Oswald's Ghost
Directed by Robert Stone
The selling point of Oswald’s Ghost, Robert Stone’s documentary about the enigmatic blue collar Texan generally regarded as the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is its refusal to dispute the safest assumption. Stone doesn’t argue in favor of Lee Harvey Oswald’s innocence, nor does he make an attempt at the tired route of disproving the lone gunman theory. Those and other radical notions are put to the test with a collage of talking heads (mostly journalists) threaded throughout the movie, but Stone isn’t championing a revisionist history—he’s merely fascinated by it. Rather than endorsing conspiracy theories, Oswald’s Ghost studies them as anger-driven symptoms of cultural obsession.
Stone, no stranger to exploring the chaotic fallout of politicized violence (among his other recent works is Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst), uses time to his advantage. With a steady progression, he takes a comprehensive look at the lifespan of JFK assassination theories, traveling from the immediate fallout of the shootings to the present day. Isolating the unfixed public awareness of Oswald’s persona, Stone uses it as the key to the mystery and its most intangible ingredient. Early archival footage of a meek Oswald—fielding questions from reporters shortly after his arrest as television cameras capture his police-battered visage—create the first strands of doubt. “He seemed really bewildered,” recalls one interviewee, but Stone quickly balances the tone with the insertion of another subject, who offers a disclaimer: “Oswald probably did do it alone, but there’s an interesting possibility that he didn’t.”
When Stone’s emphasis shifts from exploring the details of the theories to examining their proliferation in hundreds of works ranging in tone from scholarly to exploitative, Oswald’s Ghost offers a unique look at the clash of truth and personal gain. It seems as though the whole country wants to contribute a piece to the Kennedy story, whether for monetary purposes or simply to play a role in the construction of national memory. Stone successfully conveys the unbridled giddiness of diving into the events from every possible angle. Even unnecessary journeys to the fringes of the JFK assassination universe (such as footage from the set of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film) manage to jibe with the filmmaker’s aura of mysteriousness. Stone (meaning Robert, not Oliver) digs so far into the discovery and rediscovery of events immediately before and after the killings at Dealey Plaza in November 1963 that one can imagine him stumbling through a cloudy trail of dead-end pontifications. It would be a lost cause if not for the pathway to steadfast conclusions held together by observing the world of Oswald—or, rather, the world that was, and how it differs from the world that wasn’t.
Oswald is the glue that holds together the rebuttal to the brashest conspiracy theories. His earlier attempt to kill General Edwin Walker more or less proves the man’s violent tendencies, while his blunt ideology suggests an overwhelming hostility toward politicians involved in international affairs. His desire to kill the President emerges, in the estimation favored by the sharpest voices in Oswald’s Ghost, from a calculated insanity.
Oswald’s perceived desire (eloquently put forth by the late Norman Mailer) to use the assassination as a cheap ticket to a spot on the world stage not only makes sense, it’s actually illustrated by the mere existence of the documentary. Mailer posits that Oswald’s hopes were dashed after he accidentally shot police officer J.D. Tippit, which would have eradicated his chances of becoming a sympathetic figure. Stone wisely holds off on this lucid interpretation until the documentary’s closing moments, providing an accurate recreation of practicality in a mess of unending bafflement
Directed by Robert Stone
The selling point of Oswald’s Ghost, Robert Stone’s documentary about the enigmatic blue collar Texan generally regarded as the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is its refusal to dispute the safest assumption. Stone doesn’t argue in favor of Lee Harvey Oswald’s innocence, nor does he make an attempt at the tired route of disproving the lone gunman theory. Those and other radical notions are put to the test with a collage of talking heads (mostly journalists) threaded throughout the movie, but Stone isn’t championing a revisionist history—he’s merely fascinated by it. Rather than endorsing conspiracy theories, Oswald’s Ghost studies them as anger-driven symptoms of cultural obsession.
Stone, no stranger to exploring the chaotic fallout of politicized violence (among his other recent works is Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst), uses time to his advantage. With a steady progression, he takes a comprehensive look at the lifespan of JFK assassination theories, traveling from the immediate fallout of the shootings to the present day. Isolating the unfixed public awareness of Oswald’s persona, Stone uses it as the key to the mystery and its most intangible ingredient. Early archival footage of a meek Oswald—fielding questions from reporters shortly after his arrest as television cameras capture his police-battered visage—create the first strands of doubt. “He seemed really bewildered,” recalls one interviewee, but Stone quickly balances the tone with the insertion of another subject, who offers a disclaimer: “Oswald probably did do it alone, but there’s an interesting possibility that he didn’t.”
When Stone’s emphasis shifts from exploring the details of the theories to examining their proliferation in hundreds of works ranging in tone from scholarly to exploitative, Oswald’s Ghost offers a unique look at the clash of truth and personal gain. It seems as though the whole country wants to contribute a piece to the Kennedy story, whether for monetary purposes or simply to play a role in the construction of national memory. Stone successfully conveys the unbridled giddiness of diving into the events from every possible angle. Even unnecessary journeys to the fringes of the JFK assassination universe (such as footage from the set of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film) manage to jibe with the filmmaker’s aura of mysteriousness. Stone (meaning Robert, not Oliver) digs so far into the discovery and rediscovery of events immediately before and after the killings at Dealey Plaza in November 1963 that one can imagine him stumbling through a cloudy trail of dead-end pontifications. It would be a lost cause if not for the pathway to steadfast conclusions held together by observing the world of Oswald—or, rather, the world that was, and how it differs from the world that wasn’t.
Oswald is the glue that holds together the rebuttal to the brashest conspiracy theories. His earlier attempt to kill General Edwin Walker more or less proves the man’s violent tendencies, while his blunt ideology suggests an overwhelming hostility toward politicians involved in international affairs. His desire to kill the President emerges, in the estimation favored by the sharpest voices in Oswald’s Ghost, from a calculated insanity.
Oswald’s perceived desire (eloquently put forth by the late Norman Mailer) to use the assassination as a cheap ticket to a spot on the world stage not only makes sense, it’s actually illustrated by the mere existence of the documentary. Mailer posits that Oswald’s hopes were dashed after he accidentally shot police officer J.D. Tippit, which would have eradicated his chances of becoming a sympathetic figure. Stone wisely holds off on this lucid interpretation until the documentary’s closing moments, providing an accurate recreation of practicality in a mess of unending bafflement
