JFK : 3 Shots That Changed America
cdddraftsman
A&E Video // Unrated // January 26, 2010
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/43852/jfk-3-shots-that-changed-america-dvd/
Review by Paul Mavis
A D V I C E
Highly Recommended
"I want them to see what they have done."
Jacqueline Kennedy, on her refusal to remove her blood-stained outfit.
Stunning documentary on the Kennedy assassination. History has
released JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America, an absolutely brilliant
three hour doc from 2009 that utilizes unseen film and kinescope
footage from news stations and amateur photographers during the first
48 hours of the assassination event, to give a minute-by-minute
impression of what it must have been like for a TV viewer back 1963 to
experience first-hand this national tragedy, as it unfolded on their
set. Part two of the documentary details the immediate aftermath of
the shooting, including Oswald's own assassination and the subsequent
investigations of the shootings over the decades, all without the aid
of a narrator, letting the original film footage tell its own story.
If you've seen as many Kennedy assassination documentaries as I have,
there seems to be a few select archival images and sequences that are
endlessly recycled as a form of visual shorthand for the event. Not so
in JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America, which gives the viewer an
immersive, entirely different - and no less disturbing and unsettling
- picture of the shooting, than an umpteenth re-running of the
Zapruder film. No extras on the disc, though, unfortunately.
The documentary format as it's usually practiced on networks like
History and Discovery follow the basic tried-and-true amalgamation of
reenactments, interviews, graphs and maps, overlaid with an unseen
narrator or a host talking directly to the viewer, which has been the
norm for these types of TV docs for decades. JFK: 3 Shots That Changed
America, directed and produced by Nicole Rittenmeyer and Seth
Skundrick, and edited and produced by Katerina Simic, achieves an
immediate "hushed" atmosphere of dread and foreboding by jettisoning
that design and immersing the viewer right in the middle of this
little-seen archival footage, with only the occasional brief title
card to orient the viewer to a particular sequence, or the image of a
ticking-down digital flipper clock, keeping the timeline of events
straight. Opening and closing the doc is an inexplicably ominous,
unfamiliar silent sequence - appearing to come from the lead car of
the slow-moving motorcade heading into Dealey Plaza - that perfectly
captures the mood and method of this doc. We've seen the familiar
motorcade route sequences countless times in other docs, but watching
it in this unfamiliar way, with "us" at the head of the parade,
knowing something violent is waiting for "us," is quite unsettling. Of
course, no documentary is 100% objective; once one clip is chosen over
another for inclusion into a film, an artistic choice has been made,
and a version of reality - whatever the hell that is - has been
created. And obviously, the filmmakers do have a point of view about
the infamous events here; if they didn't, the doc would end with
either the killing of Oswald or the release of the Warren Report.
However, JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America comes quite close,
particularly during its first two-thirds, to fulfilling its opening
title card that states, "This is what happened, as it happened,"
because it gets rid of most of the tired, clichéd elements of the
documentary format (the narrator, the shaped, interpretive,
contemporary interviews by so-called experts) and just lets the news
footage and audio selections speak for themselves.
Unusual, too, for a Kennedy assassination doc, is the care that's
taken to detail the events immediately prior to the murderous
motorcade down Dealey Plaza. Taking the time to set the stage for the
assassination, JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America brilliantly builds
tension and suspense by showing Kennedy's arrival in Fort Worth for a
breakfast speech, as newsmen discuss his need to "mend fences" down in
hostile territory Texas. A clip of Adlai Stevenson, the United States
Ambassador to the United Nations, getting heckled and clipped on the
head with a protestor's sign the previous month in Dallas, coincides
with Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry issuing a horrifically ironic
statement that nothing must happen to "disgrace" the President while
visiting Dallas. Utilizing the deeply disquieting, menacing music of
Paul Brill as a constant drumbeat undercurrent, this seemingly
irrelevant sequence (who cares what the President was doing right
before the assassination, one might ask) is remarkable in suggesting
ill-omens at every turn. As newsmen mention that the President is
breaking security protocol by going out into the crowd unprotected,
the President gives his last speech, sounding like the long-lost Cold
War warrior Democrats we sorely need today (no far-flung "apology
tours" for American exceptionalism here), calling out for vigorous
support against communism (he's turning in his grave today), and
reminding everyone how much water America had carried for the rest of
the world, and how it was "our duty" to keep freedom alive. But the
filmmakers don't rest on this cautious yet hopeful moment. They
overlay the breakfast's benediction with composer Brill's scary music,
while alternating color and black & white footage jump-cuts of the
President and his wife leaving the hall, achieving a jarring, context-
breaking structure that perfectly foreshadows the coming chaos: a
simple yet strikingly brilliant editorial decision.
That discordant effect is carried even further during the next
sequence that shows Kennedy arriving at the Dallas airport. How many
times have we seen those faded, contrasty images of the President and
Mrs. Kennedy departing the plane, all smiles, in seemingly placid,
static images that are supposed to offer quiet, poignant counterpoint
to what is about to come? Sound designers Brill, Simic and Damon
Trotta create an entirely different feel here, aided by news footage
that captures the barely-controlled pandemonium that Kennedy's arrival
created with the crowd (with a newsman again commenting on the
President's dangerous habit of working the crowd without adequate
protection from the Secret Service). Heightening the sounds of the
screaming jet engines, and combining them with the frenzied screams of
the adulating crowd, the filmmakers create a cacophony of almost
unbearable tension, foreshadowing the horrified screams that are just
minutes away at Dealey Plaza. With the sickly ironic comment on the
soundtrack from a newsman who cheerfully details about the President's
limo ("The top is down...everyone will have a good look at the
President"), the doc lurches towards the kill zone, with a disturbing,
second-long shot, caught at random by a shaky, hand-held camera, of a
shadowy figure in an open window of the Texas School Book Depository
at the penultimate moment. Is this Oswald?
Most JFK assassination docs at this point would concentrate on the
actual assassination and subsequent discussions of ballistics,
eyewitness accounts, and elaborate reconstructions (with the de
rigueur inclusion of some Zapruder frames). However, JFK: 3 Shots That
Changed America jumps over those fateful 5 or 6 seconds of history and
brilliantly goes to...As the World Turns, the CBS soap opera that was
playing when Walter Cronkite broke in with an audio bulletin about
shots fired at the President. The film again returns to clips of
innocuous daytime television, including a Nescafe® commercial (with an
ominous-looking pendulum swinging to and fro in it) and a local talk
show for housewives over the Dallas airwaves before Jay Watson, the
WFAA program director, breaks in with the ever-evolving story of the
assassination. That's a remarkable moment in JFK: 3 Shots That Changed
America, showing the filmmakers' adeptness at recreating the
experience of a comfy TV watcher in 1963 suddenly yanked out of the
fairly-tale existence of soap operas and home fashion shows, and into
the often ugly, violent world that lays outside the confines of the
tube (the round-the-clock network and local TV coverage of the
assassination was certainly a major stepping stone in television's
evolution towards becoming the primary rival news source to newspapers
and magazines).
What follows in JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America is one remarkable
sequence of archival footage after another that gives the contemporary
viewer a feeling that they're watching the assassination coverage
unfolding as it's happening. Jay Watson is a reoccurring presence (I
love watching all the guys smoking on camera - TV was great, then),
scoring some major reporting coups, talking immediately after the
shooting with Bill and Gayle Newman and their children (they're the
family we always see in these JFK docs, lying in the grass at Dealey,
protecting their children after the blasts), with Bill confirming on
television that shots came from behind him on the grassy knoll, along
with an interview with Abraham Zapruder himself (Watson doesn't grasp
at this point the significance of Zapruder's act of photographing this
historical event). The filmmakers don't just focus on Dallas; we get
some amazing "man on the street" footage in New York City, where
pedestrians react with horror at the radio bulletins that confirm the
President's death (we also get to see the prejudice and naiveté of one
New Yorker who assumes it was "Southern radicals" who killed the
President, because no "sane person" would do such a thing, a belief
immediately challenged by another bystander who claims Communists were
behind the killing).
This archival film and kinescope footage - much of it uncommonly
pristine and clean - yields a remarkable amount of information beyond
just what is stated by whomever appears to be speaking on camera. It's
fascinating to watch the endless marching of Oswald back and forth
through the cramped, crowded hallways of the Dallas police station,
with reporters and their huge, bulky TV cameras blocking the way as it
appears that there is little or no security separating the suspect and
the public. Vividly capturing how much has changed in police
procedures in 50 years, the single most important piece of forensic
evidence in the case, Oswald's rifle - or is it his? - is paraded
around to the reporters, held aloft by an officer not wearing any
gloves (I love the audio of the reporter asking, "Did he say this was
the gun?", an interesting tidbit for those 7.65 Mauser/6.5 Mannlicher
Carcano conspiracists out there). And any student of today's laws
concerning Miranda rights and legal representation during
interrogations will be fascinated by the spectacle of Oswald
unwillingly brought before a press conference, no less, asking
repeatedly for legal counsel while answering reporters' questions,
just hours after the shooting (even better, a chilling moment happens
right before he leaves the room: Oswald looks up at someone we can't
see, and frowns, his demeanor changing noticeably - clearly at this
point he knows something is wrong with this whole set-up. Has he
spotted Jack Ruby, his soon-to-be assassin and some would say,
compatriot in the assassination plot, whom we know from recently
discovered footage was actually in the corner of that room during the
press conference?). And why did the filmmakers put in that unexplained
silent shot of an amazing Oswald look-a-like being taken into police
headquarters sometime that first night, except to have a little fun
with the viewer (according to some conspiracists, there were Oswald
doubles all over Dallas that week)?
Indeed, there seems to be a wealth of subtext information to be
gleaned here for the JFK assassination buffs, information that might
not have caught the eye and ear of viewers back in 1963 when they were
still processing the overwhelming impact of the assassination. What
does one make of reporter Bernard Kalb (I believe that's him; he's not
I.D.ed) making a brief statement about the Dallas P.D. wishing to
extend the investigation to include information involving an
international communist plot...only to have that suggestion
immediately scotched, most likely by the federal government? In JFK: 3
Shots That Changed America, the doc's single most amusing (and
alarming) sequence comes on the first night of the investigation when
Police Chief Jesse Curry asserts that he was just informed by the FBI
that very night that the Bureau had interviewed Oswald in Dallas two
weeks prior to the shooting and had not informed the Dallas P.D. of
this known radical's presence in the city, prior to the arrival of
Kennedy - a remarkable admission that immediately causes the reporters
to smell a massive scoop headed their way. Just as remarkable,
however, 40 minutes later, Curry comes out into the hallway of
agitated reporters and categorically denies any such story about the
FBI interviewing Oswald...the story he just gave to the reporters (you
have to give some higher-up in the conspiracy a little credit: it only
took 40 minutes to scare the sh*t out of Curry enough to have him go
out there on camera and do a total 180° on the story). Conspiracy
buffs will have a field day connecting up all the inconsistencies in
the various reports that are featured here (I particularly like the
look of abject terror in Curry's eyes - after his ass has been put in
line with the "official story" - when he reports that the FBI, in less
than 24 hours, has miraculously traced all of Oswald's gun receipts
and paperwork back to Chicago...almost as if they had all that info
handy on a man they supposedly weren't aware of until that very day).
The final section of Part II of JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America
necessarily isn't as gripping as the examination of the two
assassinations (the doc's final bravura moment is the contrast between
JFK's grand state funeral, and Oswald's grubby, cruddy little burial,
set to the music of Mahler's Second Symphony's Resurrection, conducted
by Leonard Bernstein on television that weekend as a tribute to the
fallen President). Contrary to popular belief, America, right from the
start, wasn't as trusting of the "official story" concerning Oswald
and Kennedy as we might believe today, and the doc goes into decades-
long looks at the various conspiracy theories that evolved over time.
This look at the evolution of America's preoccupation with the notion
that something happened outside the version of the assassination as
presented by the Warren Report, seems less focused and more
scattershot in its approach than the almost hallucinatory power of the
first two thirds of the doc. Clips of various conspiracists and
subsequent investigations are shown, and we even get to spend some
time with Geraldo Rivera debuting the Zapruder film on television in
1975 (god I miss the old Geraldo) and wacko filmmaker Oliver Stone,
whose goofy but undeniably entertaining JFK in 1991 helped spur the
release of many heretofore classified documents on the assassination.
Brief mentions of MLK's and RFK's assassination are dragged in, along
with side views of rioting in America and even the Vietnam conflict,
in what I assume are the filmmakers' efforts to somehow tie in JFK's
assassination as the impetus for the country going to hell in the
sixties - an argument that may or may not have merit, but which
nevertheless comes off as far too facile and underdeveloped here to
hold much weight (the doc really falls apart at the very end, casting
about wildly for cultural references that have nothing to do with the
subject at hand, including a spurious, faintly obscene plug for the
current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). Hazy third act
construction aside, enough of the brilliance of the first two-thirds
of JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America remain with the viewer, largely
cancelling out this repetitive and sometimes irrelevant material.
The DVDs:
The Video:
With a doc like JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America, original source
materials are usually compromised by age-related wear and tear (and
thus evaluated within that context). However, most of the full-frame,
1.33:1 footage used here is quite clean, with the kinescope film
remarkably so. A solid presentation, with no troubles with the
transfer, either.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo audio track is recorded at an
admirably strong level, with discreet directionality occasionally
detected. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles or close-captions
included here.
The Extras:
No extras for JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America, which is too bad. I
would have liked to have heard from the directors/editors/sound
engineers about how they found all this seemingly lost footage, and
what their thoughts were on assembling it.
Final Thoughts:
A brilliant documentary on the Kennedy assassination. Utilizing
archival news footage and home movies, many rarely (if ever) seen
since 1963, JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America recreates the feeling of
television viewers watching the horrific events of November 22, 1963
unfolding right before them on their television sets. Stunning editing
in both the clip montages and the audio track (with a beautifully
sinister musical score by Paul Brill), 2009's JFK: 3 Shots That
Changed America is one of the best docs I've seen on the subject. Even
though the doc goes off the tracks in its final minutes, most of JFK:
3 Shots That Changed America was good enough to earn our highest
rating here at DVDTalk: the DVD Talk Collectors Series. Unfortunately,
the lack of extras bumps it down a notch. I highly, highly recommend
JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America.
Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television
historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author
of The Espionage Filmography.
end ....
tl ...
..
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yeuhd
> A&E Video // Unrated // January 26, 2010http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/43852/jfk-3-shots-that-changed-america...
> Review by Paul Mavis
> This archival film and kinescope footage - much of it uncommonly
> pristine and clean -
My one correction to this review: The documentary uses little or no
kinescope footage. It uses film and videotape.
BobR
> A&E Video // Unrated // January 26, 2010http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/43852/jfk-3-shots-that-changed-america...
The main stream media has been covering up the jfk assassination for
almost 50 years. You will never find the truth if you rely on the main
stream media.
David Von Pein
>>> "I particularly like the look of abject terror in Curry's eyes - after
his ass has been put in line with the "official story" - when he reports
that the FBI, in less than 24 hours, has miraculously traced all of
Oswald's gun receipts and paperwork back to Chicago...almost as if they
had all that info handy on a man they supposedly weren't aware of until
that very day." <<<
Paul Mavis is a very good reviewer. I admire his reviews on many TV-on-
DVD products. But his comments above about Chief Jesse Curry and the FBI
are not accurate (or fair) at all.
The FBI, while trying to track down the source of Mannlicher-Carcano
#C2766, got lucky on Day 1 (Nov. 22) when the owner of one of the gun
shops they visited in Dallas, said that he got his Italian military rifles
from Crescent Firearms in New York City.
This fact, naturally, led the FBI to Crescent. And Crescent then provided
the info about selling Rifle C2766 to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago.
Then it was up to Klein's to find the specific sales order for C2766
amongst their wealth of microfilm records.
Searching through records in Chicago for six hours, from 10:00 PM until
about 4:00 AM [WR; Page 118], they came up with the "Hidell" order form
and the document that would eventually become "Waldman Exhibit No. 7"
during the Warren Commission hearings, showing that Rifle C2766 had been
sold and shipped to A. Hidell in Dallas, Texas.
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0071b.htm
There was nothing mysterious or unusual at all about this chain of
events regarding the paperwork for C2766. Just hard work by regular
people who were helping out the FBI in its initial investigation.
And Chief Curry, who was constantly giving a DPD hallway press
conference on Saturday, November 23rd, let the press know right away
that his department (the DPD) had just got word from the FBI that "the
order letter" for the rifle had been traced to "our suspect--Oswald".
But, I guess some conspiracy theorists think that Klein's (and the
FBI) found that paperwork too quickly. I guess it smells too much like
a pre-arranged "plot" to them.
Well, what's new about that? Everything smells like a plot if you're a
JFK conspiracy theorist. It's pretty much always been that way. But
I'm disappointed to see that Mr. Mavis thinks like a traditional
conspiracist too -- at least sometimes. I thought he'd have more
(common) sense.
http://DVP-Potpourri.blogspot.com/2009/12/jesse-curry-interviews.html
cdddraftsman
> >>> "I particularly like the look of abject terror in Curry's eyes - after
>
> his ass has been put in line with the "official story" - when he reports
> that the FBI, in less than 24 hours, has miraculously traced all of
> Oswald's gun receipts and paperwork back to Chicago...almost as if they
> had all that info handy on a man they supposedly weren't aware of until
> that very day." <<<
>
> Paul Mavis is a very good reviewer. I admire his reviews on many TV-on-
> DVD products. But his comments above about Chief Jesse Curry and the FBI
> are not accurate (or fair) at all.
>
> The FBI, while trying to track down the source of Mannlicher-Carcano
> #C2766, got lucky on Day 1 (Nov. 22) when the owner of one of the gun
> shops they visited in Dallas, said that he got his Italian military rifles
> from Crescent Firearms in New York City.
>
> This fact, naturally, led the FBI to Crescent. And Crescent then provided
> the info about selling Rifle C2766 to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago.
> Then it was up to Klein's to find the specific sales order for C2766
> amongst their wealth of microfilm records.
>
> Searching through records in Chicago for six hours, from 10:00 PM until
> about 4:00 AM [WR; Page 118], they came up with the "Hidell" order form
> and the document that would eventually become "Waldman Exhibit No. 7"
> during the Warren Commission hearings, showing that Rifle C2766 had been
> sold and shipped to A. Hidell in Dallas, Texas.
>
>
> http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0071b.htm
>
> There was nothing mysterious or unusual at all about this chain of
> events regarding the paperwork for C2766. Just hard work by regular
> people who were helping out the FBI in its initial investigation.
>
> And Chief Curry, who was constantly giving a DPD hallway press
> conference on Saturday, November 23rd, let the press know right away
> that his department (the DPD) had just got word from the FBI that "the
> order letter" for the rifle had been traced to "our suspect--Oswald".
>
> But, I guess some conspiracy theorists think that Klein's (and the
> FBI) found that paperwork too quickly. I guess it smells too much like
> a pre-arranged "plot" to them.
>
> Well, what's new about that? Everything smells like a plot if you're a
> JFK conspiracy theorist. It's pretty much always been that way. But
> I'm disappointed to see that Mr. Mavis thinks like a traditional
> conspiracist too -- at least sometimes. I thought he'd have more
> (common) sense.
>
> http://DVP-Potpourri.blogspot.com/2009/12/jesse-curry-interviews.html
Excellent DVP !
I didn't read the whole article through before posting .... I should
probably do that eh ?
tl
cdddraftsman
You mean find your own particular personal truth thats convenient
(pick anyone but Oz) , doesn't upset anyone (the hoards of fellow JFK
conspiracy apologists) ?
The problem is even if you knew as a stone cold fact that Oz killed
JFK ....
You would never admit it .... 'Conspiracy'
And ....
You would continue the 'Cover-up' .... Incriminating anyone but Oz .
THAT'S THE PROBLEM ...
tl
tomnln
"cdddraftsman" <cdddra...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3dd5c200-a7dd-4374...@y18g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
tomnln
"cdddraftsman" <cdddra...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3dd5c200-a7dd-4374...@y18g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
And ....
tl
THE REAL PROBLEM STARTED WHEN THE AUTHORITIES REPEATEDLY TAMPERED WITH
EVIDENCE/WITNESSES.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
cdddraftsman
> BOTTOM POST;
>
> "cdddraftsman" <cdddrafts...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> read more
Does anyone know what tomnln is mumbling about now ?
tl