The Single-Bullet Theory was introduced by the Warren Commission to explain how three shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald resulted in the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. The theory, generally credited to Warren Commission staffer Arlen Specter
, 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 HelmsRichard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended two-year prison...
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 2027. Controversy incited by the film led to the creation of the
Assassination Records Review BoardThe Assassination Records Review Board was created as a result of an act passed by the US Congress in 1992, entitled the "President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act." The Act mandated the gathering and release of all US Government records related to the Assassination of John F....
, which released virtually all such documents.
Cast
Kevin CostnerKevin Michael Costner is an American actor, musician, producer, and director. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Oscars and a Golden Globe Award. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...
stars as
Jim GarrisonEarling Carothers "Jim" Garrison — who changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s — was the Democratic District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. He is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy .Garrison remains a...
. For the role, Stone sent the copies of the script to Kevin Costner,
Mel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American Australian actor, film director and producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in the Mad...
, and
Harrison FordHarrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. Ford is best known for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series...
. Initially, Costner turned Stone down. However, the actor's agent,
Michael OvitzMichael S. Ovitz is a former talent agent and Hollywood powerhouse who served as the head of the Creative Artists Agency from 1975 to 1995....
, was a big fan of the project and helped the director convince the actor to take the role. Before accepting the role, Costner conducted extensive research on Garrison including meeting the man, his friends and enemies. Two months after finally signing on to play Garrison in January 1991, his film
Dances with WolvesDances with Wolves is a 1990 epic film based on the book of the same name which tells the story of a Civil War-era United States Army lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post...
won seven Academy Awards and so his presence greatly enhanced JFKs bankability in the studio's eyes.
Tommy Lee JonesTommy Lee Jones is an American actor and director.His film roles include federal marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals, the villain "Two-Face" in Batman Forever, the mysterious Agent K in the Men in Black films, Western peace officers Woodrow F. Call in Lonesome Dove and Ed Tom...
as
Clay ShawClay Laverne Shaw was a businessman in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the only person prosecuted in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He was found not guilty.-Biography:...
/Clay Bertrand. Jones was originally considered for another role that was ultimately cut from the film and it was Stone who decided to cast the actor as Shaw. In preparation for the film, Jones interviewed Garrison on three different occasions and talked to others who had worked with Shaw and knew him.
Gary OldmanGary Leonard Oldman is an English actor and filmmaker .He found fame in roles such as Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy, Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, Count Dracula in Dracula and Ludwig Van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved...
as
Lee Harvey OswaldLee Harvey Oswald was, according to three United States government investigations, the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was fatally shot on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas....
, a former
United States MarineThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States armed forces responsible for providing force projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
who
defectedIn politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
to the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and later returned. He was arrested on suspicion of killing Dallas police officer
J. D. TippitJ. D. Tippit was a police officer with the Dallas, Texas Police Department who, according to numerous witnesses and multiple government investigations including the Warren Commission, was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald after Tippit stopped Oswald following the assassination of President John F...
. According to Oldman, very little was written about Oswald in the script. Stone gave him several plane tickets, a list of contacts and told him to do his own research. The actor met with Oswald's wife, Marina and her two daughters to prepare for the role.
Joe PesciJoseph Frank "Joe" Pesci is an American actor, comedian, singer and musician.Usually known for playing violent mafia mobsters or grouchy but lovable funnymen, Pesci has starred in a number of high-profile films such as Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Once Upon a Time in America, My Cousin Vinny, JFK,...
as
David FerrieDavid William Ferrie was a private investigator and pilot who was alleged by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to have been involved in the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.-Early life:...
. Stone originally wanted
James WoodsJames Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor and comedian. Woods is best known for starring in films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Ghosts of Mississippi, Salvador, Casino and as the Disney villain Hades in Hercules.-Early life:Woods was born in Vernal, Utah...
to play Ferrie but he wanted to play Garrison and so
Willem DafoeWilliam "Willem" Dafoe is an American film and stage actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
and
John MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer and director. Over the last 25 years, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures...
were approached. They both turned down the role.
- Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Footloose, Flatliners, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, and Tremors....
as Willie O'Keefe, a composite characterA composite character is a character in a fictional work or non-fictional work that is composed of two or more individuals.In fictional works the composite character may be real historical or biographical figures used as models for an original piece of fiction, or they may be fictional themselves...
who testifies that Bertrand and Shaw are the same person and that he knew David Ferrie.
- Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger, The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing, Glengarry Glen...
as Jack Martin, an American private investigatorA private investigator or private detective is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigations. Private investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
living in New Orleans. He worked with Guy Bannister at Bannister's private investigation office. He was the one who implicated Ferrie to Garrison about the assassination of Kennedy.
- Sissy Spacek
Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek is an American actress and singer. Her screen debut was in the 1972 film Prime Cut co-starring Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman....
as Liz Garrison, Jim Garrison's wife.
- Walter Matthau
Walter John Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
as Senator Russell B. LongRussell Billiu Long was an American politician who served in the United States Senate as a Democrat from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987.-Early life:...
, an American politician who served in the United States SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
as a Democrat from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987.
- Donald Sutherland
Donald McNicol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian character actor with a film career spanning over 50 years. He is currently working in the American television series, Dirty Sexy Money. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, in...
as XLeroy Fletcher Prouty was a colonel in the United States Air Force, author, banker, and critic of U.S. foreign policy, especially as regarded the activities of the CIA.- Early life:...
, a colonelColonel is a military rank of a commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country in the world. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
in the United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the U.S. armed forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947 - 80 P.L....
, author, banker, and critic of U.S. foreign policy, especially as regarded the activities of the CIAThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
.
- Edward Asner as Guy Banister, a career member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency. The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and a private investigator. He was an avid anti-communist, member of the MinutemenThe Minutemen was a militant anti-Communist organization formed in the United States in the early 1960s. The founder and head of the right-wing group was Robert Bolivar DePugh, a biochemist from Norborne, Missouri. The Minutemen believed that Communism would soon take over all of America...
, the John Birch SocietyThe John Birch Society is a political advocacy group that supports what it considers traditionally conservative causes such as the private ownership of property, the rule of law and U.S. sovereignty but opposes globalism. The society is paleoconservative on the American political spectrum. Founded...
, Louisiana Committee on Un-American Activities, and publisher of the Louisiana Intelligence Digest.
- Brian Doyle-Murray
Brian Doyle-Murray is an American comedian, screenwriter, actor and voice artist. An alumnus of Saturday Night Live, he is the older brother of actor/comedian Bill Murray and has acted together with him in several films, including Caddyshack, Scrooged, Ghostbusters II and Groundhog...
as Jack RubyJacob Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was an American nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas. He was convicted on March 14, 1964, of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F....
, an American nightclubA nightclub is a drinking, dancing and entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. People who frequent nightclubs are known as clubbers...
operator from Dallas, Texas. He was convicted on March 14, 1964 for the murder of Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination Kennedy.
- John Candy
John Franklin Candy was a Canadian-American comedian and actor. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto, Ontario branch of The Second City...
as Dean Andrews, an eccentric lawyer who was called by Clay ShawClay Laverne Shaw was a businessman in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the only person prosecuted in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He was found not guilty.-Biography:...
to represent Lee Harvey OswaldLee Harvey Oswald was, according to three United States government investigations, the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was fatally shot on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas....
in the JFKJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
murder.
Many actors were willing to waive their normal fees because of the nature of the project and to lend their support.
Martin SheenRamón Estévez, better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an actor best known for his performances as Captain Willard in the film Apocalypse Now and President Josiah Bartlet on the television series The West Wing...
provided the opening narration. The real
Jim GarrisonEarling Carothers "Jim" Garrison — who changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s — was the Democratic District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. He is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy .Garrison remains a...
, a severe critic of the
Warren CommissionThe President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 29, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22. Its 888-page final report was...
, ironically played
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
Chief Justice Earl WarrenEarl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States and is to date the only person elected Governor of California three times. Prior to holding these positions, Warren served as a district attorney for Alameda County, California and Attorney General of California.His tenure as California...
himself, during the scene in which he questions Jack Ruby in prison about his retrial. Supposed assassination witness Beverly Oliver, who claimed to be the
Babushka ladyIn the context of the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Babushka Lady is a nickname for an unknown woman who might have photographed the events that occurred in Dallas' Dealey Plaza at the time Kennedy was shot...
, also appeared in a
cameoA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television. Short appearances by film directors, politicians, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities are common. These roles are generally small, and...
role. Sean Stone, Oliver Stone's son, plays a secondary role as Garrison's oldest son Jasper.
Production
Zachary Sklar, a journalist and a professor of journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, met Jim Garrison in 1987 and helped him rewrite a manuscript that he was working on about the Kennedy assassination. He changed it from a scholarly book in the third person to "a detective story—a whydunit" in the first person. Sklar edited the book and it was published in 1988. While attending the Latin American Film Festival in
HavanaHavana is the capital city, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city is one of the 14 Cuban provinces. The city/province has 2.4 million inhabitants, and the urban area over 3.7 million, making Havana the largest city in both Cuba and the Caribbean region...
,
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is...
, Stone met Sheridan Square Press publisher Ellen Ray on an elevator. She had published Jim Garrison's book
On the Trail of the Assassins. Ray had gone to New Orleans and worked with Garrison in 1967. She gave Stone a copy of Garrison's book and told him to read it. He did and quickly bought the film rights with $250,000 of his own money to prevent talk going around the studios about projects he might be developing.
The Kennedy Assassination had always had a profound effect on Stone: "The Kennedy murder was one of the signal events of the postwar generation, my generation". The filmmaker met Garrison and grilled him with a variety of questions for three hours. The man stood up to Stone's questioning and then got up and left. His
hubrisHubris is a term used in modern English to indicate overweening pride, haughtiness, or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution or Nemesis. In ancient Greece, hubris referred to actions which, intentionally or not, shamed and humiliated the victim, and frequently the perpetrator as well...
impressed the director. Stone's impressions from their meeting were that Garrison "made many mistakes. He trusted a lot of weirdoes and followed a lot of fake leads. But he went out on a limb, way out. And he kept going, even when he knew he was facing long odds".
Stone was not interested in making a film about Garrison's life but rather the story behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. He also bought the film rights to
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by
Jim MarrsJim Marrs is an American former newspaper journalist and author of books and articles on a wide range of alleged cover ups and conspiracy theories. Marrs is a prominent figure in the JFK conspiracy press and his book Crossfire was a source for Oliver Stone's film JFK...
. One of the filmmaker's primary goals with
JFK was to provide a rebuttal to the Warren Commission Report that he believed was "a great myth. And in order to fight a myth, maybe you have to create another one, a countermyth". Even though Marrs’ book collected many theories, Stone was hungry for more and hired Jane Rusconi, a recent
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
graduate, to head up a team of researchers and assemble as much information about the assassination as possible while the director completed post-production on
Born on the Fourth of JulyBorn on the Fourth of July is a 1989 film adaptation of the best selling autobiography of the same name by Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic. Tom Cruise plays Kovic, in a performance that earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Oliver Stone co-wrote the screenplay with Kovic, and also produced...
. Stone read two dozen books on the JFK assassination while Rusconi read between 100 to 200 books on the subject.
By December 1989, Stone began approaching studios to back his film. While in pre-production on
The DoorsThe Doors is a 1991 biopic about the 1960s rock band of the same name which emphasizes the life of its lead singer, Jim Morrison. It was directed by Oliver Stone, and stars Val Kilmer as Morrison, Meg Ryan as Pamela Courson , Kyle MacLachlan as Ray Manzarek, Frank Whaley as Robby Krieger, Kevin...
, he met with three executives at
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
who wanted him to make a film about Howard HughesHoward Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer, film director, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He gained fame in the late 1920s as a maverick film producer, making big budget and often controversial films like Hell's Angels,...
. However, Warren BeattyHenry Warren Beatty is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director.-Early life and education:Beatty was born Henry Warren Beaty in Richmond, Virginia's, Bellevue neighborhood...
owned the rights and so Stone pitched JFK. Studio president and Chief Operating Officer Terry SemelTerry Semel is an American corporate executive who was the chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Incorporated. Previously, Semel spent 24 years at Warner Bros., where he served as chairman and co-chief executive officer...
liked the idea. He had a reputation for making political and controversial films with All the President's MenAll the President's Men is a 1976 film based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post...
, The Parallax ViewThe Parallax View is a 1974 American thriller film directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Warren Beatty, who was also a producer. The film was adapted by David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr and an uncredited Robert Towne from the 1970 novel by Loren Singer...
and The Killing FieldsThe Killing Fields is a 1984 British film drama about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.It is based on the experiences of three journalists: Dith Pran, a Cambodian, Sydney Schanberg, an American, and Jon Swain, a journalist from the UK. The film, which won three Academy Awards, was directed by...
. Stone made a handshake deal with Warner Bros. whereby the studio would get all the rights to the film and put up 20 million dollars for the budget. The director did this so that the screenplay would not be widely read and bid on, and he also knew that the material was potentially dangerous and wanted only one studio to finance it. Finally, Stone liked Semel's track record of producing political films.
Screenplay
When Stone set out to write the screenplay, he asked Sklar (who also edited Marrs’ book) to co-write it with him and distill the Garrison book, the Marrs book and Rusconi's research into a script that would resemble what he called "a great detective movie". Stone told Sklar his vision of the film: "I see the models as ZZ is a 1969 French language political thriller directed by Costa Gavras, with a screenplay by Gavras and Jorge Semprún, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek...
and Rashomonis a 1950 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. It stars Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori and Minoru Chiaki...
, I see the event in Dealey Plaza taking place in the first reel, and again in the eighth reel, and again later, and each time we're going to see it differently and with more illumination". Although he did employ ideas from Rashomon, his principal model for JFK was Z: "Somehow I had the impression that in Z you had the showing of the crime and then the re-showing of the crime throughout the picture until it was seen another way. That was the idea of JFK – that was the essence of it: basically, that's why I called it JFK. Not J dot F dot K dot. JFK. It was a code, like Z was a code, for he lives, American-style. As it was written it became more fascinating: it evolved into four DNA threads". Stone broke the structure of his film down into four stories: Garrison investigating the New Orleans connection to the Kennedy assassination; the research that revealed what Stone calls, "Oswald legend: who he was and how to try to inculcate that"; the recreation of the assassination at Dealey Plaza; and the information that the character of X imparts on Garrison, which Stone saw as the "means by which we were able to move between New Orleans, local, into the wider story of Dealey Plaza".
Sklar worked on the Garrison side of the story while Stone added the Oswald story, the events at Dealey Plaza and the "Mr. X" character. Sklar spent a year researching and writing a 550 triple-spaced page screenplay and then Stone rewrote it and condensed it closer to normal screenplay length. Stone and Sklar used composite characters, most notably the "Mr. X" character played by Donald Sutherland. This was a technique that would be criticized in the press. He was a mix of several witnesses and retired Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the U.S. armed forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947 - 80 P.L....
colonel Fletcher ProutyLeroy Fletcher Prouty was a colonel in the United States Air Force, author, banker, and critic of U.S. foreign policy, especially as regarded the activities of the CIA.- Early life:...
, another adviser for the film and who was a military liaison between the CIA and the PentagonThe Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself....
. Meeting Prouty was, for Stone, "one of the most extraordinary afternoons I've ever spent. Pretty much like in the movie, he just started to talk". According to Stone, "I feel this was in the spirit of the truth because Garrison also met a deep throatDeep Throat is the pseudonym given to the secret informant who provided information to Bob Woodward of the The Washington Post about the involvement of United States President Richard Nixon's administration in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal.Deep Throat was first introduced to public...
type named Richard Case NagellRichard Case Nagell is a former military officer who, according to Dick Russell's biography of him, claimed to have had foreknowledge of the John F. Kennedy assassination, and also to have gotten himself arrested in a bank shooting weeks before the assassination to avoid becoming a patsy...
, who claimed to be a CIA agent and made Jim aware of a much larger scenario than the microcosm of New Orleans".
Early drafts of the screenplay suggested a four and a half-hour film with a potential budget of $The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
40 million—double what Stone had agreed to with Warner Bros. The director knew film mogul Arnon Milchan and met with him to help finance the film. Milchan was eager to work on the project and launch his new company, Regency Films, with a high profile film like JFK. Milchan made a deal with Warner Bros. to put up the money for the film. Stone managed to pare down his initial revision, a 190-page draft, to a 156-page shooting script.
There were many advisers for the film, including Gerald Hemming, a former Marine who claimed involvement in various CIA activities, and Robert Groden, a photographic expert and longtime JFK assassination researcher and author.
Principal photography
The story revolves around Costner's Jim Garrison, with a large cast of well-known stars in the supporting roles. Stone was inspired by the casting model of the documentary epic The Longest DayThe Longest Day is a war film based on the 1959 history book The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, about "D-Day", the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, during World War II....
which he had admired as a child: "It was realistic, but it had a lot of stars...the supporting cast provides a map of the American psyche: familiar, comfortable faces that walk you through a winding path in the dark woods".
Cinematographer Robert Richardson was a week and a half into shooting City of HopeCity of Hope may refer to:*City of Hope National Medical Center in California, devoted to research and education, "one of the world's leading biomedical research and treatment centers";** The name of the medical center's charity...
for John SaylesJohn Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director and screenwriter who frequently plays small roles in his own and other indie films.-Early life:...
when he got word that Stone was thinking about making JFK. By the time principal photography wrapped on City of Hope, Richardson was ready to make Stone's film. To prepare, Richardson read up on various JFK assassination books starting with On the Trail of the Assassins and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy.
The original idea was to film the opening sequence in 1.33:1 aspect ratioThe aspect ratio of an image is its width divided by its height.Aspect ratios are mathematically expressed as x :y and x×y . The most common aspect ratios used today in the presentation of films in movie theaters are 1.85:1 and 2.39:1...
in order to simulate the TV screens that were available at the time of the assassination, then transition to 1.85:1 when Garrison began his investigation, and finally switch to 2.35:1 for scenes occurring in 1968 and later. However, because of time constraints and logistics, Richardson was forced to abandon this approach.
Stone wanted to recreate the Kennedy Assassination in Dealey Plaza. His producers had to pay the Dallas City Council a substantial amount of money to hire police to reroute traffic and close streets for three weeks. He only had ten days to shoot all of the footage he needed and so he used seven cameras (two 35 mm and five 16 mm) and 14 film stocks. Getting permission to shoot in the Texas School Book DepositoryThe Texas School Book Depository is the former name of a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas . Located on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, at the western end of downtown Dallas, its address is 411 Elm Street, Dallas, TX 75202-3317...
was more difficult. They had to pay fifty thousand dollars to put someone in the window that Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have shot Kennedy from. They were allowed to film in that location only between certain hours with only five people on the floor at one time: the camera crew, an actor, and Stone. Co-producer Clayton Townsend has said that the hardest part was getting the permission to restore the building to the way it looked back in 1963. It took five months of negotiation.
The production spent four million to restore Dealey Plaza to 1963 conditions. Stone utilized a variety of film stocks. Richardson said, "It depends whether you want to shoot in 3535 mm film is the basic film gauge most commonly used for both still photography and motion pictures, and remains relatively unchanged since its introduction in 1892 by William Dickson and Thomas Edison, using film stock supplied by George Eastman. The photographic film is cut into strips...
or 1616 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film. Other common film gauges include 8 mm and 35 mm.- History :...
or Super 8Super 8 mm film, also simply called Super 8, is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older 8 mm home movie format, and the Cine 8 format....
. In many cases the lighting has to be different". For certain shots in the film, Stone employed multiple camera crews shooting at once, using five cameras at the same time in different formats. Richardson said of Stone's style of direction, "Oliver disdains convention, he tries to force you into things that are not classic. There's this constant need to stretch". This forced the cinematographer to use lighting in diverse positions and relying very little on classic lighting modes. The shoot lasted 79 days with filming finished five months before the release date.
Editing
JFK marked a fundamental change in the way that Stone constructed his films: a subjective lateral presentation of the plot, with the rhythm of the editing carrying the story. Stone brought in Hank Corwin, an editor of commercials, to help edit the film. Stone chose him because his "chaotic mind" was "totally alien to the film form". Stone remembers that Corwin irritated the more traditional editors working on the film because his "concepts are very commercial sixty-seconds-get-your-attention-fragment-your-mind-make-you-rethink-it. But he had not developed the long form yet. And so a lot of his cuts were very chaotic". Stone employed extensive use of flashbacks within flashbacks for a specific effect. He said in an interview, "I wanted to do the film on two or three levels—sound and picture would take us back, and we'd go from one flashback to another, and then that flashback would go inside another flashback...I wanted multiple layers because reading the Warren Commission Report is like drowning". This film was Stone's last one to use editing on film before he switched to digital editing. A setback occurred during editing that saw all the time codeA time code is a sequence of numeric codes generated at regular intervals by a timing system. Time codes are used extensively for synchronization, and for logging material in recorded media. SOM is also a related term and stands for 'Start of Message' or 'Start of Media' also known as Time Code in...
s disappear.
Music
Composer John WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career that spans six decades, Williams has composed many of the most famous film scores in Hollywood history, including Star Wars, Superman, Home Alone, the first three Harry Potter movies and all but two of Steven...
composed and conducted six musical sequences in full for JFK before he saw the entire film. Soon after recording this music, he traveled to New Orleans where Stone was still shooting the film and saw approximately an hour's worth of edited footage and some dailies. Williams remembers, "I thought his handling of Lee Harvey Oswald was particularly strong, and I understood some of the atmosphere of the film – the sordid elements, the underside of New Orleans". Stone cut the film to Williams' music after the composer had scored and recorded musical cues in addition to the initial six he had done prior to seeing the film. For the Motorcade sequence, Williams described the score he composed as "strongly kinetic music, music of interlocking rhythmic disciplines". The composer remembered the moment he learned of the assassination of Kennedy and it stuck with him for years. This was a significant factor in his deciding to work on the film. Williams said, "This is a very resonant subject for people of my generation, and that's why I welcomed the opportunity to participate in this film".
Critical reaction
Filming was going smoothly until several attacks on the film and Stone began to surface in the media. On May 14, 1991, Jon Margolis in the Chicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company...
wrote that JFK was "an insult to the intelligence". This article was published while the film was only in its first weeks of shooting. Five days later, the Washington Post ran a scathing article by national security correspondent George Lardner entitled, "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland" that used the first draft of the JFK screenplay to blast it for "the absurdities and palpable untruths in Garrison's book and Stone's rendition of it". The article pointed out that Garrison lost his case against Clay Shaw and claimed that he inflated his case by trying to use Shaw's homosexual relationships to prove guilt by association. Stone responded to Lardner's article by hiring a public relations firm that specialized in political issues. Other attacks in the media soon followed. Anthony Lewis in the New York Times claimed that the film "tells us that our government cannot be trusted to give an honest account of a Presidential assassination". Washington Post columnist George WillGeorge Frederick Will is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist, journalist, and author.-Education and early career:Will was born in Champaign, Illinois, the son of Frederick L. Will and Louise Hendrickson Will...
attacked Stone, calling him, "a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience".
TimeTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
magazine ran their own critique of the film-in-progress on June 10, 1991 and claimed that Stone was trying to suppress a rival JFK assassination film based on Don DeLilloDon DeLillo is an American author whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
's 1988 novel LibraLibra is a novel written by Don DeLillo. It focuses on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and offers a speculative account of the events that shaped the assassination of President John F...
. Stone rebutted these claims in a letter to the magazine. The filmmaker ended up splitting his time between making his film, responding to attacks from the press, and conducting a publicity campaign of his own that saw him "omnipresent, from CBS Evening NewsCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
, to OprahThe Oprah Winfrey Show is a United States syndicated talk show, hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey, and is the highest-rated talk show in American television history...
". However, the Lardner Post piece stung the most because he had stolen a copy of the script. Stone recalls, "He had the first draft, and I went through probably six or seven drafts".
Once the film was released in theaters, it polarized critics. The New York Times ran an article by Bernard Weinraub entitled, "Hollywood Wonders If Warner Brothers let JFK Go Too Far". In it, he called for studio censorship and wrote, "At what point does a studio exercise its leverage and blunt the highly charged message of a film maker like Oliver Stone?" The newspaper also ran a review of the film by Vincent CanbyVincent Canby was an American film critic.Canby was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Katharine Anne and Lloyd Canby. He became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there...
who wrote, "Mr. Stone's hyperbolic style of film making is familiar: lots of short, often hysterical scenes tumbling one after another, backed by a soundtrack that is layered, strudel-like, with noises, dialogue, music, more noises, more dialogue". Veteran film critic for The Washingtonian, Pat Dowell had her 34-word capsule review for the January issue rejected by her editor John Limpert on the grounds that he did not want a positive review for a film he felt was "preposterous" associated with the magazine". Dowell resigned in protest.
The Miami Herald said, "the focus on the trivialities of personality conveniently prevents us from having to confront the tough questions his film raises". However, Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter.He is known for his film review column and for two television programs Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel...
praised the film in his review for the Chicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is owned by the Sun-Times Media Group, which filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31, 2009.-History:...
, saying, "The achievement of the film is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination, because it does not, or even that it vindicates Garrison, who is seen here as a man often whistling in the dark. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche". Rita Kempley in the Washington Post wrote, "Quoting everyone from Shakespeare to Hitler to bolster their arguments, Stone and Sklar present a gripping alternative to the Warren Commission's conclusion. A marvelously paranoid thriller featuring a closetful of spies, moles, pro-commies and Cuban freedom-fighters, the whole thing might have been thought up by Robert LudlumRobert Ludlum was an American author of 25 thriller novels. There are more than 290 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages...
".
On Christmas Day, the Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
ran an article entitled, "Suppression of the Facts Grants Stone a Broad Brush" attacking the film. New York Newsday followed suit the next day with two articles—"The Blurred Vision of JFK" and "The Many Theories of a Jolly Green Giant". A few days later, the Chicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is owned by the Sun-Times Media Group, which filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31, 2009.-History:...
ran an article entitled, "Stone's Film Trashes Facts, Dishonors J.F.K." Jack ValentiJack Joseph Valenti was a long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world...
, then president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of AmericaThe Motion Picture Association of America , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, is a United States non-profit business and trade association to advance the business interests of movie studios. The MPAA administers the voluntary but dominant MPAA film rating system...
, denounced Stone's film in a seven-page statement. He wrote, "In much the same way, young German boys and girls in 1941 were mesmerized by Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the WillTriumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of speeches by Adolf Hitler, interspersed with footage of massed...
, in which Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
was depicted as a newborn God. Both J. F. K. and Triumph of the Will are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. Mr. Stone and Leni Reifenstahl have another genetic linkage: neither of them carried a disclaimer on their film that its contents were mostly pure fiction".
Stone even received death threats as he recalled in an interview, "I can't even remember all the threats, there were so many of them". Time magazine ranked it the fourth best film of 1991. Roger Ebert went on to name Stone's film as the best film of the year and one of the top ten films of the decade. The Sydney Morning Herald named JFK as the best film of 1991. Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Unlike celebrity-focused publications US Weekly, People, and In Touch Weekly, EWs primary concentration is on entertainment...
ranked it the 5th Most Controversial Movie Ever.
Years after its release, Stone said of the film that it "was the beginning of a new era for me in terms of filmmaking because it's not just about a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. It's also about the way we look at our recent history...It shifts from black and white to color, and then back again, and views people from offbeat angles".
Box office
JFK was released in theaters on December 20, 1991. The box office for the film started slow but picked up momentum and by the first week in January 1992, it had grossed over $50 million worldwide. Stone started to get support for his film. Warner Brothers executives pointed out that because of the film's long running time, it had fewer screenings. The studio undertook a $15 million marketing campaign promoting Stone's film.
On its first week of release, JFK tied Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation which premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on November 13, 1991...
for fifth place in the U.S. box office and its critics began to say it was a flop. However, JFK eventually earned over $205 million worldwide, and $70 million in the United States during its initial run. Garrison's estate subsequently sued Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
for a share of the film's profits, alleging a book-keeping practice known as "Hollywood accountingIn accountancy, Hollywood accounting is the practice of distributing the money earned by a large project to corporate entities which, though legally distinct from the one responsible for the project itself, are actually owned by the same people. This substantially reduces the profit of the project...
". The lawsuit contends that JFK made in excess of $150 million worldwide but the studio claimed that the film did not earn any money under its "net profitIn business and finance accounting, net profit is equal to the gross profit minus overheads minus interest payable plus/minus one off items for a given time period ....
s" accounting formula. The suit also claims that Garrison's estate did not receive any of the net profits income. It should have been paid more than $1 million.
Awards and nominations
JFK was nominated for eight Academy AwardsThe Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...
including Best PictureThe Academy Award for Best Motion Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible...
, Best Actor in a Supporting RolePerformance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Tommy Lee Jones), Best DirectorThe Academy Award for Achievement in Directing is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
(Oliver Stone), Best Original ScoreThe Academy Award for Original Music Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Winners with multiple nominations:...
(John Williams), Best SoundThe Academy Award for Sound Mixing is an Academy Award that recognizes the finest or most euphonic sound mixing or recording, and is generally awarded to the production sound mixers and re-recording mixers of the winning film. Compare this award to the Academy Award for Sound Editing...
, Best CinematographyThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture....
(Robert Richardson), Best Film EditingThe Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; it was first given for films released in 1934. The name of this award is occasionally changed; in 2008, it was listed as the Academy Award for Achievement in Film Editing. The New York...
, and Best Adapted ScreenplayThe Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
(Stone and Zachary Sklar). It won two awards for Best CinematographyThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture....
and Best Film EditingThe Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; it was first given for films released in 1934. The name of this award is occasionally changed; in 2008, it was listed as the Academy Award for Achievement in Film Editing. The New York...
.
Stone was nominated for Best Director of the year by the Directors Guild of AmericaDirectors Guild of America is the labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
but did not win. He also won a Golden Globe for Best Director and in his acceptance speech, he said, "A terrible lie was told to us 28 years ago. I hope that this film can be the first step in righting that wrong".
Cultural impact
The popularity of JFK led to the passage of The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (also known as the JFK Act) and the formation of the U.S. Assassination Records Review BoardThe Assassination Records Review Board was created as a result of an act passed by the US Congress in 1992, entitled the "President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act." The Act mandated the gathering and release of all US Government records related to the Assassination of John F....
. The Act was signed into law by President George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States . He was also Ronald Reagan's Vice President , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence....
in late October 1992. The ARRB worked until 1998. Witnesses were interviewed (some for the first time), the U.S. government purchased the Zapruder filmThe Zapruder film is a silent Standard 8 mm color home movie of the presidential motorcade of John F. Kennedy through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, filmed by a private citizen named Abraham Zapruder. The film is the most complete visual recording of the assassination of...
, and previously-classified documents relating to the assassination were finally made available to public scrutiny. By ARRB law, all existing assassination-related documents will be made public by 2017.
Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Unlike celebrity-focused publications US Weekly, People, and In Touch Weekly, EWs primary concentration is on entertainment...
ranked JFK as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".
Home video
JFK has been released on VHS, Laser Disc, and several times on DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
. In 2001, the "Director's CutA director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
" was released as part of the Oliver Stone Collection box set with the film on one disc and supplemental material on the second. Stone contributed several extras to this edition, including an audio commentary, two multi-media essays, and 54 minutes worth of deleted or expanded scenes with optional commentary by Stone. In 2003, a two-DVD "Special Edition" was released with all of the extras on the 2001 edition in addition to a 90-minute documentary entitled, Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy.
The film was released on Blu-ray on November 11, 2008. The disc features many of the extras included on the previous DVD releases, including the Beyond JFK: A Question of Conspiracy documentary.
Further reading
- Robert Brent Toplin (1996). History by Hollywood "JFK: Fact, Fiction, and Supposition",pp.45–78. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252065360
External links
- JFK (motion picture): A Selective Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library
- The JFK 100: One Hundred Errors of Fact and Judgment in Oliver Stone's JFK, by Dave Reitzes
- The Assassination Goes Hollywood! (concise overview of frequent criticisms)
- JFK: How the Media Assassinated the Real Story, by Robert Hennelly & Jerry Policoff
- "Why they hate Oliver Stone", Sam Smith, Progressive Review
The Progressive Review, or ProRev, is an American online alternative publication that started in 1964 as the Idler newspaper. Sam Smith, the editor, starting publishing online in 1995, and in 2004 Smith stopped publishing the Progressive Review in a hard copy edition.A email news digest, called...
, February 1992
- Oliver Stone vs. the Historical Establishment
- Stone Answers Audience Questions about JFK
- E. Hunt admits to True Conspiracy
- JFK and the Unspeakable by Oliver Stone, The Huffington Post, July 23 2009