Hollywood: History by Default John F
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Editorial Notebook ANT Hollywood: History by Default John F. Kennedy's assassination But Mr. Stone is just one of many was the most traumatic spectacle of The Blame Transcends who practice spurious history. An- the television age, and because other is Alan Parker, whose film many still doubt that Lee Harvey Oliver Stone "Mississippi Burning," based on the Oswald acted alone, it remains an Ku Klux Klan's murder of three open-ended trauma. But even that doubt cannot account civil rights workers, was as falsified as "JFK." In fact, for all the criticism of the movie "JFK," Oliver Stone's the murders were solved thanks to a $30,000 bribe; in the unpersuasive attempt to prove that Government conspir- film, a townswoman informs on her husband after an ators arranged the assassination. attack of conscience. In life, J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I. was The criticism began while the movie was still being hostile to the civil rights movement ; the film makes F.B.I. filmed. Political journalists have since tried to blow it off agents its heroes. the screen. The critics even include former President Mr. Stone is the most skilled player of this game. His Gerald R. Ford, a member of the Warren Commission. films "Born on the Fourth of July" (about Vietnam), This is more than a simple conflict between two ver- "The Doors" (the early rock era), and now "JFK" treat sions of a historical event. The rancor over "JFK" arises subjects that have strong emotions and much documenta- from the realization that historical lies are nearly impos- ry film attached to them. His movies resemble wax sible to correct once movies and television have given museums in the way they strive to replicate their charac- them credibility. ters physically. Charged images lend power to his version The critics have two complaints: that the movie sup- of the story ; bias is easily masked as history. presses information well known to students of recent Not long ago, a film maker who took this kind of latitude history, and that "JFK" is fiction so cunningly disguised would have changed names or added some kind of dis- that audiences will accept it as fact. The first speaks to claimer. Today that kind of truthfulness seems quaint. simple misrepresentation. But the second describes a Film makers no longer feel obliged even to acknowledge process — the fictionalization of fact — that took a what they are doing. quantum leap with television docudramas. The children of the video age get their information Mr. Stone does deserve a rhetorical thrashing for the more from images than from words. They tend to believe film. His evidence for a Government conspiracy contains uncritically what they see. They'll swallow "JFK" whole. one factual misstatement after another. Perhaps the most Society cannot police art for inaccuracies; film makers notable misrepresentation is the movie's view of Jim are free to take whatever liberties they wish. But society Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney in 1967 who can denounce bogus history — and study honest history. dreamed up conspiracy charges against a retired busi- That means reading, critically. Otherwise Hollywood be- nessman, Clay Shaw. Mr. Garrison was a malevolent comes the culture's historian by default. force, not the Frank Capra good guy he's made out to be. BRENT STAPLES wit-c a ea, a t do'sguia .€4.7-e IL( a_ ,4:4441 VIre4A44– 01.44 1 7tf. ec 7;46 %/FE .