JFK Film Review Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” released in 1991, follows Jim Garrison in a quest for truth. Although official reports from the Warren Commission of John F. Kennedy’s assassination claim that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the majority of Americans believe that there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy’s murder. Stone’s “JFK” combines historical evidence with fictional action to present a fascinating film. Although “JFK” does not answer the mystery behind the Kennedy assassination, the film leads the audience to conclude that one man alone could not have killed Kennedy. Stone’s “JFK” contains many factual inaccuracies and fabricated actions, but ultimately shapes public opinion towards a conspiracy theory behind Kennedy’s assassination.
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A major inaccuracy crucial to the film’s plot is the confession of David Ferrie. As portrayed in the film, David Ferrie breaks down into a dramatic confession to Garrison, when in reality, Ferrie maintained his innocence and insisted of having no knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald or the plot to kill Kennedy. Ferrie never “taught Oswald everything” nor did he work for the CIA, but the critical evidence provided here changes the nature of the storyline. Ferrie’s confession establishes the linkage to the conspiracy and the grounding for an entirely separate case distinct from the lone-gunman theory. In addition, after Ferrie leaves Garrison and returns to his apartment, he is shown being chased, held down, and murdered by a bald-headed man who forces pills down his throat. When Garrison arrives at the murder scene and finds the empty bottle of pills, he credits Ferrie's confessions as the force of a death-bed confession. In fact, Ferrie had died of natural causes, instead of murder as the film suggests, and Stone’s portrayal would constitute libel if Ferrie had still been …show more content…
In real life, Garrison’s flawed witness, Perry Raymond Russo, could not recall the story of the assassination four years after, misidentified Oswald as another man with a beard, and inconsistently identified the photographs of Shaw, whom he had never met. Although Garrison is stuck with unreliable and contradictory testimony from Russo, Stone replaced Russo with “Willie O’Keefe,” completing the missing link necessary for Garrison to move forward with the story. In Stone’s fictional twist, O’Keefe becomes the perfect witness; he was a male prostitute that partnered with Shaw, contacted Garrison before Ferrie’s death from prison, offers to cooperate with Garrison, avoids the memory deficiencies of Russo, and testifies to Shaw working with Cuban mercenaries and Lee Oswald. Substituting fact for fiction, Stone manufactures the crucial evidence and witnesses missing in real life, even when his director license requires falsifying reality and depicting events that never
A major inaccuracy crucial to the film’s plot is the confession of David Ferrie. As portrayed in the film, David Ferrie breaks down into a dramatic confession to Garrison, when in reality, Ferrie maintained his innocence and insisted of having no knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald or the plot to kill Kennedy. Ferrie never “taught Oswald everything” nor did he work for the CIA, but the critical evidence provided here changes the nature of the storyline. Ferrie’s confession establishes the linkage to the conspiracy and the grounding for an entirely separate case distinct from the lone-gunman theory. In addition, after Ferrie leaves Garrison and returns to his apartment, he is shown being chased, held down, and murdered by a bald-headed man who forces pills down his throat. When Garrison arrives at the murder scene and finds the empty bottle of pills, he credits Ferrie's confessions as the force of a death-bed confession. In fact, Ferrie had died of natural causes, instead of murder as the film suggests, and Stone’s portrayal would constitute libel if Ferrie had still been …show more content…
In real life, Garrison’s flawed witness, Perry Raymond Russo, could not recall the story of the assassination four years after, misidentified Oswald as another man with a beard, and inconsistently identified the photographs of Shaw, whom he had never met. Although Garrison is stuck with unreliable and contradictory testimony from Russo, Stone replaced Russo with “Willie O’Keefe,” completing the missing link necessary for Garrison to move forward with the story. In Stone’s fictional twist, O’Keefe becomes the perfect witness; he was a male prostitute that partnered with Shaw, contacted Garrison before Ferrie’s death from prison, offers to cooperate with Garrison, avoids the memory deficiencies of Russo, and testifies to Shaw working with Cuban mercenaries and Lee Oswald. Substituting fact for fiction, Stone manufactures the crucial evidence and witnesses missing in real life, even when his director license requires falsifying reality and depicting events that never