JFK (film)

The film's screenplay was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth". JFK's embrace of conspiracy theories made it controversial.^[2] Many major American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of spreading untruths, including the claim that Kennedy was killed as part of a coup d'état to install Lyndon B. Johnson in his place.


Despite the controversy, JFK received critical praise for the performances of its cast, Stone's directing, score, editing, and cinematography. The film gradually picked up momentum at the box office after a slow start, earning over $205 million in worldwide gross, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1991 worldwide. JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It was the first of three films Stone made about American presidents, followed by Nixon (1995) and W. (2008).

Plot[edit]

During his farewell address in 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns about the build-up of the military-industrial complex. He is succeeded by John F. Kennedy as president, whose time in office is marked by the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis until his assassination in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Former US marine and suspected Soviet defector Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit and arraigned with both murders but is killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his team investigate potential New Orleans links to the JFK assassination, including private pilot David Ferrie, but their investigation is publicly rebuked by the federal government and Garrison closes the investigation.


The investigation is reopened in 1966 after Garrison reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes to be multiple inaccuracies. Garrison and his staff interrogate people involved with Oswald and Ferrie. One such witness is Willie O'Keefe, a male prostitute serving five years in prison for solicitation, who says that he witnessed Ferrie talking with a man called "Clay Bertrand" about assassinating Kennedy, and that he briefly met Oswald. Garrison and his team theorize Oswald was an agent of the CIA and was framed for the assassination.


In 1967, Garrison and his team talk to several witnesses, including Jean Hill, a teacher who says she witnessed a gunman shooting from the "grassy knoll", a small hill, that Secret Service threatened her into saying three shots came from the Texas School Book Depository from which Oswald was said to have shot Kennedy, and her testimony was altered by the Warren Commission. Garrison's staff also test fire an empty rifle from the Depository and conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, and that there was more than one shooter. Garrison comes to believe that "Bertrand" is really New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw. Garrison interviews Shaw, who denies having ever met Ferrie, O'Keefe or Oswald.


Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ruby and Ferrie, die in suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington D.C. who identifies himself as "X". He suggests a coup d'état at the highest levels of government, implicating members of the CIA, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Secret Service, FBI, and then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson as either co-conspirators or as having motives to cover up the truth of the assassination. X suggests that Kennedy was killed because he wanted to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War and dismantle the CIA. X encourages Garrison to keep digging and prosecute Shaw. Soon afterward, Garrison indicts Shaw with conspiring to murder Kennedy.


Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw only because of his homosexuality. Some of Garrison's staff begin to doubt his motives and disagree with his methods, and leave the investigation. One of them, Bill Broussard, is later revealed to have been an insider for the FBI for some time, and even plays a peripheral, undisclosed role in what seems to be an attempt to kidnap, murder or otherwise scare Garrison. In addition, Garrison is criticized in the media as wasting taxpayer money to investigate a conspiracy theory. Garrison suspects a connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.


Shaw's trial takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with a dismissal of the single-bullet theory, proposing a scenario involving three assassins firing six shots and framing Oswald for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, all for the purpose of installing Johnson as president so he could escalate the war in Vietnam and enrich the defense industry. However, the jury acquits Shaw after less than one hour of deliberation. While his prosecution has failed, Garrison wins his wife and children's respect for his determination, and so repairs his relationship with his family.

Home media and alternate versions[edit]

The original theatrical cut of JFK was released on VHS and Laserdisc on May 20, 1992.^[89]


The "Director's Cut" of the film, extending it to 206 minutes, was released on VHS and laserdisc in 1993.^[90]


The Director's Cut was released on DVD in 1997.^[91]


On January 16, 2001,^[92] the Director's Cut was re-released on DVD 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 multimedia essays, and 54 minutes' worth of deleted/extended scenes with optional commentary by Stone.^[93]


On November 11, 2003,^[94] a "Special Edition" DVD of the Director's Cut was released with the film on one disc and all of the extras from the 2001 edition on a second disc, in addition to a 90-minute documentary entitled, Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy.^[95]


The Director's Cut 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: The Question of Conspiracy documentary.^[96][97]


The theatrical cut was not released on physical media in the US for many years after the first 1992 laserdisc and VHS releases, although it was released on DVD in the United Kingdom as a poor quality non-anamorphic transfer. The theatrical cut and the director's cut were both made available for digital download and streaming in the United States.


On December 19th, 2023, Shout! Factory, through their Shout Select label, released both the theatrical and extended versions together as a boxset on UHD & Blu-ray. ^[98] However, while the director's cut was made available on the 4K disc, the theatrical cut has only been included as a remastered Blu-ray disc.