Poster of the Week – JFK (1992)

02 Tuesday Dec 2014

Tags

Kevin Costner, Lee Harvey Oswald, Movie poster, Oliver Stone, Poster of the week, President John F. Kennedy

JFK (1992)

Oliver Stone’s controversial examination of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy is engrossing, challenging and provocative. This poster for the movie isn’t quite as powerful – though that’s not a bad thing – but it what does do really well is compile some very iconic imagery into an attractive, attention-grabbing whole.

There are three very potent images included here. The first is the shot of Jackie Kennedy reaching over the back of the car with the Security Service agent rushing toward her. Even if you were unaware of the context of that image, you’d still know there was something wrong there, that this woman was in trouble. Knowing the context adds sympathy, sorrow, grief and shock, and the image’s inclusion is a poignant and concise reminder of the events of 22 November 1963.

In contrast, the image of Lee Harvey Oswald clasping a rifle in one hand and copies of the Communist paper The Militant in the other, provokes a different reaction. Whether you regard him as an assassin or a patsy, there’s something about Oswald’s look to camera that makes the viewer a little uneasy. Whatever his involvement in the death of John F. Kennedy, Oswald is still someone who invites suspicion, and this image reinforces that feeling with quiet authority.

Lastly, and perhaps less obviously, there is the torn American flag, a symbol of the “loss of innocence” America as a nation felt in the wake of Kennedy’s death. This was an event that – if such a thing is truly possible – damaged the nation’s psyche. It’s inclusion is the poster’s most subtle aspect, and mixed with the other two images, creates a compelling reflection on the movie’s subject matter.

The further inclusion of an image of Kevin Costner as District Attorney Jim Garrison doesn’t really add anything to the overall design, and appears more of a marketing idea than anything else. But the tag line is certainly apt, and rounds off the poster’s effect quite nicely: “The Story That Won’t Go Away”. How true, indeed.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to let me know.

Mini-Review: Parkland (2013)

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abraham Zapruder, Billy Bob Thornton, Dallas, Drama, Jacki Weaver, James Badge Dale, JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Parkland Hospital, Paul Giamatti, Peter Landesman, Review, True story, Zac Efron

D: Peter Landesman / 93m

Cast: James Badge Dale, Zac Efron, Paul Giamatti, Jackie Earle Haley, Colin Hanks, David Harbour, Marcia Gay Harden, Ron Livingston, Jeremy Strong, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacki Weaver, Tom Welling

Covering events in Dallas, Texas from 22-25 November 1963, Parkland takes a behind-the-scenes look at the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the people who were involved both on the day and in the aftermath. From the opening showing Kennedy at Fort Worth before travelling to Dallas to the final scenes involving the burial of Lee Harvey Oswald (Strong), the movie paints an intimate portrait of the men and women who dealt with one of the most emotive events in American history, from the trainee doctors and nursing staff at Parkland hospital – where Kennedy and Oswald were both taken after they were shot – to the President’s Secret Service detail led by Forrest Sorrels (Thornton), to Oswald’s brother Robert (Dale) and mother Marguerite (a frightening Weaver), to the local FBI office who had Oswald there only a week before, and most effectively, to Abraham Zapruder (Giamatti), the man fated to film the death of a President.

All these stories coalesce to make Parkland an engrossing, gripping drama where some of the smaller details have the greatest effect: the sheer number of people who gather in the emergency room where Kennedy is worked on; Robert Oswald asking a member of the press to be a pallbearer; Zapruder asking a lab technician for three copies of the film, one for the Secret Service, one for the FBI, and one for himself; and Jackie Kennedy clutching something in her hand that proves to be a piece of her husband’s skull. First-time director Landesman juggles the various story lines with an ease that belies his lack of experience, and the cast raise their game accordingly; Giamatti in particular is a standout. A fine addition to that sub-genre of American history movies, the JFK era, Parkland impresses with its level of detail and its clearcut approach to what is still a very contentious event.

Rating: 8/10 – studious and compelling in equal measure, Landesman’s debut draws you in and never lets go.