crippling blow to our faith in the future. The boldest stroke in JFK is to entwine these two sentiments. JFK pivots on the notion of a dual conspiracy. It follows Garrison's ob- sessive pursuit of those he deemed participants — from the demimonde of New Orleans' gay underworld to the corridors of power in Washing- ton. It depicts the actual plot to gun down the President as a mere pre-. lude to the conspiracy to dupe the American people into accepting that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. During several exchanges in the film, Stone willingly raises what many viewers will see as a key flaw in. his contention. A conspiracy of the dimensions darkly outlined by JFK — one that spreads from the Mafia and right-wing Cubans to the upper reaches of the CIA, the FBI and the Dallas Police — is one thing. The idea that, in all the years that fol- lowed, everyone who had a hand in it would never divulge the slightest hint is a real test of our credulity. Further, the structure of JFK may allow Stone a powerful platform, but it also involves putting President Kennedy and — more dubiously, Garrison — on pedestals. Stone's is Kevin Costner as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. an unsullied vision of Camelot, and of Stone's persuasive version of ventilating as co-conspirator David his insistence that Kennedy would events. He lays bare the myriad dis- Ferrie. not have continued our tragic blun- crepancies in the official story and, Collectively, the actors and some dering in Vietnam is, to put it mildly, while you can dispute his vision of concise writing by Stone and co-sce- very debatable. And, with Kevin the truth, subsequent history has narist Zachary Sklar help prevent Costner investing Garrison with a made it hard to argue with his con- JFK from collapsing under the sheer charismatic decency, the district at- clusions about the consequences. weight of the facts that have been torney becomes a figure of crusading The casting of JFK is inspired, marshaled. purity that his critics will not recog- with a pleasing blend of relatively A Gallup Poll taken last summer nize. obscure actors and stars like Jack found that nearly three-quarters of JFK unfolds with a preci- But, as Lemmon and Walter Matthau enjoy- Americans do not believe the War- sion and discipline that are new to ing their cameos. They all share an ren Commission's one-man, one-gun Stone's already protean talents, this ability to make an impact in a small theory. Stone's monumental and black-and-white twin canonization space — none more than Tommy Lee deeply compelling film should put allows us to ponder the gray and Jones as Clay Shaw, the target of the the remaining 25 percent in the Garrison probe, and Joe Pesci, hyper- camp of the skeptics. .