JFK :Dark, disturbing but informative

Dark and disturbing. There are movies that leave you staring blankly into the cinema’s dark screen even after the other moviegoers have gone home; movies that make you think over and over again until your head hurts; the sort that you discuss with friends and family dozens of times over lunch or dinner even if the movie was shown years ago; movies with messages we don’t want to or afraid to discuss. These are the movies I enjoy. And among these dark and disturbing films is JFK. .

Oliver Stone certainly holds nothing back in his depiction of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Those who criticized the film as fiction only made me want to see it even more. Though JFK does not answer questions on who the plotters and the triggermen really were, the film does raise some very interesting points and facts that a conspiracy took place on Nov. 22, 1963. Some facts and evidence were too obvious and yet, ignored. In contrast, the fairy tale of the lone gunman is so full of inconsistencies, one wonders how authorities and the people could have been so blind.

The film opens with a startling mix of edited clips from documented history with added narrative. The moments leading up to the assassination are featured. The news reaches New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) who witnesses the breaking story on TV. In the weekend that follows, the entire staff witnesses on television the murder of JFK’s accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman). Things settle down but Garrison is strangely drawn back into the investigation of the president’s death three years later. Garrison also unsuccessfully prosecutes an internationally known businessman named Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones).

After watching the film, I never saw the government or the military / police in the same light. In my years as a staff writer, editor and executive producer for a radio program, I often remind myself of what power-hungry politicians will do to make millions. The film has guided me in making decisions when faced with writing "praise releases" for government leaders just to cover up their corruption. Stone’s protest against the alleged cover-up that took place in 1963 inspired me to write against the wanton corruption in our college through my column in the college paper. I continued that same vigilance when I was in the youth church council.

As a former journalist, I learned to question the "facts" presented by authorities and not to believe everything I hear, see and read in the radio, TV and the papers, knowing they may just be propaganda or lies masquereding as truth. In the film, because of the shocking nature of the assassination, the Warren Commission tried to calm America’s fears of a government overthrow and blamed everything on a half-baked ex-Marine using a rifle with a faulty scope (Oswald).

What really bothers me about JFK is that Stone points out that Kennedy was killed because he would have withdrawn troops from Vietnam and eventually, the profitable war machine would have slowed down and the war never would have taken place in Vietnam.

In one of my radio interviews, an ex-Navy captain told us, "Just think: If all our insurgency and secessionist wars were all over tomorrow, what do you think would happen to the military hierarchy? What will happen to all our generals, all the military / weapons / intelligence budget? War is profitable that’s why there are people in power who will not let it end." It was a good thing I had a background on government conspiracies from JFK or else I would have been completely taken aback by that radio interview.

The film ends with a sad note: A Congressional Investigation from 1976 - 1979 found a "probable conspiracy" in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recommended the Justice Department investigate further. As of 1991, the Justice Department has done nothing. The files of the House Select Committee on Assassinations are locked away until the year 2029. I wonder: Will it also take that long to know who is profiting from our decades-long insurgency and secessionism?

It was Edward Murrow who said, "The obscure we see eventually; the completely apparent takes longer." No matter how long it takes, only the brave and those who seek the truth will be there to witness it.