Let's dive in to another of 1991's Best Picture nominees...
JFKDirector:
Oliver Stone
Screenplay:
Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar
(based on the books "On the Trail of the Assassins" by Jim Garrison and "Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy" by Jim Marrs)
Starring:
Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Oldman, Michael Rooker, Jay O. Sanders, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci
Academy Awards:
8 nominations
2 wins, for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing
Shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Costner) discovers that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (Oldman), had ties to his jurisdiction. Garrison and his team soon focus on anti-communist David Ferrie (Pesci) but when the FBI's own investigation clears Ferrie, Garrison drops the case.
Three years later, the government's official report on the assassination is released, but Garrison remains unconvinced that Oswald was the lone assassin. He speaks to several witnesses and gathers more evidence with an aim to bring businessman Clay Shaw (Jones) to trial for conspiring to kill Kennedy. However, Garrison's obsession with the case causes fractures in his marriage as his wife Liz (Spacek) confronts him about his priorities.
Speaking of obsessions, a school friend and I were absolutely captivated with this film as teenagers. (Not as obsessed as we were with the Back to the Future trilogy, but pretty close.) If memory serves, we saw JFK at least twice during its original theatrical run, and when it was released on home video, we pored over every detail. Watching it again for this blog - at least two decades since my last viewing - was an exercise in nostalgia. I was hooked right from the opening seconds of the film, as soon as I heard the hauntingly familiar sound of the snare drum.
Back in the 90s, I bought into all of it. All the inconsistencies and anomalies surrounding the official story of JFK's assassination were mind-blowing to me and a slam dunk in the case against the lone assassin hypothesis. Now, of course, the conspiracy theory seems like nonsense. It's simply a lot of conjecture and circumstantial evidence. But here's the thing ... it doesn't really matter. The film itself is just so well put together that even if you think the content is all fairy dust and unicorn farts, you'll still be engrossed in the mystery, astounded by each new cockamamie revelation.
It plays a bit like an episode of Law & Order, the investigative team moving from one witness to the next, interviewing each while a visual flashback complements their testimony. Occasionally, however, this leads into perhaps the film's only drawback - it's just a series of information dumps. Laurie Metcalf's deep dive into Oswald is a good example. It's a straight five minutes of pure exposition about Oswald's past. Likewise, Donald Sutherland's cameo, which is about three times longer. In some ways, the whole movie is simply a laundry list of all the supposed anomalies related to the case. It's a lot to absorb, at times.
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Nonetheless, the film remains engrossing and entertaining every step of the way, which is no mean feat considering it's over three hours long. It achieves this due to some unique and stylised cinematography, along with the tense and unsettling editing, both of which earned well-deserved Oscars. John Williams' impressive score also contributes to the film's powerful atmosphere. Not only does the aforementioned snare drum riff deftly set the mood, but the main theme is memorably potent.
And what a cast! Led by Kevin Costner (pictured), who peaks with a gut-wrenching final speech, the entire cast, cameos and all, are superb. If I had to pick a few standouts, Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek and Joe Pesci each deliver compelling performances. For the trivia buffs, Oliver Stone cast his own young son, Sean, to play Garrison's eldest child. And that's an uncredited Martin Sheen voicing the narration at the beginning of the film.
Starring:
Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Oldman, Michael Rooker, Jay O. Sanders, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci
Academy Awards:
8 nominations
2 wins, for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing
Shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Costner) discovers that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (Oldman), had ties to his jurisdiction. Garrison and his team soon focus on anti-communist David Ferrie (Pesci) but when the FBI's own investigation clears Ferrie, Garrison drops the case.
Three years later, the government's official report on the assassination is released, but Garrison remains unconvinced that Oswald was the lone assassin. He speaks to several witnesses and gathers more evidence with an aim to bring businessman Clay Shaw (Jones) to trial for conspiring to kill Kennedy. However, Garrison's obsession with the case causes fractures in his marriage as his wife Liz (Spacek) confronts him about his priorities.
Speaking of obsessions, a school friend and I were absolutely captivated with this film as teenagers. (Not as obsessed as we were with the Back to the Future trilogy, but pretty close.) If memory serves, we saw JFK at least twice during its original theatrical run, and when it was released on home video, we pored over every detail. Watching it again for this blog - at least two decades since my last viewing - was an exercise in nostalgia. I was hooked right from the opening seconds of the film, as soon as I heard the hauntingly familiar sound of the snare drum.
Back in the 90s, I bought into all of it. All the inconsistencies and anomalies surrounding the official story of JFK's assassination were mind-blowing to me and a slam dunk in the case against the lone assassin hypothesis. Now, of course, the conspiracy theory seems like nonsense. It's simply a lot of conjecture and circumstantial evidence. But here's the thing ... it doesn't really matter. The film itself is just so well put together that even if you think the content is all fairy dust and unicorn farts, you'll still be engrossed in the mystery, astounded by each new cockamamie revelation.
It plays a bit like an episode of Law & Order, the investigative team moving from one witness to the next, interviewing each while a visual flashback complements their testimony. Occasionally, however, this leads into perhaps the film's only drawback - it's just a series of information dumps. Laurie Metcalf's deep dive into Oswald is a good example. It's a straight five minutes of pure exposition about Oswald's past. Likewise, Donald Sutherland's cameo, which is about three times longer. In some ways, the whole movie is simply a laundry list of all the supposed anomalies related to the case. It's a lot to absorb, at times.
.png)
Nonetheless, the film remains engrossing and entertaining every step of the way, which is no mean feat considering it's over three hours long. It achieves this due to some unique and stylised cinematography, along with the tense and unsettling editing, both of which earned well-deserved Oscars. John Williams' impressive score also contributes to the film's powerful atmosphere. Not only does the aforementioned snare drum riff deftly set the mood, but the main theme is memorably potent.And what a cast! Led by Kevin Costner (pictured), who peaks with a gut-wrenching final speech, the entire cast, cameos and all, are superb. If I had to pick a few standouts, Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek and Joe Pesci each deliver compelling performances. For the trivia buffs, Oliver Stone cast his own young son, Sean, to play Garrison's eldest child. And that's an uncredited Martin Sheen voicing the narration at the beginning of the film.
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