Although JFK was set in the past and the real life event of his assassination is over the message of this movie still applies to us today, in my belief more than ever. Yes, JFK assassination is shrouded in mystery and could have been a conspiracy; however, the message I took away from this is to search for the truth in everything and how the seemingly smallest thing can lead you to the truth. Today confusion, lies, and deception are everywhere and the real truth isn’t to easy to find. People misconstrue or manipulate something in order to show you what they believe whether they do it purposely or not. This is not to say that withholding the truth isn’t necessary sometimes, like when Obama set out to kill Bin Laden. All this movie did was make me want to find out the truth more in things and how the truth is harder to find than one would think. And that point is what I believe to be the worst part of society today, that the truth is not right in front of you. Which brings me back to my original point of this movie sending a relevant message to us today, the truth is worth searching for.

I know that it wasn’t a huge part of the reading, but I thought that it was pretty interesting how Stephen Apkon dedicated a small section of “The Big Business of Images” to talking about PowerPoint and how important it has become in modern days.

While the section gave me some flashbacks to the thousands of PPT presentations I had to make in high school, it is weird to think that something so common to our lives (and that I think a lot of us take for granted) can really be so influential to both our student and professional careers. Almost everybody uses some form of PPT, whether that’s middle school students or the professionals we hope to be in the future, and they really are a testament to everything Apkon says in the book about the power of images. Most presentations can be pretty dull (unless the speaker is charismatic), but if the presentation makes use of a visual aid, more than likely our attention is going to be grabbed (at least to a greater extent than before). PowerPoints prove, for both good and bad, that humans are very visual creatures–we just don’t like our stories told to us, we like our stories shown to us.

The scene that make the most impact of the film on me was the beginning scene while opening credits were still rolling. To me, you could know very minimal about JFK and his disastrous decision in Pay of Pigs or his idea to send military advisors over in Vietnam, but still manage to create a correct historical image of him by the time the scene of everyone in the bar came on. To me, this is extremely important because it is the precedent that sets up the feeling in the US after the shooting. The combination of old and new film to be has always been interesting, and it gives me a new respect for the progression of media. Likewise, it gives me a new found respect of progression of the unraveling mystery of JFK’s murder because like a historical image, the use of old film showing his wife and kids also reaches down to a personal level creating him as not only a president, but a father and husband as well.

Throughout JFK, but mostly towards the end of the film, there are a variety of allusions made towards Shakespeare’s works, in particular Julius Caesar. I haven’t had the chance to read the full play, but it deals with heavy themes of loyalty and betrayal, which is a direct reflection of the film’s plot about the potential betrayal of John F. Kennedy at the hands of the U.S. Government/C.I.A.

Julius Caesar is a parallel to JFK himself, as both men are viewed as legendary leaders who radically changed their respective nations, but were betrayed by the people they trusted most. Caesar’s council members, in particular the character of Brutus, who betray and assassinate Caesar during the play are meant to embody the C.I.A. and U.S. Government politicians who secretly planned JFK’s assassination for their own personal/political agendas (that is, if we are following Jim Garrison’s conspiracy theory).

Garrison uses this play almost as justification for his investigation, referencing it most noticeably during the scenes before Shaw’s trial, in the crowded room where he his trying to convince his partners to see the case through. He asks Bill if he has ever seen or read Julius Caesar when Bill begins questioning the team’s accusations against the government, and while his argument is not particularly effective on Bill, it makes for a poetic, literary allusion that implies that assassinations of political figures by their trusted advisors are not impossible (it builds rational, at least for him, that the case has a chance of succeeding).

During the court room scene at the end of the film, Garrison also uses the phrase “shuffle off my mortal coil,” to describe how many of the documents concerning JFK’s assassination would be released after he is dead, and when they would no longer be of use to him. This is a direct reference to the famous “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy in Hamlet (which most of us have probably experienced-or suffered through-in some way, shape, or form).

I’m sure that there were a few other, more subtle Shakespeare references in the film, but these were the ones that stood out to me the most. If any of you remember any more references, or can elaborate on any of these connections in greater detail, that would be awesome (of course, we could always watch the movie again to find out. It’s only 200 minutes).

In the movie JFK, the director decides to use real broadcasts from the time of JFK’s death. I feel that by doing this, the director makes the conspiracy seem like a more realistic possibility. One scene that really exemplifies how the real broadcasts affected the realistic aspect of the movie is when the lawyers are first starting their investigation in Dallas. They decide to walk down the street where JFK was shot and search the buildings around the area. Before this scene happened, the live footage of the parade was shown multiple times giving the setting of the movie a historic feel. As the lawyers searched, I kept thinking of how they were in the same locations as JFK before he was shot. By adding these clips, it made the movie seem as if it was more of a documentary then a historic thriller. It definitely gave the movie creditability and made the conspiracy seem more believable.

After watching Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK, I am in complete awe of how fascinating this movie was. Aside from all the A-list actors that did a great job in their roles, the editing of the movie presented an incredible amount of facts about the assassination of President Kennedy in a way that was true genius. In a way, the editing helped to simplify a great deal of information to the audience with the constant overlapping of past and present footage in what was being discussed at that moment in the film.

Having read the recent reading in Stephen Apkon’s Age of Image, Stone’s film goes hand in hand when Apkon talks about this “new age of literacy.” Apkon talks about how visual media is transforming most professions in this world and he is 100 percent correct! Still-life images are not enough anymore to prove a story and convince people of the truth. When an event is actually seen  by someone, it brings on a whole new meaning to them. JFK is the perfect example of this, in the movie and the movie itself. At the end of the movie, in the courtroom, DA Garrison exhibits many pictures to the jury and audience, but once he presents to them the actual video of President Kennedy being shot, the courtroom is in complete silence. The event had become real to everyone because it wasn’t something they were reading about, it was something they were actually witnessing. Personally, the movie itself made this historical event feel more realistic to me because for the first time I wasn’t reading in a history textbook about the conspiracy theories of JFK’s death, I was seeing a movie picture that was expressing to me actual facts and providing an image to go along with them. For me, words became a reality.

One of the biggest questions I came away from the JFK movie with was why Oliver Stone chose to make some of the conspiracy theories seem so explicitly clear.  By the end of the movie, it seemed that the main character and the film were arguing for the government to reveal of the truth as to the details of the JFK assassination, as well as any other secrets that may be held from the American public.  He does not seem to claim to know exactly how any of it happened or who did what, nor does he seem to make that the central focus of his closing monologue.  However, he IS sure of the fact that a conspiracy took place, and he demands the truth.  So, if the main theme of the film is the quest for the truth, which cannot be abandoned, why did the director feed us such an explicit idea of what really happened, with the inter-government coop?   With the government “Agent X” who details the corruption and secrecy of the different military agencies?  This seems to give his audience another speculatory take on the situation, and yet portrays this take as the truth, which we should believe as viewers.  This seems to go against Stone’s final argument and parting declaration, that we should settle for nothing less than the truth and the documents to prove it from the mouth of the government itself.  Perhaps Stone desired for this speculatory conspiracy theory to seem real enough to spark action in his viewers?

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: “What kind of kid writes about the clothing and hairstyles within a movie?” Well, I’m about to. I thought the movie, in its whole, was a fantastic movie. It was slow at times but remained captivating and mysterious. After every turn, things got either clearer or more confusing. There was one thing throughout the film that really caught my attention: the way the actors presented themselves. I thought the articles of clothing were specifically picked to match the styles of clothing worn in 1963. The styles are so old fashioned and are extremely different than the clothing worn in 1991, the year of the film’s release. In addition to the clothing, the hairstyles used were very intricate in order to match those from 1963. The mixture of the clothing and hairstyles almost gave the film a realistic edge. The production crew could have easily slacked off and lazily put together a poor wardrobe and a provided a nonchalant attitude towards the hairstyles. Instead, they made the movie, to me, significantly more realistic and really inserted it into the actual time period of the assassinations.