lee harvey oswald Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: Oswald's Ghost
Filed under: Documentary », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
Oswald's Ghost is the rare film whose power increases with distance. As I sat in the historic Texas Theatre last week, where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on the day President Kennedy was assassinated, and watched a special screening of the documentary, the suggestive rhythm of the editing and the understated urgency of the musical accompaniment lulled me into a false sense of security. I was deceived into thinking that I knew what kind of film it was and so, based on that assumption, I allowed the shaped narrative to lead me down a certain path, only to discover at the end that I had arrived at a very different destination than I expected.
Filmmaker Robert Stone says that he was initially inspired by the furor that erupted after the release of Oliver Stone's JFK in 1991. Why were people so wrapped up emotionally in what had happened so many years before? How had that pivotal event changed the nation? Ten years later, he saw parallels in how the nation responded to 9/11 and started what he calls his own "journey" to discover why America has remained obsessed with the JFK assassination, to the point that he calls it a "theology."
That being said, Stone does not take the approach I had anticipated. After an opening fusillade of opinions issued by experts, he dives right into the events leading up to November 22, 1963, laying them out one by one in distinct, logical order as though he had an organized sheaf of papers he was slapping down on a table. The drama is inherently captivating; no matter how many times you've seen news footage and photographs from the days in question, it still feels like you're dragged against your will into a nightmare.
Texas Theatre, Where Oswald Was Caught, Re-Opens
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy », Fandom », Exhibition »
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When I first stepped foot onto Dealey Plaza in Dallas years ago, I had an instant feeling of deja vu, similar to what most of us feel when we visit a place in person that we've previously seen only in photographs, on film or on television. It was a beautiful, sunny day; I walked around the plaza for a long, long time, picturing in my mind the motorcade that carried President John F. Kennedy on his fateful trip, checking out all the angles, tromping around the grassy knoll, staring up at the former Texas School Book Depository. That building has been converted into The Sixth Floor Museum, where you can gaze down through the window where Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly fired his assassin's rifle at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963.
The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald escaped from the building, rode a city bus for two blocks, traveled several miles by taxi, stopped by the rooming house where he was staying, and then shot and killed a police officer about half a mile away. He slipped into the nearby Texas Theatre without paying, and briefly watched War is Hell (second billed to Van Heflin in Cry of Battle). He was apprehended by a flock of police officers at approximately 1:45 p.m.
I'd never thought of the Texas Theatre except as an anonymous footnote to a tragedy. I ended up attending the re-opening of the building last week as a result of my assignment to review Robert Stone's documentary Oswald's Ghost, which opens in New York on Friday, November 30, and discovered quite accidentally that the Texas Theatre has a fascinating history of its own.
_thumbnail.jpg "Filmmaker Robert Stone")
_thumbnail.jpg "Texas Theatre Lobby")
_thumbnail.jpg "Texas Theatre Sign")
_thumbnail.jpg "Texas Theatre Courtyard")
_thumbnail.jpg "Texas Theatre Interior")
Conspiracy theorists, rejoice!
Filed under: Documentary », Politics »
Did Cuba pay Lee Harvey Oswald to assasinate John F.
Kennedy? That's the driving theory behind a new documentary from award-winning German filmmaker Wilfried Huismann. Rendezvous with Death is the
result of a three-year investigation, through which Huismann interviewed
with former Cuban secret agents, U.S. officials and a Russian intelligence source, and also delved into Mexican
security archives. The film alleges that in 1963, Oswald made a journey
to Mexico City, where he was paid $6,500 by agents at the Cuban embassy.
The film apparently revolves around the damning testimony of a former Cuban secret agent, who claims that Oswald was a
"dissdent" who would do anything to harm the United States. "He was so full of hate, he had the idea. We used him ... He was a tool." The Cuban
government, the film postulates, wanted to get rid of Kennedy to clear the path for the assendancy of Castro and the
Communist Revolution. Whether the country had a hand in Kennedy's death or not, that goal was claerly met: in the
documentary, a former CIA official tells Huismann, "[Castro] beat us. He bested us. He came out on top, and we lost."The film was shown to reporters in Berlin yesterday; there's no word yet on when it'll be made more widely available, but as I'm total conspiracy theory nerd, I'll let you know the minute I hear anything.
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