JFK.

• Author: Normey, Robert
• Position: Law and literature

Who owns our "history"? He who makes it up so that most everyone believes it.

--Oliver Stone, 1992

Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK is one of the worst historical films ever made. Let me elaborate. It is skillfully made, packs an emotional punch, and has a strong cast. If it were presented as a work of fiction, involving the fictional conspiracy to murder a fictional president, it would possess some merit, albeit descending into murkiness at times. However, it purports to be the truthful reconstruction of a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

I profoundly disagree with that hardworking film critic Roger Ebert. He goes so far as to include JFK in his book The Great Movies, claiming that it doesn't matter that JFK contains factual inaccuracies. He tells us that it is not a film about the facts of the assassination of President Kennedy, but about the feelings. Ebert claims that all we can reasonably ask of an historical film is that it be skillfully made and approach some kind of emotional truth. Given that standard, he asserts that JFK is a masterpiece. It's like a collage of all the books and articles, documentaries and TV shows, and conspiracy theories since 1963. Ebert adds that Stone chose the perfect hero for his film, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner. In the film Garrison is a noble if quixotic Everyman who won't give up on his quest to establish that a vast conspiracy to murder the president existed.

I am deeply disturbed by such a cavalier attitude toward the truth. Ebert is absolutely wrong. It is essential in a film about a recent historical event that touched the lives of so many Americans and citizens of other countries to get the basic facts right. At the heart of the Garrison story is the relentless prosecution of a man said to have been involved in a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy. Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman, was put through the harrowing experience of a conspiracy trial. Previously in good health, he died of cancer three years after his legal proceedings ended. Many believe the stress of the trial contributed greatly to his death. How faithfully the film recreates the facts of the trial matters enormously. In fact, JFK is woefully inept in its handling of the trial. The film is loosely based on Jim Garrison's book On the Trail of the Assassins. It is not an objective account and gets many key pieces of evidence wrong.

The choice of Kevin Costner to play...