JFK

This movie has one line of exquisite truth by way of the David Ferrie character played by Joe Pesci -

"Shit, this is too fuckin' big for you, you know that? Who did the president, who killed Kennedy, fuck man! It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' shooters don't even know! Don't you get it?"

You got that right buddy. And yeah, we get it. Welcome to JFK.


Duality

So. Is this a good movie, or is it bullshit? Says I - it's both. If nothing else, it's insanely watchable. Hell, I've seen it maybe ten times. The script is as tight as a drum. The dialogue is sharp and pithy. And the cast is spectacular - inspired by The Longest Day, Oliver Stone filled any number of minor roles with Hollywood heavies. Even the small scenes shimmer. A heavy like Walter Matthau signed on for a minute of screen time.

Like The Longest Day, JFK's story would rightly be described as 'sprawling'. In spite of this, it effortlessly slides from its 1960's present to an infinite number of disparate flashbacks. If one hadn't seen the film and were to judge it from a complete list of each scene's location and date, the film would appear to be an unintelligible hodge-podge. But we've all seen it and it's no such thing. Instead it flows like a river. That's editing for you. A determined Stone overrode his regular cinema editors by bringing in Hank Corwin who was schooled in the cutting of thirty second commercials. Good move. The film is frame perfect and deserves its Oscar for editing.

I have a tendency at this blog to look at what is never discussed in film reviews. We could loosely call this context. But I don't want anyone to confuse me with some soppy post-modernist who dismisses craft. For mine, intent is not enough. If one is going to employ a medium to express one's ideas, its absurd to imagine that whomever is on the receiving end won't pay equal attention to the medium. The medium, and a mastery of it, is not a fascist con to repress the unskilled but otherwise deserving masses. I get this view utterly having been at university and art-school when it was at its height, and I have no time for it. Between Botticelli's chick in a clamshell, and some clammy chick's used tampons rotting on a canvas, only one of them is worth anything. And film is no different. Subsequently, even execrable propaganda like Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down will get multiple viewings, if for no other reason than for having a nice colour grade. I groove on a nice grade and that's cool. As long as we know it for what it is and don't confuse technique with message. On this blog, I merely say it's not an either/or proposition.

What's right with this picture

One could never confuse JFK with pro-war Hoo-er! bullshit like Black Hawk Down. If we were to distil JFK down to its essential message, it would be that we've all been lied to. And this is laudable - up to a point. Let's not forget that on its release JFK copped more shit than maybe any other film in history. The MSM attacked it like it was some kind of celluloid anti-christ. So it must have something going for it.

Even today, right this minute, one can find any number of websites devoted entirely to denouncing JFK and to tearing it down point by point. They're interesting, these websites. If you leave your brain in neutral you'd almost come away thinking that yep, JFK is rubbish. But read them carefully. They're not what they seem. In spite of their 'I too was convinced that Stone's movie was truthful until I looked into it...' tone of regretful disenchantment, they're actually disinfo sites.

My favourite line on one site pivoted on Stone's assertion that fifty-odd witnesses in Dealey Plaza had declared that they'd heard or seen a shooter on the grassy knoll. 'False!' declared the site's author. There were only twenty witnesses! So there! ...Pathetic. Does the fact that he thinks we're that stupid say more about us, or him? Anyway fuck you, mate.

But let's concede that these sites do make some sensible points. Okay, so the chick who declared she was the 'Babushka Lady' was bullshit. But as David Ray Griffin wrote in his masterful piece (of limited hangout), A New Pearl Harbour, individual pieces of evidence do not comprise links in a chain but rather strands in a cable. The fact that Beverly Oliver isn't the Babushka lady doesn't mean that Lee Harvey Oswald's trip to Russia and back (not only unmolested but with his ticket paid for by the US government), somehow makes sense. It doesn't. Oswald was obviously a spook. That strand in the cable still ties one thing to another.

And even if a hundred strands in the cable turn out to be rotten, there's still another thousand to connect the evidence to the truth. Frankly as few as three would do the job equally as well. Stone's pointing out that the bullshit nature of the government's story of Kennedy being killed by a lone nut, who was in turn killed by another lone nut, holds water. (BTW - Speaking of Jack Ruby, aka Jacob Rubenstein, it seems he worked as a snitch for Richard Nixon in the HUAC days. Interesting, huh?)

JFK says that your government is as wicked and as corrupt as you can imagine. And he's right. But not quite right enough. And not in any useful fashion.

What's wrong with this picture

Here's a trick you can try at home. When watching any Hollywood film: if it smells bad; if it has a neocon whiff; if it's anti-Arab/Muslim; if it asserts an us-and-them mindset; if it posits an old testament rightness of merciless slaughter; if it's divisive and racist; if it teaches teenagers to be self-obsessed gits; if it glamorises drugs, prostitution, and crime; if it promotes perverse individualism and adds to the centrifugal, self-destructive nature of society, don't waste your time wondering at the director, nor even the producer. In the world of cinema context, these are the also-rans, the glorified step-and-fetchits. The names you want to read, as the titles or credits roll, are those of the executive-producers. These are the true money men. They decide what gets made and what doesn't. If you're watching that hateful movie and you wonder if you'll see the names of the usual suspects listed, as God is my witness, you'll never be disappointed. It's the same thing every fucking time.

And so it is with this film. Two men are solely responsible for JFK's existence, they being Terry Semel and Arnon Milchan. Without them, Stone's dream of a JFK movie would have remained just that, a dream. These two are brave men who've never shied from making controversial films. But not too controversial. In some ways executive producers are less about what kinds of films do get made than they are about what kinds of films don't get made. Subsequently, if the question is 'Why was Kennedy killed?' the answer will be, 'Because of the Vietnam war.' Thus the blame lies with the FBI, the CIA, the MIC, the Italian mafia and assorted Cubans. The answer is emphatically not, 'Because of Kennedy's attempt, by way of Executive Order 11110, to end the Rothschilds-owned Fed and its money-as-debt monopoly.' Heaven forfend!

This control of the money supply is a tricky business. It's tricky because it carries no benefit at all for the 99.99% of the population who are subject to it. All it does is impoverish them. The only people to benefit from it are the immediate owners and the handful of corrupt minions who enable it. Subsequently it is absolutely crucial that no one knows what it is, how it works, or even that it exists. If they did there'd be neo-classical buildings in flames and bodies in expensive suits dangling from the lamp posts in front of them. Happily control of the money supply provides one with insane amounts of, well, money. Never mind those top 100 rich lists, the Rothschilds have more money than all of them put together. Hell, you could throw in everybody not on the list (and that's a lot of people) and the Rothschilds would still trump them.

With that kind of throwing down money, ensuring that no one knows the truth about the Fed is not only do-able but a sine qua non. That the masses remain ignorant is the single imperative, the only thing that counts. What the Rothschilds require is not so much a marketing division but an anti-marketing division. Their product doesn't require advertising - they don't need to convince people to use it. They merely need to convince them that this is how it is and that there's nothing to be done about it. In fact this last thought would be a thought too far. Do people ask what's to be done about the sun coming up in the morning? Hardly. That is how those who control the money supply wish us to view their actions. They need people to view their money-as-debt villainy as an Act of God, a thing beyond question.

And sure, they have to kill an upstart president every now and then. People exist who can't be bought and occasionally they make it to a position where they might interfere in the banker's business. But never mind, when you control the money supply, killing a president is just one of the those things you have to do. Sure enough. But underneath the man who can't be bought exists everyone else who can be. To wit - the FBI, the CIA, and sundry penny-ante Mafia and Cubans. Just throw the money out there and tell them to earn their pay. And their plans involve a patsy? Like the bankers give a shit about the details.

Their only concern is that the business carries on and no one finds out about it. And that's when executive producers fulfil their roles in terms of the films that do get made and the films that don't. That's why Terry Semel and Arnon Milchen gave Oliver Stone $40,000,000. Happily Stone's film makes no mention of Executive Order 11110 and instead points the finger at everyone but those who had the most to lose. The film that mentions Executive Order 11110 doesn't exist and nor will it ever. The seal must be complete. All media must be controlled. Any medium that can be bought, will be. It's not like the Rothschilds have anything better to do with their money. And any medium that can't be bought will be shut down. The absence of the Rothschilds' business must be total, remember.

And here I am, not under control. The net allows me to speak publicly without any executive producer being able to give me a thumbs down. Not for long, ha ha. This internet we know and love? Enjoy it while it lasts boys and girls because, in much the same way that Kennedy was a threat, so too is the net. As it stands it cannot be allowed to live. The Rothschilds have more money than God and nothing better to spend it on.

But never mind, when the net is gone we'll still have cracking films like JFK to watch. Terrific cast! Marvellous editing!