What do you think of the movie _Parkland_? [View all]

[skip fox]

I just saw the last hour or so (beginning when JFK is leaving the hospital in a casket) and was very moved, but not crying as often happens to me when I think of (or dramatically witness) that day.

I was a junior in high school in November 1963 (class of '65, Midwestern town in Ohio) and was not strongly affected by it then. Not because of politics, but because of youth. Ask most people who were under 18 at that time and they will say they were sadden during that week, especially during the procession and funeral &c. Many of us were also a bit upset (maybe too strong of a word) to see the shock of adults. (Remember, this was before the historical disruptions of Vietnam, riots, and other assassinations and long after the Second World War and the Korean War.)

It wasn't until I was in my twenties that the emotional significant of what had happened began to occur to me. Since then I have become increasingly saddened by the thought, memory, documentary, or movie about the assassination, not just because of my increasing admiration of the man, but also something that day was lost, never to be found. A type of innocence, a certain sense of bearing, a center. If such a man could die, be alive and active in the morning but dead by evening, what sense did anything make? And then there was the blood and public violence. Jackie's pain. Etc.

With Parkland, I was still saddened, but the experience seemed more cathartic. Perhaps it was the watching of the destructive waves around the event affect so many others. Maybe it was age.

I thought it a fine film and can't wait to see it entire.