JFK is a 1991 American historical
legal-conspiracy thriller film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the
events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and
alleged 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 a government investigation: the Warren Commission.
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
for 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.
Plot
The film opens with
newsreel footage, including the farewell address in 1961 of outgoing
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, warning about the build-up of the
"military-industrial complex". This is followed by a summary of John F.
Kennedy's years as president, emphasizing the events that, in Stone's
thesis, would lead to his assassination. 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 (Joe Pesci),
but are forced to let them go after their investigation is publicly
rebuked by the federal government. Kennedy's suspected assassin Lee
Harvey Oswald is killed by Jack Ruby, and Garrison closes the
investigation.
The investigation is reopened in 1966 after Garrison reads the Warren
Report and notices what he believes to be multiple inaccuracies.
Garrison and his staff interrogate several witnesses to the Kennedy
assassination, and others involved with Oswald, Ruby, and Ferrie. One
such witness is Willie O'Keefe (Kevin Bacon), a male prostitute serving
five years in prison for soliciting, who reveals he witnessed Ferrie
discussing a coup d'état. As well as briefly meeting Oswald, O'Keefe was
romantically involved with a man called "Clay Bertrand". Jean Hill
(Ellen McElduff), a teacher who says she witnessed shots fired from the
grassy knoll, tells the investigators that Secret Service threatened her
into saying three shots came from the book depository, revealing
changes that were made to her testimony by the Warren Commission.
Garrison's staff also test the single bullet theory by aiming an empty
rifle from the window through which Oswald was alleged to have shot
Kennedy. They conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the
shots, indicating someone else, or multiple marksmen, were involved.
In 1968, Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington D.C. who
identifies himself as "X" (Donald Sutherland). He suggests a conspiracy
at the highest levels of government, implicating members of the CIA, the
Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Secret Service, FBI, and
Kennedy's vice-president and then president Lyndon Baines Johnson as
either co-conspirators or as having motives to cover up the truth of the
assassination. X explains that the President was killed because he
wanted to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War and dismantle
the CIA. X encourages Garrison to keep digging and prosecute New
Orleans-based international businessman Clay Shaw for his alleged
involvement. Upon interrogating Shaw, the businessman denies any
knowledge of meeting Ferrie, O'Keefe or Oswald, but he is soon charged
with conspiring to murder the President.
Some of Garrison's staff begin to doubt his motives and disagree with
his methods, and leave the investigation. Garrison's marriage is
strained when his wife Liz (Sissy Spacek) complains that he is spending
more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone
call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish
and attacking Shaw only because of his homosexuality. In addition, the
media launches attacks on television and in newspapers attacking
Garrison's character and criticizing the way his office is spending
taxpayers' money. Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify
while others, such as Ferrie, are killed in suspicious circumstances.
Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that he believes people are
after him, and reveals there was a conspiracy around Kennedy's death.
The trial of Clay Shaw takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court
with further evidence of multiple killers and dismissing the single
bullet theory, and proposes a Dealey Plaza shots scenario involving
three assassins who fired six total shots and framing Oswald for the
murders of Kennedy and officer J. D. Tippit but the jury acquits Shaw
after less than one hour of deliberation. The film reflects that members
of that jury stated publicly that they believed there was a conspiracy
behind the assassination, but not enough evidence to link Shaw to that
conspiracy. Shaw died of lung cancer in 1974, but in 1979 Richard Helms
testified that Clay Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic
Contacts Division of the CIA. The end credits claim that records related
to the assassination will be released to the public in 2029.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_(film)