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MinM

(2,650 posts)
35. The Parallax View: a JFK conspiracy film that gets it right
Sun Aug 21, 2016, 08:47 PM
Aug 2016

The Guardian had this piece a few years ago...

The Parallax View: a JFK conspiracy film that gets it right

[font color=darkred]Parkland and other movies about JFK's assassination show just how far to the right Hollywood has shifted. Alan J Pakula's classic film, however, is a high point of New American Cinema[/font]

Just about the only interesting things about the new Hollywood movie Parkland is its demonstration of how far Hollywood has shifted to the right over the last couple of decades...

After a couple of films in 1967 – the documentary Rush to Judgment and Bruce Conner's experimental short film Report – that critiqued the Warren commission's findings, in 1973 a Hollywood feature called Executive Action arrived. It mixed documentary footage with live action, and portrayed the assassination as a conspiracy by the CIA and big business interests. Executive Action is a decent, strangely low-key film; what's interesting is just how mainstream it was. Burt Lancaster played the CIA coup leader, while Robert Ryan and Will Geer played Texas oil men who want Kennedy dead. Dalton Trumbo, once blacklisted, wrote the script, and the film was directed by David Miller, whose CV contains another good picture, Lonely Are the Brave.

Hollywood later revisited the Kennedy assassination with Winter Kills (1979), based on Richard Condon's paranoid thriller; Ruby (1992), a stumbling biopic about Lee Harvey Oswald's killer Jack Ruby; and most famously in 1991 with JFK, Oliver Stone's epic mega-budget version of events. JFK is a hagiography of Kennedy theorist Jim Garrison, a bombastic New Orleans prosecutor and homophobe who tried to convict a gay CIA associate, Clay Shaw, of the president's murder. Garrison's case was ultimately unconvincing: a jury found Shaw innocent, which undercuts Stone's telling of history. Nevertheless, the film provoked a public outcry and led to the release of thousands of previously secret files by the Assassination Records Review board.

For my money, the best JFK conspiracy movie isn't, strictly speaking, about the Kennedy assassination. Made in 1974, Alan J Pakula's The Parallax View borrows from the murders of both Kennedy brothers to tell the tale of a mysterious organisation, the Parallax Corporation, which deals in political assassination and the creation of "lone assassin" patsies. ...

Read more:: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/nov/19/the-parallax-view-kennedy-assassination

I liked JFK. probably wrecked the real truth but it was still an interesting flick. havent seen msongs Aug 2016 #1
Yea was a fun movie Egnever Aug 2016 #2
Yes I liked JFK too. But I've never believed JFK's death was a conspiracy. Just saw applegrove Aug 2016 #3
Stone called his JFK movie a fiction, and boy, is it ever! stopbush Aug 2016 #4
I used to believe all the conspiracy stuff until.. MicaelS Aug 2016 #5
"Nova" on PBS just had a show about the science, regarding the shooting of Kennedy. Archae Aug 2016 #7
Historical Consultants: John McAdams & Gerald Posner MinM Aug 2016 #9
I guess we need you to show us how it was done. former9thward Aug 2016 #28
Absolute bullshit. stopbush Aug 2016 #29
Bullshit back at you. former9thward Aug 2016 #30
Oswald scored 212 in 1956 - earned a Sharpshooter rating. stopbush Aug 2016 #31
That was after 3 weeks of intensive training. former9thward Aug 2016 #33
You can search the DU archives. I've provided chapter and verse stopbush Aug 2016 #34
Again no links former9thward Aug 2016 #38
Sorry, but I long ago grew tired of arguing with CTists who ignore science stopbush Aug 2016 #39
LOL former9thward Aug 2016 #41
Er, the link I provided IS the testimony from the WC. stopbush Aug 2016 #42
has the intertubes told you who did it then? snooper2 Aug 2016 #45
Salvador, Platoon, Born on the 4th of July, JFK... MinM Aug 2016 #6
"Spot-on" in fantasyland. Archae Aug 2016 #8
Yeah, like when Reagan said the Contras were the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. Octafish Aug 2016 #11
Oliver Stone is a liar, and an anti-Semite. Archae Aug 2016 #14
I can condemn his anti-semitic crap and still recognize his right to make art cali Aug 2016 #18
I don't think he's an anti-Semite as his father was Jewish. Octafish Aug 2016 #23
I saw Stone's "apology." Even Trump put more into his. Archae Aug 2016 #25
And in real life Jim Garrison, the DA hero of JFK, was a raging homophobe. thucythucy Aug 2016 #27
Yup. He thought Shaw was part of a "homosexual thrill kill club." Archae Aug 2016 #37
Periodically, everyone at the NSA stops working to trick enemies ;-) Jeffersons Ghost Aug 2016 #22
Except in Born on the 4th of July that whistler162 Aug 2016 #32
He's a talented film maker. I want to see it. I'm able to parse fact from fiction. cali Aug 2016 #10
Being a talented film maker doesn't say anything about the truth. Archae Aug 2016 #13
He's a movie director. He makes art. Artists interpret what they see. This is simple shit. cali Aug 2016 #15
Stone can use the 1rst as much as he wants. Archae Aug 2016 #20
I fully support your right to crap all over Stone. I don't find him an appealing figure cali Aug 2016 #21
LOL! Rex Aug 2016 #12
that really is the best response cali Aug 2016 #16
It is just a credible as the Rex Aug 2016 #40
This story deserves to be told. Orrex Aug 2016 #17
Never liked his movies joeybee12 Aug 2016 #19
Lazy-ass has-been who can't come up with anything original. randome Aug 2016 #24
Most of us here condemned Michael Bay and his movie "13 Hours." Archae Aug 2016 #26
The Parallax View: a JFK conspiracy film that gets it right MinM Aug 2016 #35
The sad part is this is only the first Hollywood biopic Blue_Tires Aug 2016 #36
You don't like Oliver Stone? oberliner Aug 2016 #43
I loved is early stuff up to Nixon on a purely movie making stand point Johonny Aug 2016 #44
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