JFK is a masterpiece, one of the best films of the nineties,
a fever dream of lies and rationalizations, and one of the
most penetrating looks at how the liberal mind works as
you’ll ever see.
Biographers: “W” Script Not Accurate… Well, Duh.
By Dirty Harry on General
Libertas
In a rare burst of curiosity through authentic journalism, The Hollywood Reporter sent a recent draft of Oliver Stone’s “W” to a number of historians for a fact fisking. The obvious has been discovered:
<<< Reactions to the script from the biographers were mixed. They said specific scenes are largely based in fact but noted that the screenplay contains inaccurate and over-the-top caricatures of Bush and his inner circle. …
“The problem here is it goes to this notion of Bush as being the passive receiver of policy and the White House being run by (Dick) Cheney, (Donald) Rumsfeld, (Karl) Rove and others,” Draper said. “Bush’s adversaries have been ill-served by this belief that Bush is an observer to his own presidency. This notion that his schedule is driven by what’s on ESPN is ludicrous.” >>>
Stone’s methodology is not about truth or facts, it’s about his vision. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. He’s a mad-genius driven by a need to reorder the universe in a way which justifies his desire to retain a belief in it.
JFK is a masterpiece, one of the best films of the nineties, a fever dream of lies and rationalizations, and one of the most penetrating looks at how the liberal mind works as you’ll ever see.
Stone and his kind can’t live with the fact that their hero, John F. Kennedy, started that dreaded war in Vietnam. Those two things cannot reconcile themselves in the liberal mind, one run on childish emotion rather than facts. And so, Stone muscles history with all his talents and has Kennedy assassinated for wanting to withdraw from Vietnam. Assassinated not by Communists, but anti-Communists and the military industrial complex. And no, the patsy Oswald cannot be a Communist, either. No, no… He was an anti-Communist; he was one of them.
Ahh, now the world’s set right. Now, the world makes sense again.
As far as “W” goes, let Oliver Stone be Oliver Stone. A director’s genius is his vision, and what summons that vision is not for we mortals to tamper with. Stone will bully whatever he must to make things right in his head, and who knows what that will look like when he’s done, but the turning of Stone’s gears always fascinates.
And fear not, Stone cannot affect history. In spite of Stone, and thanks to science and computer technology, post-JFK, the conventional wisdom has taken a healthy turn towards “Oswald worked alone.” Stone stirred up the controversy and what followed was a fact-based deconstruction of his own film. Ha.
History always digs up the truth, and even if he fancies himself one, Stone’s no historian. He’s a filmmaker, and one of the few remaining I’m thankful for. Yeah, he gets under my skin. That’s what good directors do. And after twelve painfully dull, unchallenging anti-war polemics, it wouldn’t be so bad to feel agitated in a darkened theatre again.
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