LETTER: Over-hyped

To the Editor: Even Stone himself stated in many interviews that his movie was not meant to be a documentary but taken as entertainment. This, he must believe, absolves him from responsibility for truthfulness and justifies his invention of characters, switching of dates/facts, and his mixing of his own 8-mm, amateurish-looking clips to the real assassination film to support his arguments. However, for someone coming in off the street, the movie appears to be nothing less than genuine documentary. Wow! I didn't know an amateur film showed a puff of smoke coming from the grassy knoll! (Stone really filmed it.) Imigosh! Governor Connolly really did lunge forward in the front seat! (Stone really filmed it.) This angry director tampers with everything, including sneaking his own 8-mm, amateurish imitation shots into the all-important Zapruder film that has served as the primary source of evidence in determining the number and location of the assassin(s). I cringed at this. Few others could have known what Stone had done. But do not get me wrong. Like Ford, I enjoyed the movie. However, I appreciated it for a different reason. In JFK Stone produces one of the finest propaganda pieces of all time. It really worked! And it even included the standard Oliver Stone character- the all-American guy who suddenly becomes enlightened by 60's mores and finds that his whole society is corrupt and evil. It is up to him to change it. That was fun. But, on the other hand, even a history major here at Penn (Ford) is using this movie as evidence in deciding for himself exactly how Kennedy was killed. This is not a trivial determination but a very serious historical question, especially if one is actually going to consider every government agency in the executive branch as a culprit. Here we must question Ford's skills as a historian. You would hope a history major would be able to figure out whether or not a source is reliable and when it is not. JFK is based on the claims and conjectures of a handful of career conspiracy theorists whose own particular rantings support Stone's dream of a maligned government. If Ford is interested in getting sources other than Donald Sutherland playing the mysterious Mr. X, or Joe Pesci playing the guy with wacky eyebrows, he might want to refer to a recent episode of Frontline, a reliable program on PBS (but are they in on it too?) which spoke with the ballistics experts making headway in investigating the assassination as well as the men who did the autopsy. The episode aired before the movie was released, so as I watched the film, I knew just about every one of Stone's pieces of evidence had already been conclusively disproven (except for the fictional evidence). It is frightening how so few are aware of the overwhelming facts and so quick to listen to titillating myths. Ford might be disappointed to know that the latest ballistic tests and computer projections of the Dealey Plaza show that it probably was one assassin who killed the president. Not quite as romantic but a bit more realistic. Sorry, Ford. Sorry, Stone. What a buzzkill! SCOTT POMERANTZ College '94

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