The Absent Center of Oliver Stones JFK - Book Report/Review Example

The Absent Center of Oliver Stone’s JFK Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK, loosely based on the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs, is ostensibly an attempt to explore the various theories regarding what happened the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas in November of 1963. Beginning with a video montage set to impressive military music and capitalizing on the use of television footage in its own aspect ratio, leaving ample empty space on the screen, the movie details the only criminal case in the country that charged anyone with conspiracy in the death of the president or called into question the results of the Warren Commission. At the same time, it takes a look into the personal life of Garrison as he dealt with both internal and external pressures in bringing this case to trial. With the depth of the movie’s explorations, it is possible to deduct some of the more important socio-political movements of the time period in which it is set. Stone’s personal background further plays a part in the way in which the film develops as it casts considerable weight upon the theory favored by the director. Because of the way in which he goes about detailing the development of various theories as to what happened that afternoon in Texas, Stone’s interpretation makes it clear in a very public way that at the least, the Warren Commission could not have been correct in its findings when it ruled a lone gunman achieved the death of a president. Up to the release of the movie, Americans were falling asleep regarding the details behind the assassination, but with its release, they once again asked the questions that had remained unanswered since the House Select Committee on Assassination Report was released in 1979 (Renner, n.d.). This public reaction eventually led to the release in 1994 of some documents associated with the Warren Commission’s report. Stone’s personal background and individual interpretation of the events leading up to the murder of JFK as well as the prominent socio-political climate, both in 1963 and during the film’s production in 1991, are evident throughout the movie as emphasis on a particular theory and targeted emotional reaction pervades all aspects of the film in terms of its style, form and approach. Stone himself was only 17 on the day the president was shot, and was just starting to wake up to the idea of real life. Only two years earlier, following a privileged childhood in which he was actively encouraged to explore his creativity through written books, marionette plays and other such pursuits, Stone’s parents divorced and he learned of their individual failings. His father had had several affairs with friends of the family and his artistic French mother had perfected the art of spending the money brought into the household accounts. The true wake-up, though, was the fact that the family was quickly heading toward bankruptcy and all his father could promise him was an Ivy-league education (Maliga, 2002). Other than school, Stone would have to find a way of supporting himself. Unfortunately, Yale was not exactly what Stone had in mind when he first attended and he opted to try teaching instead at a Catholic school for Chinese students near Saigon. When that didn’t work, he joined the Merchant Marine and worked in Mexico, spending numerous hours developing his first book, A Child’s Night Dream, which he finished back in New York and shopped around to several publishers, none of whom showed any interest (Maliga, 2002). In frustration, he joined the Army and went back to Vietnam in 1967, finding a completely different atmosphere than the one he had left. During his tour of duty, Stone was injured several times, honored for bravery and committed acts he later featured in his film Platoon. It was this Vietnam experience that made him start questioning motives and means. Upon his discharge from the Army, Stone returned to Mexico as an angry young man before returning to the United States. Upon his return, he is reported to have dressed all in black and spent many hours listening to The Doors’ Jim Morrison performing “The End” (Maliga, 2002). However, it was upon this return to New York that Stone discovered New York University’s Film School. It was while he was attending this school that Stone first met Martin Scorsese, who, Stone said, was “very insightful and inspiring” (Maliga, 2002) and helped Stone to focus on the craft of film rather than the business of film. This was to make an important difference in the way in which Stone would approach many of his later film projects, including JFK. Having made three short black and white films while attending school, “Last Year in Vietnam,” “Madman of Martinique” and “Michael and Marie”, Stone met with the business side of film immediately upon his first commercial film Seizure in Canada when the film company he was working with declared bankruptcy (Maliga, 2002). Fortunately, another Canadian firm financed the project and the film was produced. After he moved to Los Angeles for good, Stone shopped around his graphic screenplay for Platoon with little success, but the writing involved in the project attracted the attention of numerous Hollywood studios, including Columbia Pictures, who hired him to write the screenplay adaptation for Billy Hayes’ Midnight Express and Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian (Maliga, 2002). Although Midnight Express won Stone his first Academy Award for best screenplay, Conan proved once again that Stone’s focus was on the craft rather than the financing as it proved too expensive to shoot without modification. Following these films, Stone went on to write the screenplay for Year of the Dragon and direct The Hand, Scarface, Salvador and Platoon, which was finally produced in 1986 and won four Oscar awards, including Best Picture and Best Director – Stone’s biggest achievement to date. With this accomplishment, Stone became convinced that pushing the limits of understanding through the craft of filmmaking was the best way of creating a successful film, an understanding that can be readily observed in his next hard-hitting, and arguably his best, film JFK. Added to this already individual approach to filmmaking, Stone was producing JFK in a time in American history when consumers were growing accustomed to having the market respond directly to them instead of the other way around. Inflation doubled during the decade prior to the release of the film and consumers were spending like mad, buying on credit and struggling to keep up with the latest status symbols in terms of brand names or gadgetry, including the boom of the home computer (Whitley, n.d.). This decade also saw the first female presidential candidate in the form of Geraldine Ferraro, the first African-American presidential candidate in Jesse Jackson and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice appointed to the country’s Supreme Court. More women were obtaining college educations and remaining in the workforce after having children. The new two-income families saw an increase in average household income by approximately 20 percent, which further spurred consumers to spend more (Whitley, n.d.). On the political front, Ronald Reagan and then George Bush (the first) secured several victories of which Americans were proud, including the release of 52 hostages from Iran and the erection of the Vietnam Memorial, honoring more than 57,000 soldiers who had been killed or declared missing in that war. The frightening statistics on increased drug use in the country prompted first lady Nancy Reagan to declare a war on drugs which had some affect in curbing the cocaine use in the country and a presidential call for more community involvement resulted in an all-time high for volunteerism and contributions in the nation (Whitley, n.d.). This blossoming, empowered, vibrant socio-political culture was ripe for the type of movie Stone wanted to produce, and for providing the reaction to action that Stone was seeking by focusing on the failures of the past to obtain the truth surrounding the death of President Kennedy. By mixing truth with conjecture and historical records with staged and choreographed scenes, Stone has created a film that nearly defines its own genre. Through his use of historical footage, recordings and photographs, Stone is able to capture a sense of the historic in JFK that is rarely seen in films that aren’t strictly within the documentary classification. By tracing through several series of events including those that took place during Garrison’s investigations as well as those leading up to the death of the president and some of the events that followed it, the film could be considered a documentary. However, it is not a documentary. There are several places in which Stone has been forced to rely on conjecture, hearsay and flimsy evidence to support the claims made within the text of the movie. Several characters portrayed in the story never actually existed either, but are instead composite characters of individuals recorded in the written record. It is here, also, that Stone moves into the realm of fiction as he explores or mentions some of the major conspiracy theories that have been raised and speculates as to time lines, actions, events and connections. 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; however, the film is most often described, especially by Stone himself, as a drama. Despite his insistence that he is not trying to portray a historically factual documentary regarding the assassination, Stone utilizes several real-life players in depicting his version of events. Key among these is President Kennedy himself. By refusing to recast the president, Stone not only proves his talent as a director working with limited available footage, he provides a sense of reality into the story. When he uses the Zapruder film, Stone is able to inject a somber mood of reflection as audiences realize this is the actual event and not a staged recreation. The man in the picture really ends up dead when the camera stops rolling. Another significant cameo appearance is that of Jim Garrison himself as the Honorable Chief Justice Earl Warren. By placing him in this role, Stone adds an ironic twist to the story, yet also suggests that anyone placed in the real life role may have been obligated to come to the same conclusions the Warren Commission delivered. The film’s technical consultant Robert Groden appeared several times in the film, first as a doctor trying to resuscitate the president at Parkland Hospital and later as the court’s projectionist. Through these roles, Stone, who believes in the subtlety of film as shown in his use of subliminal messages, perhaps is suggesting that he has his own eyes and ears in the most significant aspects of the story. Real life assassination witness Jean Hill also appeared in the film as the stenographer taking down Hill’s real life statement. Again, the underlying message is that of authenticity – Hill wouldn’t change her own statements or misrepresent what she said herself. Layton Martens, a friend of David Ferrie who had been staying at Ferrie’s house at the time of the assassination, appears as one of the silent FBI officials in the scene in which Ferrie is released from custody as a suspect. For those who recognize the man and his connection to the story, this could be seen as an indication that Ferrie was released by his friends and protected by organizations higher up than anyone at the time realized. Perry Russo, the principle man upon whom the character of Willie O’Keefe is based upon (others include David Logan, Raymond Broshears and William Morris), was featured in the bar scene near the beginning of the movie, watching the television in New Orleans when Garrison and many others first learn of Kennedy’s death. Shouting out in appreciation of the murder in the film, Russo’s presence offers early evidence of extensive research as well as another link in the chain of authenticity. The overall style of the film further emphasizes authenticity regardless of whether the footage being shown is authentic news coverage or movie-produced recreations. The video montage of the first section of the film establishes its link with reality through its use of almost exclusively actual news footage of the president and his family, as well as important events of the time such as Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, Kennedy’s narrow margin of victory in winning the election and details of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam situation. The video is left in its television-sized format, surrounded by plenty of black space, making the theater dark and bringing the mood of the audience into alignment with the seriousness of the images being shown. Military-styled music, heavy on the drums, further emphasizes this attitude throughout the montage, although various voiceovers are heard detailing the important information regarding these events. The length of this montage might be considered a mistake by some who worry about flagging attention in the American audience, but the military music serves as a constant attention-getter while the voiceovers change forms every so often, from that of a newscaster to that of the president to that of an announcer. Inserted scenes such as the footage of Jerry Belknap, claimed in the movie to have been unidentified and vanished, having an epileptic seizure moments before the shooting, are integrated so smoothly as to appear a part of the news footage scenes that have been shown to this point. However, the gradual reduction of the music to only rhythmic, heartbeat-like strikes on the drum help create a dramatic tension leading up to the flash of a completely black screen, the sound of shots being fired followed by the almost equally dark CBS New Bulletin screen and newscaster voiceover announcing the news that the president had been shot. The first full screen footage seen by the audience is that of the Zapruder film documenting the president’s final moments within a nearly silent environment. All that can be heard is the hollow, wind-like noise such as that made by an early video camera. The silence, as opposed to the screams and other crowd noise one would expect in such a situation, is eerie, causing many to catch their breath in an unconscious reaction to the extreme shock of the moment. Smoothly transitioning from this scene of chaos and even more frightening silence to a ground view of the pristine white side of the New Orleans court building with strong green tree tops in the frame, Stone works to sooth the audience and reassure them that here, at least, is justice and truth. Here is comfort and the defender we’re seeking. Here is the absence of violence. The dark tones of the interior of Garrison’s office are soothing to the eye and comforting to the spirit without any frightening dark spaces or unrecognizable forms. Throughout the film, atmosphere and color play a large role in defining what the audience is expected to feel. Interiors are frequently dark, smoky and full of questionable spaces in which all kinds of shady deals might take place. Even in open spaces, such as the horse track at which Garrison tracks down Jack Martin, an element of the sinister is implied in the presence of a man in dark suit and sunglasses sitting not far away in the stands. The testimony gathered here is also colored in murky shades as Martin is dressed in dullish brown clothing and his flashback memories are interspersed with the pounding hooves of the horses as they churn up the mud of the racing course. Scenes involving conversations between alleged conspirators are always shown in areas filled with smoke and amorphous space. Here there are no boundaries and anyone might be standing mere inches away. While Garrison sits at home reading court testimony in relation to the shooting, the Warren Commission court itself is shown in silhouette as a ray of sunshine, the hope of the nation, fails to illuminate any of the subjects in the room, serving only to play with the dust filling the air. Garrison’s repeated statement at this point, “Ask the question, ask the question”, serves to bring attention to this fact of light without illumination and a maddening increase in obscurity. Not only using atmosphere, but colors to paint a picture of shadowy happenings, Stone rarely allows any strong colors to be observed in most of the scenes. With the exceptions of red, green and blue, all of the colors involved in the film are muted or washed out, helping to project a feeling of gravity into the investigation’s progress. The example discussed previously regarding the color brown during the interview with Jack Martin as well as that of the comforting browns of Garrison’s office at the opening of the movie are only two of many examples throughout of how Stone uses these muted colors to initiate emotional response among his viewers. When strong colors do appear, they are impossible to miss and serve to underscore emotional messages contained within the film. The color red is used as an indicator of danger throughout the film, only appearing when someone is in physical danger or else in danger of discovering the director’s supported conclusions. In many cases, the proximity of the red item and the depth of shade helps to indicate how much that person will be personally affected by the events that are about to occur. The first time in which the color is seen, it is bright red and plentiful in the outfits on two boys playing on the grassy knoll as the president’s motorcade approaches Dealey Plaza and in the raincoat worn by Jean Hill. However, the color also appears on a chair in Garrison’s house as footage of Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrest is portrayed and Garrison makes the call to track down the New Orleans connection mentioned to signify a dangerous action. The appearance of red on the books behind Garrison in his office as he and his staff watch Oswald’s murder occur on television helps to prepare the audience for the murder, but the darkened tone of the red lets us know that it won’t be directly impacting on the characters we’re watching. Garrison sits in a red chair when he reads through the reported interviews with eyewitnesses and makes the decision to pursue a case and red appears in the restaurants both when Dean Andrews warns Garrison to leave the case alone if he wants to live and when Garrison moves his staff deeper into the investigation. As he looks over the terrain at Dealey Plaza from the area of the fenceline, remarking on the excellent shooting position, a red car passes by on the road below in mimicry of the route taken by the president’s limousine several years earlier. Just before the discovery of electronic bugging devices within his own office, a crowded scene is featured in which a red devil-suited individual is escorted away by police, perhaps also signifying the danger is coming from the authorities. Red is also present when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are assassinated and when Garrison’s wife makes her decision to leave him. Significantly, then, by the time the scene at the airport in which Garrison’s life is threatened, the audience is anticipating the danger thanks to the large block of red on the bathroom stall beside him. The color blue also makes some strong points throughout the movie, interestingly used both to portray truth and justice as well as obscurity and confusion. The first time Garrison’s office building is shown, the camera is looking up at it and the pure blue sky above it, giving a sense of relief and clarity. The freshness of three years later is described by the pure blue of the sky, the pink blossoms appearing on the tree trunks and the chirping of the unseen birds. This pure blue sky is used as a symbol of clarity as Garrison talks with Senator Russell Long on an airliner. Within the conversation, Garrison’s own doubts about the shot trajectories reported are recalled and redoubled through this conversation that takes place on an airliner. As the conversation ends, the airliner is seen to be ascending through the blue, indicating increased awareness of the truth. Taking his office staff on a walking tour of New Orleans hotspots to his theory, the small group walks under a brilliantly blue sky marred only by the appearance of a red brick cobblestone road at the mention of opening a case. A blue sky like this is also seen in the background while Garrison talks with Willie O’Keefe at the prison about his involvement with Clay Shaw, giving information deemed crucial to Garrison’s case. However, a darker shade of blue is also used to demonstrate obscurity and confusion at key moments of the film. As he discusses the murder of Oswald with his wife, he says to her back “… the man who killed the president” followed by a loud shot and a flash to the bluish screen of a black and white television cartoon character with a smoking gun, calling doubt on the accuracy of Garrison’s last statement. Garrison is often seen walking down a corridor of the courts building in a blue light just after he has lost a point, lost a witness or lost his case. Green, on the other hand, is most often used to denote healing or safety. Beginning with the inclusion of the treetops in the opening scene on Garrison’s office building, green begins to represent safety and health. In a film such as this, it isn’t seen often, but is noticeable within Garrison’s house as he interacts with his family and also prominent when Garrison talks with assassination eyewitnesses at Dealey Plaza. Although it is unavoidable in this last case, Stone seems to heighten its effect, allowing the color to spring forward as if Garrison is bringing healing to the people by asking the questions no one has yet asked. When receiving information and encouragement from “X”, Garrison sits in the courtyard of a fountain, surrounded by green grass and trees. In denoting three years have passed between the release of David Ferrie and Garrison’s conversation with Senator Long, Stone focuses on the green and pink foliage on the trees around Washington as a symbol of the national healing that’s taken place in the meantime. The use of color and black and white film footage further adds to the impact of color within the film. Although black and white is typically seen to be reflective of things that have happened in the past of the characters, Stone allows current events to be shown in terms of black and white footage on televisions within homes, offices or bars instead. Meanwhile, scenes such as the Zapruder film, which was obviously film shot in the past of the characters, are shown in full color. Rather than playing on the ideas of past and present in chronological sequence, Stone uses this technique of switching seemingly unpredictably between black and white and color to bring immediacy to the actions taking place. Rather than allowed the assassination itself remain in the past, Stone brings it into the present by presenting it in color. Rather than shifting focus of the movie onto the events surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald, he shows Oswald in black and white only, thereby leaving him comfortably in the past. By combining 8 mm film footage, television footage and film footage within the film, Stone is also imbuing it with a sense of history, authenticity and time as audiences recognize the different formats and failings. However, Stone is not content to appeal to his audience’s emotions through color alone. Several symbols occur within the film, most recognizably that of a skeleton or skull in a near-subliminal shot (near subliminal allows the image to stay in the scene for more than one frame). The first appearance of this symbol almost passes before it can be recognized as an unidentified gleam on the face of the clock the moment Garrison learns the president has been shot. This scene works well to capture the attention of the audience as it is reminiscent of the way in which people tend to remember the exact moment life-changing news reaches them. The tick of the clock further sounds like the toll of death, reinforcing that feeling those who lived through it felt at the time. The carnival parades are made fearsome by the dark tone assigned, the fantastical costumes depicted and the appearance of another near-subliminal skull as the American flag is lowered, signifying the death of American ideals in the conspiracy murder of the president. As Garrison and his investigators inspect the home of David Ferrie following Ferrie’s death, one of the first images given of Ferrie’s home is the sculpture of a skull standing in front of dark pictures on the wall containing images that frighten without recognition. A blatant skull that appears in the film happens when Garrison’s investigator learns that Clay Bertrum, who he’s been searching for, is actually Clay Shaw working under an alternate name. Throughout this conversation, an individual dressed in tight-fitting black has been dancing a fiendish jig behind and to the side of them. At the point when the connection is made with Shaw, this figure looms up in front of the men and is revealed to be dressed in a skeleton costume. The eerie laugh that emanates from this creature causes one to wonder if it really is a human inside the mask. A closer look at the film, in terms of frame by frame, will reveal several other true subliminal messages that seem to point to a sub-text within the film. While the obvious message of the film is that Kennedy was shot as the result of a conspiracy among high-ranking government officials, a coup d’ etat, the subliminal messages that have been found seem to be suggesting a variety of other possibilities that have been suggested. According to Meirion Hughes with Power of the Mind Magazine, there are several more instances when skulls appear throughout the movie, particularly as they apply to Clay Shaw and his homosexual friends. In addition to these, Hughes points out ghosts in the portraits of Garrison’s home, Masonic Lodge allusions in the form of hand signs and imagery, UFOs and morphed faces of prominent political figures. Through the use of these images, Hughes suggests Stone is seeking to illustrate larger involvement than even his conspiracy theory would have one believe. “Indeed ‘X’ - real life Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, played by Donald Sutherland - suggests in the movie that while Garrison is on track in his investigation, the real truth is something much bigger, much deeper” (Hughes, 2001). The ghosts that remain hidden throughout the film leave the questions still unanswered, the identities still hidden and the crime still unpunished. When the film was released to the American public, it had the desired effect of calling attention to the blatant fallacy of the Warren Commission report even if it didn’t quite prove the preferred theory presented. Commentary at the time was centered around the creative liberties Stone took with the story, as well as the omissions of key players in Shaw’s defense case. According to Murray Rothbard (1992), the national magazines Time and Newsweek had already released articles debunking the film before it hit the big screen. Critics everywhere vilified it for inaccuracies as well, indicating the story should have stuck completely to what could be proven rather than venture off into often un-discussed theories regarding the truth behind what happened. This is because, despite what the critics might say or whatever inaccuracies might have been involved, the movie served to point out not just one, but several of the theories that have been circulating in American society since the event. “What Stone does is to summarize admirably the best of a veritable industry of assassination revisionism – of literally scores of books, articles, tapes, annual conventions, and archival research” (Rothbard, 1992). It is through these books and other materials that the majority of the American public, although they might not have discussed it much, generally believed the Warren Commission report to be false, but that the truth was unobtainable. By suggesting more than once that people should make up their own minds and suggesting that the only reason to hide information is if there is reason to keep it silent, the film served to incite public reaction toward getting more of the records in Washington released. The government was forced, thanks to public outcry, to form the Assassination Records Review Board in 1992 as the result of a bill signed into law by then President Bill Clinton (Wikipedia, 2006). This review board worked to sort through the information that was on file to determine what, if anything, should be released to the public in response to this demand. They also worked to collect available information from the public while it was still possible to obtain it. Interviews of witnesses were collected sometimes from people who had never been interviewed before and the government actually purchased the Zapruder film to make it a part of the national archives. The board finished its work by 1998, releasing some, but not all, of the available information to the public. It is written in the laws of the Assassination Records Review Board that the remaining information will be released to the public by 2017 (Wikipedia, 2006). In terms of producing evidence to support a single conspiracy theory, Oliver Stone was unsuccessful in the film JFK, but in terms of producing an emotionally impacting film that called into question the results of the Warren Commission and inciting public reaction, Stone’s film is brilliant. Through the use of subtle techniques such as variety of film types, mixing of black and white and color film, limited color usage, the use of original footage with produced images and, to some extent, subliminal messages, Stone reaches out to the emotions of his audience through his portrayal of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as he pursued his investigation of Clay Shaw, both from a professional viewpoint as well as the effects this investigation had on his personal family. By doing so, he was able to incite public reaction to effect change, namely the formation of the ARRB in 1992 and the subsequent release of information that had previously been unavailable, either through government order or because people had not yet been interviewed regarding what they saw that day in Dealey Plaza. References Hughes, Meirion. (20 January, 2001). Subliminal JFK. Power of the Mind Magazine. Retrieved 7 January, 2006 from < http://www.btinternet.com/~meirionhughes/Pub/jfk.htm> Maliga, Lisa. (2002). Oliver Stone Biography. PageWise. Retrieved 6 January, 2006 from . Renner, S. (n.d.). From the Street of Dallas: The Absent Center of Oliver Stone’s JFK. Retrieved 27 December, 2005 from . Rothbard, Murray. (May, 1992). The JFK Flap. The Irrepressible Rothbard. Ed. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Retrieved 8 January, 2006 from Smith, S. (February 1992). Why they hate Oliver Stone. Progressive Review. Washington. Retrieved 27 December, 2005 from . Stone, Oliver. (1991). JFK [motion picture]. United States: Warner Home Video. Whitley, Peggy. (n.d.). American Cultural History. Kingwood College Library. Retrieved 6 January, 2006 from Wikipedia contributors (2006). JFK (film). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 January, 2006 from < http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Cite&page=JFK_%28film%29&id=34173511> Read More