Oswald's Ghost
by Robert Stone
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dan Rather, Gary Hart, Mark Lane, Norman Mailer, Tom HaydenDirector: Robert Stone
Brand: Paramount
Cinematographer: Howard Shack
Composer: Gary Lionelli
Editor: Robert Stone
Editor: Don Kleszy
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Pbs Paramount
Movie Reviews of Oswald's Ghost
Movie Review: JFK and Princess Diana-The Death of Youthful Idols Is Never Simple
Summary: 4 Stars
"Oswald's Ghost" combines fascinating new archival footage with a different and unique approach to the JFK assassination. It makes for a very interesting documentary by director Robert Stone. It contains more of Lee Harvey Oswald's public appearance after his arrest and prior to his death than I have seen in any other documentary.
Stone, in an interview that is part of the bonus feature, explains what makes this documentary unique in substance and narrative compared to other documentaries and books about the assassination. This documentary is not about "Whodunit." It is how the assassination negatively affected public opinion about our government and its credibility long after November 22, 1963.
The JFK assassination, followed by the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968, the deviousness of LBJ in conducting the Vietnam War, and the election of Richard Nixon have all been woven into a historical narrative over time that produced a cynicism about our government that continues to thrive today in the American public at large.
Stone doesn't advocate or necessarily believe this narrative. Tom Hayden, a former SDS founder, comes closest to expressing the narrative. Stone more importantly demonstrates that perception often becomes reality, rightly or wrongly. Those reviewers who have spent time making "ad hominem" attacks on the various people interviewed are missing the point.
This an even-handed documentary featuring the some of the most recognized names associated with the JFK assassination and the subsequent radical student movement: Mark Lane, J. Edward Epstein, Norman Mailer, Tom Hayden, and Gary Hart.
Epstein, who published one of the first conspiracy books is a very interesting interview throughout. His book was overpowered by Mark Lane's "Rush to Judgment", but he is one of the most prominent JFK conspiracy buffs. Epstein does not concede that Oswald was a lone gunman but he does express an opinion that is a forceful argument for the lone gunman theory. At the end of the documentary he notes that after forty years none of the conspiracies have been proven.
Mailer's commentary borders on the poetic and reminds us of the beauty of his written prose. He provides the most eloquent vision of the whole affair and quite rightly is the person to sum up the meaning of the specter of Oswald's ghost.
As stated in the documentary, people generally have a very hard time accepting the fact that the death of a charismatic young person like JFK can die at the mundane hand of a lone, lunatic gunman. There is a natural human tendency to believe that the death of such a prominent and charismatic person must be the result of a larger conspiracy.
The death of Princess Diana and the seemingly interminable investigations and conspiracy theories regarding it is symptomatic of the same feeling that has driven the JFK conspiracy hunts for forty years. It is a feeling that
a beautiful, almost fairy-tale like princess could not have died in something as mundane as a traffic accident.
You will be missing a very interesting and significant addition to the JFK assassination history if you miss this documentary.
Note to all the conspiracy theory reviewers: I do not work for the government, I am not CIA or army intelligence. I am not part of the continuing "cover-up." I was not the one on the "grassy knoll". I have never tried to profit from JFK's assassination.
Summary of Oswald's Ghost
The assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963 left a psychic wound on America that is with us still today. Few Americans then or now accept that a lone, inconsequential gunman could bring down a president and alter history. In that breach, a culture of conspiracy has arisen that point to sinister forces at work in the shadows. Drawing upon rarely seen archival footage and interviews with key participants, Oswald's Ghost takes a fresh look at Kennedy's assassination, the public's reaction to the tragedy, and the government investigations that instead of calming fears lead to a widespread loss of trust in the institutions that govern our society.Complex and troubling, the documentary Oswald's Ghost examines what happened after the Kennedy assassination--it is less about possible conspiracies than about how the belief in conspiracies has affected our culture and those who pursued them. The abundance of archival footage of Lee Harvey Oswald after his arrest--sometimes in press conferences, sometimes simply being transported in handcuffs by officers--is startling and fascinating. The interviewees include one-time presidential candidate Gary Hart, former news anchor Dan Rather, author Norman Mailer (who, over the course of researching his book Oswald's Tale, changed his mind about whether Oswald acted alone), and the numerous authors of books on the subject. Oswald's Ghost presents arguments from all sides and may upset anyone with a rigid mind about the issue, but its fluid and hypnotic narrative will engage even viewers with only a casual interest in the topic. The extra features, which are just as compelling as the movie itself, include a much more extensive discourse on the Zapruder film and a thoughtful interview with the director, Robert Stone (Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst), who explains how he wanted to make film that would interest people on either side of the conspiracy question. He succeeded. --Bret Fetzer
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