Thanks to a filmography consisting of several baseball movies and Westerns,Kevin Costnerembodies an idyllic Americana. Through his conventional leading man appearance alone, Costner possesses a specific combination of elegance and integrity. His radiant sincerity on the screen, which continued on televisionwith his hit series,Yellowstone, is certifiably not “cool,” through a postmodern lens. He rarely appeals to sensibilities that are new-wave or rebellious.
Costner’sreturn to the director’s chair,Horizon: An American Saga, a four-part Western epic, is a throwback to a bygone era of Westerns as the pinnacle of American storytelling. Costner’s wholesome conviction can grow stale for some viewers, but in the controversialOliver Stoneparanoid thriller,JFK, theactor’s earnestness was tested amid a hostile political upheaval, even if the historical accuracy of the film was fraught.
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers there’s more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.
Kevin Costner Carries the Weight of an Overwhelming Political Thriller in ‘JFK’
By the time Kevin Costner portrayed New Orleans District AttorneyJim GarrisoninJFK, he was a household name with popular success and prestige acclaim. As thehonest FBI agent inThe Untouchablesand thewistful Iowa farmer inField of Dreams, he had both matinée idol appeal and convincing dramatic chops. In 1990, Costner did the unthinkable: reviving the Western genre with hisdirectorial debut,Dances With Wolves, which dominated the Academy Awards. As an artist, Costner proved his doubters wrong. He didn’t need a provocative subject like theJohn F. Kennedyassassination and the murky details behind it to validate his stardom. Luckily, Oliver Stone found amatch made in heaven for his earnest protagonist who becomes disillusioned by American politics.
JFKis an account of the dizzying and paranoia-riddled investigation of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas in November 1963. Told from the perspective of Garrison,the film is information overload, stuffing in new details and conspiracies at every corner. The maximalist approach is rounded out by amammoth ensemble castof the best character actors, includingGary Oldman,Kevin Bacon,Tommy Lee Jones,Donald Sutherland,Laurie Metcalf,Michael Rooker, andJoe Pesci. At the center, anchoring this frantic whirlpool of political conjecture is Costner as Garrison, determined to uncover the truth — not just who pulled the trigger, but the motivation behind the assassination. “Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up?“asks Sutherland’s mysterious “X"ex-CIA operative in a show-stopping monologue. Stone never explicitly claims to report the truth, but thetheories proposed in his film were nothing short of troubling for history experts.
Oliver Stone Enables Mass Paranoia in ‘JFK’
An article forThe Telegraphoutlines the plethora of controversial historical inaccuracies inJFK. Stone’s film, while highly regarded artistically, is stuck with the legacy of taking creative liberties to the point of fictionalizing the Kennedy assassination. It is in Hollywood’s nature to glamorize events and people, but with the casting of Kevin Costner, a glossy movie star, as Jim Garrison, historians were likely incredulous. While he did bring a case involving the Kennedy assassination to trial, he was largely written off as disreputable by the time Stone began to adapt Garrison’s book,On the Trail of the Assassins. In fact, the conspiracy community saw his prosecution againstClay Shaw(Jones) as farcical. Any story told from Garrison’s perspectiveis inherently skewed toward sensationalism.“I believe the real Garrison was kind of a charlatan who would do anything to win and didn’t mind a bit of publicity,” saysTom Stone, a Dallas professor of Kennedy-related courses. A pivotal figure drivingGarrison’s paranoia in the film, X, was based onL. Fletcher Prouty, a CIA operative turned anti-CIA conspiracist. Due to his unbridled paranoid streak, hiscolleagues dismissed his credibility to comment on the CIA’s involvement with the assassination.
Oliver Stone Made His Own ‘Civil War,’ Except It Really Happened
Before becoming a household name with ‘Platoon,’ the maverick filmmaker explored a brutal civil war through the eyes of a photojournalist.
When factoring Stone’s background and previous filmography, it appears clear that he identifies with Jim Garrison. Stone was an ideal young American who felt betrayed by his country upon enlisting in the Vietnam War and learning about the dark underbelly of patriotism, depicted with an autobiographical touch inPlatoonandBorn on the Fourth of July. When writing and directingJFK, Stone was convinced that theCIA was trying to sabotage the release of his filmin 1991. Not only did the cast and crew members sign non-disclosure agreements, but the tight-lip production was named “Project X,” with script details kept at a minimum from the outside.Stone went as far as searching for wiretapping bugs in production offices in Dallas and Los Angeles, and he never consulted with respected, mainstream historians, only people on the fringes. “They don’t kill you anymore,” Stone said of the CIA. “They poison your food. You get sick. You don’t die. You get sick, and you get incapacitated for a year or two,” he continued. Regardless of his panicked headspace, he believed thatJFKwas a truthful portrayal of history.
Oliver Stone Paints an Inaccurate Portrait of John. F Kennedy’s Assassination in ‘JFK’
Squeezed into the dense text ofJFKis a garish depiction of homosexuality. In the film, Shaw,David Ferrie(Pesci), and Willie O’Keefe (Bacon), three suspects/witnesses to the investigation, are shown in flashbacks throwing a sex party. More than any of the reckless accusations, the stereotypical portrayal of homosexuality has aged quite poorly. Furthermore,Garrison once claimed that the three conspired to kill Kennedy to satisfy a “homosexual thrill kill.“InJFK, Ferrie’s death is assumed to be murder at the hands of people involved in the assassination and cover-up. His private testimony to Garrison about the details of the conspiracy and eventual demise leads to Shaw’s arrest. In reality, he died of a brain aneurysm.Stone’s inclination toward bombastic provocationmakes for a masterpiece of vulgar auteurism, but it lacks any respect for historical accuracy. By using a career demagogue like Garrison as an advocate for justice,he only mitigates the dignity of the story.
Vincent Bugliosi, author of a 1500-page doctrine debunking Kennedy assassination theories, stated, “The problem with Stone is not, really, that he egregiously fictionalized the Kennedy assassination, it’s that he tried toconvince everyone he was telling the truth.” Bugliosipresents various factual inaccuracies throughout the film.Points such asLee Harvey Oswald(Oldman) being a poor marksman, witnesses hearing six shots rather than three in Dallas during the assassination, and expert shooters being unable to replicate Oswald’s quick trigger and precision are false.The Vietnam War lingers throughout the film,as Stone speculates that Kennedy’s interest in pulling out of Vietnam was why he was killed. The film shows that, following the assassination, his successor,Lyndon B. Johnson, signed Memo NSAM 273, which gave the military carte blanche in the war, reversing Kennedy’s order. However, this memo was drafted by Kennedy.Stone’s film popularized the magic bullet theory, a concept in the Warren Commission that a single bullet inflicted Kennedy despite causing several wounds across his body. In reality, the Warren Commissionnever contended that there was a zig-zagging bullet of any kind.
If there were any film that crystallized the vast disparity between cinema and historical documentation, it would beJFK. Oliver Stone’s film is both atouching depiction of the loss of American idealismand a thorny provocation against the sanctity of American history. It shouldn’t be viewed as a documentary, or even a truthful statement on the John F. Kennedy assassination, but rather,a transparent demonstration of information overload and the urge to uncover the truth.Kevin Costner was put through the wringer of political conspiracy and paranoid obsession. He excelled at leading the audiencethrough the hysteria of Stone’s wild theories and provocation, forcing the audience to look at the bigger picture:the status of liberty and justice in the United States. Along the way, viewers watch Costner’s Boy Scout persona deteriorate as the investigation grows more unnerving. Costner’s turn as Jim Garrison, capped off by a rousing final speech in the courtroom, is amonumental display of optimistic conviction morphing into pessimistic defeatism.His work should forever dispense any notion of him being an uninspiring dramatic presence.
