Textual Analysis - Essay Example

However, Stone would be the first to insist the film is not a documentary. There are several places in the historical record that are unclear or that Stone obviously had a difficult time believing, which he has filled with conjecture, hearsay and sometimes flimsy evidence. Several key characters portrayed in the story never actually existed either, but Stone created them out of composite elements of a number of people who were a part of the historic record. By doing this, he also opens the film up for an exploration of a number of the major conspiracy theories regarding the assassination including examining time lines, actions, events and connections between characters.

The consistent build up of evidentiary material creates a sense of sustained suspense that has qualified the film for placement in the political horror genre in some circles, especially when one considers the opening sequence in more detail. Despite his insistence that the film is not an attempt to portray a historically factual documentary regarding Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Stone employs several real-life players in the film to help depict his version of events. The most prominent character is the assassinated President himself as he appears in this opening montage sequence.

By refusing to recast the president, Stone proves his talent working with limited available footage. He also immediately injects a sense of reality into the story because everyone knows the former President was killed on that day and therefore could not have been available to shoot the new scenes Stone might have wanted in the film. The most impactful video clip used in this montage is the significant portion of the Zapruder film in which President Kennedy goes from being a happy smiling President waving to the crowds through the horrifying few seconds it takes for him to be fatally wounded.

With this film, Stone immediately creates a somber mood of reflection as audiences realize this is the actual event and not a staged recreation. The events seen in that small, grainy film, which Stone did nothing significant to improve, actually happened in real life and changed the course of a nation. As the open-topped limousine speeds off toward the hospital, the audience is aware that the President is already dead. The video montage of the first section of the film establishes its link with reality through its almost exclusive use of actual news footage taken of the President and his family throughout his term in office and family footage that has become a part of the national archives.

Other footage provides other important information about events of the time such as Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, Kennedy’s narrow margin of victory in winning the election, details of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam situation. Mixed with this authentic footage are several created scenes such as the footage of Jerry Belknap. Within the later body of the film, Belknap is said to have been an unidentified man who suffered an epileptic seizure moments before the shooting and drew away some of the attention of the security officers on duty that day.

These scenes are integrated so smoothly that they seem to be as authentic as the news footage scenes that have been shown to this point. When it