Cinema
JFK (`15', selected cinemas)
Conspiracy to confuse
Mark Amory
Once more we wander on the grassy knoll, once again scan the windows of the
Texas School Book Depository. Oliver Stone has had the desire and the clout to make a big, star-studded Hollywood movie about the assassination of President Kennedy, a 'feel-bad' movie to set among the fantasies and fairy stories. At first glance you might think it a wonderfully dramatic subject, already raised almost to folk-memory, but in fact it is only a dramat- ic moment with a fascinating but hopelessly messy and unresolved plot and no good parts. To make matters worse, Stone want- ed to go for the unfashionable political side, not for excitement or emotion.
His way in was to buy the book by Jim Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans who prosecuted what is still the only trial connected with the murder. Gar- rison, once the leader, has long been peripheral among conspiracy-hunters, but this gave Stone a leading role and he secured the only man in the world for it: Kevin Costner. He needed a top star and those bizarre Euro-musclemen Stallone and Schwarzenegger cannot play real peo- ple. The emergence of Costner, the new Gary Cooper who has proved his value by turning a dull film (Dance With Wolves) and a bad film (Robin Hood) into big hits (anyone might make money in a good film), was perfect timing. To me he is a mystery: it is like the story directors often tell about their favourites, 'The camera is in love with him [or her — Marilyn Mon- roe]. He seems to do nothing, but on the screen it is extraordinary'. Except for the punchline: on the screen Costner still looks like nothing, and this is a nothing role. Garrison just has to exude serious integrity and that is largely supplied by glasses, pipe, greying hair, five children and a dog. We do not even follow his growing obsession with the cover-up; he is just a peg, but a necessary peg. • First there is a history lesson. Real black- and-white news clips, simulated news clips, some curious sepia and colour are cut together and suggest that this is the truth. Well, yes, but already highly partial, with Kennedy the saviour of the Western world, a golden hero who was withstanding pres- sure to invade Cuba and was about to pull out of Vietnam, cut down by the forces of evil. Later someone says with authority that it does not matter who killed him, it is why that counts, and the answer is that he threatened the Establishment; hence the film is called after a character without a speaking role. Meanwhile the assassination takes place and then speaking is exactly what a host of middle-aged men do. Some- times they are Cubans, sometimes they are private detectives, sometimes, disconcert- ingly, they are stars — good heavens, that seedy figure in a raincoat is Jack Lemmon, the senator in the aeroplane is Walter Matthau. This is distracting but I thought it was being done in the interests of some badly needed coherence. The point about a star is that he is instantly memorable; you do not worry, is that the one who was so cross just now?' But no — Matthau, for instance, never appears again. The loss is in credibility: we cannot believe in Lemmon as we would an anonymous actor.
The only performance comes from Tommy Lee Jones in a halo of white curls as a homosexual socialite; he is odd, rather stylish, and a great relief. Sissy Spacek is virtually the only woman as a one-note whining wife, Kevin Bacon lively as a male prostitute, Donald Sutherland drops in to give the author's message and tell our boy he is on the right track.
The whole film is exposition of a most muddling kind. Tommy Lee Jones is finally brought to trial but no effort is made to explain the case against him. Instead Garri- son has a long speech about how Oswald (the excellent Gary Oldman) was not only not the lone assassin but did not fire at all. Garrison then goes over the top and blames the Dallas police, the FBI, the CIA, Lyndon Johnson, the Mafia, anyone else in any sort of power. Stone has said that the film does not claim to be the truth but is a hypothesis, which seems to mean that any- thing goes. There is one good joke: Earl Warren, architect of the cover-up, is played by Jim Garrison.
The whole movie is an energetic mess with more words in three hours than can ever have been in a film before. The story can just about be discerned but there is no chance of evaluating evidence or even stringing together suggestions. Stone, how- ever, did not want an elegant debate, he wanted to make a big, popular movie which would find a huge audience and stir things up as no book has, and that has been achieved. There is talk of new documents having to be released.
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