JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, 2021.
Directed by Oliver Stone.
Featuring Donald Sutherland (voice), Whoopi Goldberg (voice), Robert F Kennedy Jr, Jacqueline Kennedy (archive), John F. Kennedy (archive), Walter Cronkite (archive), Fidel Castro (archive), Martin Luther King (archive), Gerald Ford (archive), Lee Harvey Oswald.
SYNOPSIS:
Writer-director Oliver Stone opens up Pandora’s box once again, by taking a deep dive into the assassination of America’s most iconic contemporary President.
The shooting of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22nd 1963 was a tragedy. Few events in political history have left such an indelible mark on the public consciousness. He was a man who spearheaded change, vetoed America’s involvement in Vietnam and made internal enemies amongst his so-called allies. Choices that would ultimately prove to be his undoing.
If anything, this documentary feels like a continuation of an obsession for film maker Oliver Stone, which culminated with the release of JFK in 1991. A film which not only instigated legislative change within American politics, but revealed this writer director to be a man with agendas. Agendas which were formed through experiences he had in Vietnam as a GI. Ideas that would morph into motives, which in turn would spawn a screenplay. One which pulled no punches in depicting his visceral reaction to a war America had no chance of winning.
That this piece of creative penmanship landed him in a room with British director Alan Parker to write Midnight Express is well documented. That this in time led to Scarface, then Salvador and onwards to Platoon and Wall Street goes without saying. What should be said and what seems lost to many as time ticks on, is how much of a catalyst JFK proved to be in galvanising that talent.
For purists it would be sacrilege to leave out Year of the Dragon, Conan the Barbarian or The Doors. However, for many his legacy and reputation hinges on JFK and its melding of man with material. A symbiosis that resulted in the most cinematic dissection of Kennedy’s assassination ever put on film. One that garnered six Oscar nominations, won two and upset the establishment for good measure.
Beyond that, what Through the Looking Glass provides is an unsettling epilogue to a feature film, which masqueraded under the guise of mass entertainment. By employing a combination of talking heads, stock footage and endless reams of documentation, Oliver Stone rips off the plaster once again. In so doing he exposes a flawed system of politics defined by self-interest. People lying, evidence being tampered with and eye-witnesses suffering barely veiled intimidation tactics.
It demonstrates that theories have now morphed into facts fifty-eight years too late. President John F. Kennedy simply got in the way of pre-determined objectives, that meant he needed to be eradicated. Ballistics reports, magic bullet theories and coerced commissions intentionally doctored evidence, or simply ensured it never saw the light of day.
This documentary plainly establishes how systematic the FBI and CIA were in dispatching an openly radical President elect. A man who sought peace in our time, for all men irrespective of colour or creed. An openly honest approach which was considered dangerous in its transparency, when governments in the main are maintained through perpetual conflict and friction. If nothing else, it also gives credence to the old adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely; especially where there is money involved.
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass is out in UK & Irish cinemas now and on Altitude.com and other digital platforms from November 29th.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Martin Carr
