The Untouchables

Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) is a film that asks the burning question: is police brutality ever justified? It is when you’re dealing with the likes of Al Capone and Frank Nitti – gangsters that had no problem blowing up children and killing nebbish accountants to get what they wanted. The film doesn’t exactly adhere to historical fact opting instead to go with John Ford’s famous credo of printing the legend and in doing so raising the characters and their exploits to mythic status. De Palma’s adaptation of Eliot Ness’ 1957 memoir of the same name had all the makings of a powerhouse production destined for greatness. It featured a screenplay written by legendary playwright David Mamet, expert cinematographer Stephen H. Burum (Rumble Fish) was behind the camera, master composer Ennio Morricone was scoring the film, and Robert De Niro and Sean Connery were signed on to play larger-than-life characters. The result was an exciting, action-packed epic that helped revitalize De Palma’s struggling career (after the critical and commercial failure of Wise Guys) and earned Connery his first Academy Award.


It is 1930 and gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro) controls most of the illegal business in Chicago with a ruthless, iron fist. After a ten-year old girl is killed in a gang-related incident, Federal Treasury Agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is brought in to clean up the city. His first attempt is an embarrassing failure so he tries a different approach. He decides to form his own task force of three men to help him take down Capone and his empire. He picks a veteran beat cop named Malone (Sean Connery), who knows the city and becomes Ness’ mentor. He also selects Stone (Andy Garcia), a cop fresh out of the academy and ace shot with a pistol. Rounding out the group is Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), a bookish FBI accountant who figures out a way to nail Capone. Together, they form an incorruptible group determined to bring Capone to justice.

De Palma and Mamet make it clear right from the get-go that The Untouchables isn’t going to be some half-assed, sanitized gangster film as they proceed to have Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) blow up a bar with a little girl in it. This shocking sequence, juxtaposed with Capone lying about not using violence to enforce his will, sets an all-bets-are-off tone as we get an idea of just how brutal life is in Chicago and how far Capone is willing to go to make a point. This is then contrasted with Eliot Ness’ blandy-McPlainWrap home life with a loving and dutiful wife (Patricia Clarkson) and cute-as-a-button child. We see just how far removed from Chicago Ness’ home life is and what a rude wake up call he will get when he starts working in the city.

Kevin Costner is wisely cast as the stiff, idealistic Ness. He’s the least interesting character and plays the role straight, trying not to go the obvious heroic route. His all-American looks and Gary Cooper-esque style are ideally suited for the role of the last honest man in the corrupt town (which Oliver Stone would also utilize in JFK). His Ness is as straight an arrow as they come which makes the character’s arc over the course of the film an interesting one. He goes from staunch upholder of the law to someone who has adopted Malone’s by-any-means-necessary philosophy.

This allows Connery to rightfully shine as the aging cop torn between riding out his remaining time and retire alive or making a difference with Ness and his crew. Unlike Ness, Malone has grown up on and worked the mean streets of Chicago. He understands that they are at war with Capone and must do whatever it takes to bust him and break up his empire because he will be just as ruthless. Upon the first meeting, Malone imparts a valuable lesson to Ness: “Make sure when you shift is over you go home alive.” It seems obvious but is an important one to know. It is also the reason why Malone initially turns down Ness’ offer to form the Untouchables. Connery shows what a once great actor can do with the right material and this results in a truly inspired performance — arguably the veteran actor’s last great one.

Rounding out his trilogy of memorable cameos in the 1980s (including Brazil and Angel Heart), Robert De Niro put on the pounds again (which he first and most famously did for Raging Bull) and transformed himself into Al Capone. Like Tony Montana in De Palma’s Scarface (1983), Capone is surrounded by luxury and opulence but is still just a cruel thug at heart. In the few scenes that he has, De Niro makes them count and it is a thrill to hear a great actor say Mamet’s tough-guy dialogue (listen to how he says the word, “enthusiasms,” in a scene). The actor clearly relishes the role and treats the dialogue like he’s enjoying a rich meal and each word is a juicy morsel that he savors.

The supporting roles feature some fantastic actors, chief among them Billy Drago who exudes just the right amount of oily menace as Nitti. For example, there is a scene where he cordially threatens Ness and his family. On the surface there is the appearance of civility but we know what is true intentions are the it doesn’t take Ness much time to figure it out by then Nitti is speeding off in his car – he’s made his point. Drago doesn’t get many lines or a lot of screen time but makes the most of the what he’s given, making a fine addition to De Palma’s roster of cinematic sociopaths.

Speaking of Mamet’s dialogue, it crackles and pops with intensity and provides many of the film’s classic scenes, perhaps none more memorable than Malone’s famous speech to Ness where he tells him how to get Capone. “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.” Sean Connery delivers this speech with the passion and conviction that rightfully earned him an Oscar. The other scene of classic Mamet dialogue is Capone’s infamous dinner table monologue where he talks about teamwork before braining a hapless flunky with a baseball bat for not being a part of the “team.”

Brian De Palma’s stylish direction is perfect for this epic story: long, uninterrupted takes, slow motion and excellent compositions within the widescreen format. He may well be one of the greatest practioners of this aspect ratio. Just look at a simple set-up in the scene where Malone takes Ness to a church and lays it all out for how they’re going to get Capone. Both men take up most of the foreground occupying either side of the screen. The camera is low looking up at them so that we also see part of the beautifully ornate church ceiling. It is this kind of shot that would be totally destroyed when shown pan and scanned on television. Then there is the much-celebrated train station shoot-out, which was a shameless homage to a famous sequence in the legendary film, Battleship Potemkin (1925). It’s a bravura sequence that is beautifully orchestrated by De Palma as he builds the tension leading up to the shoot-up for what seems like an unbearable eternity. The entire sequence is a brilliant lesson in editing and camerawork.

Although, De Palma does go a little over-the-top (even for him) with the Ness-Nitti show down at the end, which features the director’s obligatory homage to Alfred Hitchcock. There is also silly bit of business where we see two old cops duking it in a rainy alleyway as Connery and veteran character actor Richard Bradford laughably beat each other up in a scene that I could’ve done without. Also, Malone’s prolonged death scene drags on for what feels like an eternity but these are really minor flaws in an otherwise unimpeachable stone cold classic as De Palma does his best to distract us from these histrionics with giallo lighting in the Connery fight scene and suspenseful point-of-view steadicam work in the death scene.

In 1984, producer Art Linson met with Paramount Studio’s president Ned Tanen about adapting The Untouchables television series into a film. Tanen liked the idea but Linson did not want to do a sequel, a remake or a parody. He wanted “to create a big-scale movie about mythical American heroes.” Linson needed a screenwriter and thought of David Mamet, fresh from just having won a Pulitzer Prize for his Broadway play Glengarry Glen Ross. He met with Mamet and the writer agreed to do the film. The screenwriter was a native of Chicago and something of a gangster history buff. He envisioned a story about “the old gunfighter and the young gunfighter … It occurred to me, what happens if this young innocent, who’s charged with defending the law but only understands that in an abstract way, meets an old disenchanted veteran, the caretaker of the law, soured at the end of his career because of the corruption in the city?”

Mamet asked Paramount to show him two episodes of the original series and he liked them but felt that “there was nothing I could use in the movie.” Mamet wrote an original story after realizing that the real events – Capone being caught for tax evasion – were not that dramatic. Mamet created the character of Malone and gave Ness a family (he did not have one in real life). After eight months, Brian De Palma was approached to direct by Linson after Mamet wrote the third draft of the script. The director liked that the script was more about the characters and did not see it as a gangster film but more like The Magnificent Seven (1960). He felt that the project was “different from anything I’ve done in the past, because it’s a traditional Americana picture, like a John Ford picture.” He, Linson and Mamet worked together on it with De Palma emphasizing the Capone character more. According to De Palma, the film “reflects upon the incredible pressure we place on our police by not equipping them to adequately fight criminals. Why are we surprised that some of them go overboard?”

For the role of Eliot Ness, Linson and De Palma initially considered William Hurt and Harrison Ford, but, according to Linson, they wanted “someone with the right combination of naiveté, earnestness and strength.” They ended up casting Kevin Costner who wanted to do the film because it was so different from the television series and Ness “has to ask for help. It’s the more modern notion that a smart man takes a step back sometimes – that to be a hero you don’t have to be Rambo.” For Jimmy Malone, the filmmakers wanted Sean Connery but assumed that he would not want to play a supporting role and take a pay cut. However, Connery was drawn to the project because of Mamet’s script and the chance to work with Robert De Niro. He ended up signing on for a percentage of the profits. For the role of Al Capone, De Palma wanted De Niro. Paramount initially balked at the actor’s asking price of $1.5 million but relented.

The principal actors rehearsed together for a full week and Connery tried to remain in character even when the cast was relaxing. By the time principal photography began, whole scenes had been blocked and unworkable ideas rejected. A rapport between the actors playing the Untouchables had also been established, which definitely shows in the film. In preparation for the film, De Niro put on 30 pounds between the end of his Broadway run in Cuba and His Teddy Bear and his days of filming scheduled at the end of the 70-day production schedule. He analyzed old Movietone newsreels in order to get Capone’s voice, movements and mannerisms. On an interesting note, the famous scene in the church between Ness and Malone as originally written, took place on a street, but Connery suggested it take place in a church – the only place left in the city where they could speak freely.

Principal photography started in mid-August 1986 and utilized over 25 separate locations in Chicago with the border raid sequence shot on the Old Hardy Bridge spanning the Missouri River because of its period look. The train station shoot-out cost $200,000 to light because extra light was needed to shoot the sequence in slow motion. It took six days to shoot the scene, which cost an additional $100,000. Not surprisingly, staging this sequence like the one in Battleship Potemkin was De Palma’s idea. The budget escalated from $17 million to $24 million thanks to the cost of production designer Patrizia von Brandenstein transforming an entire block of LaSalle Street in Chicago into the 1930s complete with 125 costumed extras and 60 period cars.

The Untouchables received mixed reviews from critics back in the day and is best summed up by Pauline Kael, a fan of De Palma’s work, who wrote, “It's not a great movie; it's too banal, too morally comfortable - the script is too obvious. But it's a great audience movie - a wonderful potboiler. It's a rouser. The architectural remnants of the era (including solid traces of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright) have been refurbished to provide a swaggering showcase for the legend.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby praised Sean Connery’s performance: “In any other movie, this, too, would be a pretty ordinary role but, as written by Mr. Mamet, directed by Mr. De Palma and played by Mr. Connery, Jim Malone becomes something like the original on which all similar roles were patterned.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Such riches abound in this film, but it is as parable, not parody, that it grips us. The Untouchables all begin as archetypes of American goodness. And they do triumph over evil; they send Capone to prison. But the cost is death or loss of innocence, for it is only by adapting crime's methods that they can defeat it.”

Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars and was disappointed by De Niro’s performance: “All of the movie's Capone segments seem cut off from the rest of the story; they're like regal set-pieces, dropped in from time to time … There isn't a glimmer of a notion of what made this man tick, this Al Capone who was such an organizational genius that he founded an industry and became a millionaire while still a young man.” The Washington Post’s Hal Hinson wrote, “But you're too much aware of the director's manipulations; his virtuosity become oppressive. Our only interest really is in whether the filmmaker can sustain the feat. It's the kind of stunt that turns filmmaking into a kind of sideshow. It's stunning but in the way that great jugglers or magicians can sometimes be stunning. But it's not art, and, at least in the case of The Untouchables, it's only marginally entertaining.”

The production design for The Untouchables is fantastic, especially the opulence of Capone’s headquarters with Morricone’s score resembling a 1930s riff on the music from De Palma’s Scarface. This film is one of those rare big-budget, star-studded blockbusters that actually works. All of the right elements came together at just the right time and place and resulted in an incredibly entertaining motion picture. The Untouchables shows what a master filmmaker like De Palma can do with a director-for-hire paycheck movie. He may not be making a personal statement with this film but he still gives it his all in terms of style and virtuoso camerawork. This film certainly set a high standard for period gangster films, casting a long shadow over future endeavors like Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009) and the HBO T.V. series Boardwalk Empire.

Also, check out Mr. Peel's excellent look at the film over at his blog, and also John Kenneth Muir's top notch analysis of De Palma's epic over at his blog.
 

Fandango

Fandango (1985) is a celebration of being young. It’s a coming-of-age film that takes place during that nebulous time between graduating from college and when you are about enter the workforce and finally became an adult, supposedly leaving childish things behind. The film is much more than freewheeling road movie; it is also has its poignant moments as various characters face an uncertain future. Fandango marked the directorial debut of Texas filmmaker Kevin Reynolds and was also the first time he collaborated with actor Kevin Costner, a relationship that would continue with two other films.

We meet the main characters, known collectively as the Groovers, in an Animal House-ish fraternity house in Austin Texas, 1971. Gardner Barnes (Kevin Costner) and his buddies are graduating. One of their own, Kenneth Waggener (Sam Robards) is supposed to get married but he just found out that he’s been drafted into the army and will eventually be sent to Vietnam. In an attempt to prolong the inevitable, Gardner decides that the Groovers are going to go on one last road trip. Along for the ride is Phil Hicks (Judd Nelson), a square, perpetual stick-in-the-mud whose car they use, Dorman (Chuck Bush), large fellow who studied to become a minister, Lester Griffin (Brian Cesak), who ends up sleeping through the entire journey, and, of course, Waggener.

The opening title card for Fandango defines the film’s title, one of which describes it as “a foolish act” – an apt description for most of the first half of the film. Reynolds captures the Groovers’ ecstatic, joyous journey in a montage of the guys drinking, laughing, driving fast along the highway, and generally goofing off – all to the strains of “Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting” by Elton John blasting away on the soundtrack. This eventually gives way to the sobering reality of Phil throwing up on the side of the road and an overheated Waggener dunking his head in a cooler of water. Phil is the group’s nagging moral conscience and reminds them that they have to report to boot camp in a few days. Gardner convinces him to extend their road trip a little longer so that they can go dig up Dom, a vintage bottle of champagne that they buried on the border of Texas and Mexico.

Fandango contains plenty of “foolish acts,” like when the boys are out of gas and they tie fence post cable to the bumper of the car. Then, Dorman lassos a passing train to hitch a ride. It doesn’t work, of course, and the front part of the car gets ripped off. This is only the first of several bits of damage that is inflicted on Phil’s car, much to his chagrin. They push the car to a gas station (the attendant is played by none other than Pepe Serna of Scarface and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai fame) and find themselves in the town where Giant (1956) was shot. Later that night, they actually camp out at the site where the famous house from the film stood but all that remains is a pathetic, skeletal frame.

While they wait for the car to get fixed, the Groovers hang out at a Sonic drive-in diner, mooching food off of unsuspecting people. This gets them noticed by a two teenage girls (one of whom is played by Elizabeth Daily from Valley Girl and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure fame) whom they charm for some food and a good time, all to the strains of “Spooky” by The Classics IV, which evokes those fun Saturday nights where all you do is goof off with your friends. The girls invite the guys to shoot off fireworks in a graveyard and everyone has loads of fun aiming them at each other. But this harmless lark gives way to a sobering dose of reality as Gardner and Waggener stumble across the grave of a young man who died over in Vietnam. They look back at the fireworks-induced chaos and it now looks a lot like a warzone, a smoky landscape complete with the image of a mini-mushroom cloud. Is this to be an ominous foreshadowing of what these guys are in for if report to boot camp and are sent to Vietnam?

Not surprisingly, Kevin Costner plays Gardner as a cocky ladies man. As he tells Waggener at one point, “I’ve never been serious about a woman in my life,” but through several flashbacks we know this not to be true. One of them reveals Gardner frolicking with an ex-girlfriend (Suzy Amis) to the strains of that wonderful Carole King song, “It’s Too Late.” I can take or leave Costner as an actor (although, I thought he was great in Bull Durham and A Perfect World) but he’s really good in Fandango. He plays Gardner with a mischievous glint in his eye and has the natural charisma to be the leader of the Groovers. His character isn’t just about having fun as he occasionally flashes back to the girl he once loved but that he let get away, as a dream sequence literally visualizes. Among the group, Gardner has the strongest sense of tradition. He is the driving force behind their quest to dig up Dom. He’s a restless spirit and has a hunger for the open road a la Jack Kerouac. Costner nails this free-spirited vibe so well.

Phil is a complainer and a constant wet blanket who is missing the point of the trip. As Gardner says at one point, “There’s nothing wrong with going no where. It’s a right of youth.” Phil just hurls insults at Gardner until Waggener has finally had enough and explodes, telling Phil exactly what he thinks of him. I’ve never been a huge Judd Nelson fan but he is excellent as an initially unlikable character, a “weenie” as Gardner calls him. Partway through the film, Gardner proposes that Phil take a sky diving lesson in order to prove that he’s not a weenie. This sequence was the short film that was the basis for Fandango. After Phil survives his lesson he is much more tolerable and loosens up considerably. Sam Robards is also quite good Waggener and he, Nelson and Costner would all go on to bigger things, having worked steadily ever since this film.

The camaraderie among the Groovers is believable and fun to watch, especially the scene where they gleefully mess with Phil as he learns the basics of skydiving from Truman Sparks (Marvin J. McIntyre), a burn-out instructor-cum-hippie who looks like he’s done a little too much acid in the 1960s and never really recovered. The skydiving sequence in Fandango is shot-for-shot taken from Reynold's University of Southern California thesis film "Proof" from 1980. He originally did a stint at Baylor Law School but was unhappy with the prospect of becoming a lawyer and wanted to go back to film school. He practiced law in the daytime and went to film school at night. After a year of doing this he realized that he had to make a choice.

Reynolds applied to USC film school, got accepted and quit his job. His goal was to have a screenplay that he could sell and a film he could show. He ended up selling his first script and got an agent because of it. He finished “Proof” and shortly afterward, Steven Spielberg’s people contacted him. He met with the famous filmmaker who liked “Proof” and two days later got a call from his assistant. Reynolds was told that Spielberg was making arrangements for him to do a feature film version of “Proof.” Once Reynolds got the OK he had to write a script around the action sequence in his short film. Costner had originally auditioned for “Proof” but didn’t get the part. He came back when Reynolds was casting for Fandango and within the first lines during the reading; he knew that Costner “was the guy.”

Fandango culminates with a wedding in a small, sleepy border town which sees Gardner and Phil perpetuating a pretty clever scam by managing to enlist the entire town to help out for free. This leads into the ceremony itself which reveals who Waggener’s bride-to-be is – the girl that Gardner has been thinking about it in the film’s flashbacks. The wedding ceremony is scored to Pat Methany and Lyle Mays’ “It's For You,” creating a wistful mood that has a slight bittersweet tinge to it because of Gardner’s relationship to the bride. Then, the soundtrack swells with emotion when she and Costner dance the fandango, which takes us back to one of the definitions at the film’s opening title card. And who would’ve thought Costner could dance but he cuts an impressive rug that is shot in such a way that you know it’s really him doing it. This entire sequence is beautifully lit with strings of lights decorating the gazebo where Waggener and his bride are married. The final farewell of the Groovers is a melancholic one as Gardner takes off and Phil is left alone with Dorman telling him to “have a nice life.” The final shot is of Gardner watching from the outskirts of town as the lights go out and he raises a bottle for one last toast.

Fandango was barely released in theaters and didn’t receive much critical attention as a result. In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Reynolds’ “way with the sight gags and off-the-wall humor that make this a notable debut. And he brings a good deal of feeling to the moments in which the film's twin specters – Vietnam and maturity – intrude upon the frantic festivities.” The Globe and Mail also praised the film’s direction: “Reynolds shows an uncanny confidence with the camera, a sureness which is backed up by a powerful visual sensitivity and an ear for language, especially the vernacular of Texas, where the film is set.”

Reynolds is a native Texan and Fandango is a love letter, of sorts, to the state. At one point, Phil criticizes Texas and Gardner replies almost reverentially, “It’s wild, Philip. Always has been. Always will be.” As if to reinforce this point, Waggener laments calling off his wedding after coming across a plaque recognizing the McLean Massacre, a place where two Indian fighters were ambushed and killed in 1837. The film has all the energy and vitality of a first-time director who’s willing to go for it and has a burning desire to tell a story. However, the film’s joyful celebration of youth is tempered by a melancholic tone that surfaces periodically as the Groovers realize that their carefree college days are over and the sobering reality of army boot camp and Vietnam hangs over their heads like a dark storm cloud. As Reynolds said in a recent interview, Fandango is “the end of era for these four, and some realized it more than others.” He would graduate to bigger, more ambitious studio films like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and Waterworld (1995), but none of his subsequent work has had the personal touch of Fandango. It’s as if Reynolds lost track of where he came from and had his personality, which is apparent in every frame of his debut feature, removed by the impersonal machinations of Hollywood.

NOTE: When Fandango was shown on network television, a few bits of extra footage was added back in. Here is one deleted scene, another one, and one last one. Finally, here is the theatrical trailer:

Politics & Movies Blog-a-Thon: JFK

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Politics & Movies Blog-a-Thon being coordinated at The Cooler blog by Jason Bellamy.
 The assassination of American President John F. Kennedy is a watershed event in American history and one that has provoked people to question their own beliefs and those of their government. Yet, for such a highly publicized affair there are still many uncertainties that surround the actual incident. Countless works of fiction and non-fiction have been created concerning the subject, but have done little in aiding our understanding of the assassination and the events surrounding it. Oliver Stone's film, JFK (1991) depicts the events leading up to and after the assassination like a densely constructed puzzle complete with jump cuts and multiple perspectives. Stone’s film presents the assassination as a powerful event constructed by its conspirators to create confusion with its contradictory evidence, to then bury this evidence in the Warren Commission Report, which in turn manifests multiple interpretations of key figures like Lee Harvey Oswald. JFK offers a more structured examination of the conspiracy from one person's point of view where everything fits together to reveal a larger, more frightening picture implicating the most powerful people in the United States government.

JFK presents the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as a powerful event constructed by its conspirators to create confusion with its contradictory evidence and then theorizes that the evidence was buried deep in the Warren Commission Report. Stone’s film filters a structured examination of two conspiracies, one to kill the President and one to cover it up, from one person's point of view — Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) — who then assembles all of the evidence at his disposal to reveal a larger, more frightening picture that implicates the most powerful people in the United States government. Stone saw his movie consisting of several separate films: Garrison in New Orleans against Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), Oswald’s (Gary Oldman) backstory, the recreation of Dealey Plaza, and the deep background in Washington, D.C.

While attending the Latin American Film Festival in Havana, Cuba, Stone met Sheridan Square Press publisher Ellen Ray on an elevator. She had published Jim Garrison's book On the Trail of the Assassins. Ray had gone to New Orleans and worked with Garrison in 1967. She gave Stone a copy of Garrison's book and told him to read it. He did and quickly bought the film rights with his own money. The Kennedy Assassination had always had a profound effect on his life and eventually met Garrison, grilling him with a variety of questions for three hours. The man stood up to Stone's questioning and then got up and left. His hubris impressed the director.

Stone was not interested in making a film about Garrison's life but rather the story behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. To this end, he also bought the film rights to Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. When Stone set out to write the screenplay, he asked Sklar to co-write it with him and distill the Garrison book, the Marrs book and all the research he and others conducted into a script that would resemble what he called "a great detective movie." Stone told Sklar his vision of the movie: "I see the models as Z (1969) and Rashomon (1950), I see the event in Dealey Plaza taking place in the first reel, and again in the eighth reel, and again later, and each time we're going to see it differently and with more illumination.”

Sklar worked on the Garrison side of the story while Stone added the Oswald story, the events at Dealey Plaza and the "Mr. X" character. To tell as much of the story as they could, Stone and Sklar used composite characters, a technique that would be criticized in the press, most notably the "Mr. X" character played by Donald Sutherland and who was a mix of several witnesses and retired Air Force colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, an adviser for the film.

Stone ambitiously wanted to recreate the Kennedy Assassination in Dealey Plaza and his producers had to pay the Dallas City Council a substantial amount of money to hire police to reroute traffic and close streets for three weeks. He only had ten days to shoot all of the footage. Getting permission to shoot in the Texas School Book Depository was more difficult. They had to pay $50,000 to put someone in the window that Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have shot Kennedy from. They were allowed to film in that location only between certain hours with only five people on the floor at one time: the camera crew, an actor, and Stone. Co-producer Clayton Townsend has said that the hardest part was getting the permission to restore the building to the way it looked back in 1963. It took five months of negotiation.

Filming was going smoothly until several attacks on the film and Stone began to surface in the mainstream media including the Chicago Tribune, published while the film was only in its first weeks of shooting. Five days later, the Washington Post ran a scathing article by national security correspondent George Lardner entitled, "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland" that used the first draft of the JFK screenplay to blast it for "the absurdities and palpable untruths in Garrison's book and Stone's rendition of it.” The article pointed out that Garrison lost his case against Clay Shaw and claimed that he inflated his case by trying to use Shaw's homosexual relationships to prove guilt by association. Other attacks in the media soon followed. However, the Lardner Post piece stung the most because he had stolen a copy of the script. Stone recalls, "He had the first draft, and I went through probably six or seven drafts.”

The film depicts the events leading up to and after the assassination as a densely constructed story complete with jump cuts, multiple perspectives, a variety of film stocks and the blending of actual archival footage with staged scenes dramatized by a stellar cast of actors. This blurring of reality and fiction by mixing real footage with staged footage makes it difficult to discern what really happened and what is merely speculation. Stone does this in order to create what he calls "a countermyth to the myth of the Warren Commission because a lot of the original facts were lost in a very shoddy investigation" and simulate the confusing quagmire of events as they are depicted in The Warren Commission Report. Stone creates different points of views or "layers" through the extensive use of flashbacks within flashbacks. Stone has said that he “wanted to the film on two or three levels — sound and picture would take us back, and we’d go from one flashback to another, and then that flashback would go inside another flashback . . . I wanted multiple layers because reading the Warren Commission Report is like drowning.” This technique conveys the notion of confusion and conflict within evidence

The normally wooden Kevin Costner acts as the perfect mouthpiece for Stone’s theories. The auteur’s infamously forceful directorial approach to his actors pays off here as he reins in the actor’s usual tics and mannerisms. Stone was no dummy — he knew that by populating his film with many famous faces, he could make the potentially bitter pill that was his film, that much more palatable to the mainstream movie-going public. The rest of the cast is phenomenal. Gary Oldman’s delivers an eerily authentic portrayal of the enigmatic Lee Harvey Oswald. Tommy Lee Jones is note-perfect as the refined, self-confident businessman, Clay Shaw. Even minor roles are filled by such name actors as Vincent D’Onofrio, Kevin Bacon, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau.

The film throws many characters at us and it is easier to keep track of them by identifying them with the famous person that portrays them. Stone was evidently inspired by the casting model of a documentary epic he had admired as a child: “Darryl Zanuck's The Longest Day (1962) was one of my favorite films as a kid. It was realistic, but it had a lot of stars . . . the supporting cast provides a map of the American psyche: familiar, comfortable faces that walk you through a winding path in the dark woods.” Future biopics with sprawling casts, like The Insider (1999), and Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), and The Good Shepherd (2006) would use this same approach.

Seeing JFK now, one is reminded that first and foremost, it is a top notch thriller. There are so many fantastic scenes of sheer exposition that would normally come across as dry and boring but are transformed into riveting scenes in the hands of this talented cast. For example, the famous scene between Garrison and X (Sutherland) where the mysterious man lays out all the reasons why Kennedy was killed and how is not only a marvel of writing but also of acting as the veteran actor gets to deliver what is surely one of the best monologues ever committed to film.

Once the film was released in theaters, it polarized critics. The New York Times ran an article by Bernard Weinraub entitled, "Hollywood Wonders If Warner Brothers let JFK Go Too Far.” In it, he called for studio censorship and wrote, "At what point does a studio exercise its leverage and blunt the highly charged message of a film maker like Oliver Stone?" The newspaper also ran a review of the film by Vincent Canby who wrote, "Mr. Stone's hyperbolic style of film making is familiar: lots of short, often hysterical scenes tumbling one after another, backed by a soundtrack that is layered, strudel-like, with noises, dialogue, music, more noises, more dialogue.” However, Roger Ebert praised the film in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, saying, "The achievement of the film is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination, because it does not, or even that it vindicates Garrison, who is seen here as a man often whistling in the dark. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche.”

Rita Kempley in the Washington Post wrote, "Quoting everyone from Shakespeare to Hitler to bolster their arguments, Stone and Sklar present a gripping alternative to the Warren Commission's conclusion. A marvelously paranoid thriller featuring a closetful of spies, moles, pro-commies and Cuban freedom-fighters, the whole thing might have been thought up by Robert Ludlum.” On Christmas Day, the Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled, "Suppression of the Facts Grants Stone a Broad Brush" attacking the film. New York Newsday followed suit the next day with two articles – "The Blurred Vision of JFK" and "The Many Theories of a Jolly Green Giant.” A few days later, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an article entitled, "Stone's Film Trashes Facts, Dishonors J.F.K." Stone even received death threats as he recalled in an interview, "I can't even remember all the threats, there were so many of them.” Time magazine ranked it the fourth best film of 1991. Roger Ebert went on to name Stone's movie as the best film of the year and one of the top ten films of the decade.

JFK are important works in the sense that they accurately portray the assassination of John F. Kennedy as a complex public event surrounded by chaos and confusion. Both works present an intricate conspiracy at the source of the killing. JFK, on the other hand, contains one main protagonist who exposes the conspiracy to be an intricately constructed coup d'état. Stone paints his canvas with broad brushstrokes and powerful images. JFK takes a larger, confrontational stance by boldly implicating the government in the conspiracy and the mainstream media in conspiring to cover it up. Stone is using the persuasive power of film to reach the largest number of people he can in order to wake them up and to reveal how they have been deceived by higher powers. There is no mistaking the importance of the assassination of Kennedy in American culture. Based on the excitement that surrounded Stone's film, the American public is still greatly interested in the event with more and more people believing in a plot to kill Kennedy.

Check out the Moon in the Gutter blog post entitled, "Oliver Stone Film Poll," and vote for your favorite Stone film.