JFK is a 1991 American political thriller film directed by Oliver Stone.
It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up through the eyes of former
New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner).
Garrison
filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee
Jones) for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate the
President, for which Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) was found
responsible by two government investigations: the Warren Commission, and
the House Select Committee on Assassinations (which concluded that
there could have been another assassin shooting with Oswald).
The
film was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail
of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed
Kennedy by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth"
to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth".
The film became
embroiled in controversy. Upon JFK's theatrical release, many major
American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties
with historical facts, including the film's implication that President
Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a coup d'état to kill Kennedy. After a
slow start at the box office, the film gradually picked up momentum,
earning over $205 million in worldwide gross. JFK was nominated for
eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and won two, Best
Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It was the most successful of
three films Stone made about the American Presidency, followed later by
Nixon with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and W. with Josh Brolin as
George W. Bush.
The film's opening encompasses newsreel footage
(with narration by Martin Sheen), including President Dwight D.
Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, warning about the build-up of the
"military--industrial complex". This is followed by a summary of John
Kennedy's years as President. Events shown are the Bay of Pigs invasion,
the Cuban missile crisis and the early days of the Vietnam War and
Laotian Civil War. This builds to a reconstruction of the assassination
on November 22, 1963. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison
subsequently learns about potential links to the assassination in New
Orleans. Garrison and his team investigate several possible
conspirators, including private pilot David Ferrie, but are forced to
let them go after the federal government publicly rebukes their
investigation. Kennedy's alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is killed by
Jack Ruby, and Garrison closes the investigation.
The
investigation is reopened in late 1966 after Garrison talks to Senator
Russell B. Long of Louisiana. Garrison then reads the Warren Report and
notices what he believes are numerous inaccuracies and conflicts.
Garrison and his staff interrogate several witnesses to the
assassination, and others who were involved with Oswald, Ruby and
Ferrie. Upon Garrison's informal questioning, Ferrie denies any
knowledge of meeting Oswald, but he's soon suspected of conspiring to
murder the President. Another witness is Willie O'Keefe, a male
prostitute serving five years in prison for soliciting. As well as
briefly meeting Oswald, O'Keefe was romantically involved with a man he
knew as "Clay Bertrand" -- also known as Clay Shaw. O'Keefe reveals he
witnessed Ferrie discussing the assassination with Shaw, Oswald and
several Latin men. In Dallas, Texas, others come forward, including Jean
Hill: she tells the investigators that she witnessed shots fired from
the grassy knoll and she heard four to six shots total, but U.S. Secret
Service agents threatened her into saying only three shots came from the
Texas School Book Depository; the implication is that the Warren
Commission made changes to her testimony. Garrison and a staff member
also go to the sniper's location in the book depository and aim an empty
rifle from the window through which Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy. They
conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, and two
of the shots were much too close together, indicating the involvement
of two additional assassins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_film
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