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       Oliver Stone's JFK and the `circulation of social energy' and
                        the`textuality of history.'

Perhaps the most interesting yet tenuous claim of the new historicist
movement in critical theory is that there is a reciprocal relationship
between art and society. Such claims, however, have not always been
convincingly demonstrated because the impact of the artifact on the culture
is difficult to measure. However, the social activism of recent American
cinema creates an opportunity to see this phenomenon at work. Films such as
Thelma and Louise and Boyz N the Hood have had a recognizable impact on
American culture. The claim "Thelma and Louise Live" has become the
rallying cry of women tired of the double standards and abuses of the
patriarchal society. Singleton's Boyz N the Hood has called for an end to
the futile violence of gangland vendettas and has demonstrated the need for
strong and responsible parenting in contemporary households; at the same
time, it inspired violence in the country's urban areas. Each of these
films reveals the continuing relevance of Marx's aesthetic theory: "the
point of intellectual work is not to understand the world but to change it"
(Horwitz 788).

The most striking example of this power of art can be seen in the public
reaction to Oliver Stone's JFK. In addition to the substantial amount of
money that the film has generated that then circulates back into the
economy
reinforcing the dominant values of American culture-namely those associated
with democracy and materialism-the film has had a political impact,
inspiring re-examinations of the circumstances surrounding the Kennedy
assassination, calls for the release of classified documents, and a general
media firestorm.

Literature and other art forms are not only a mirror reflecting the
ideological constructs of a particular dominant culture but also a dynamic
In JFK, Oliver Stone mixes documentary imagery with fictional imagery.
element in the process of social change. As Jonathan Dollimore insists,
there is a reciprocal relationship "between state power and cultural forms"
(3). Thus, while the artists base their work on contemporary social issues,
they remunerate society by reconstructing the very culture that influences
them:

Texts enjoy a privileged position in the continuing process of fashioning
and refashioning consciousness, of defining possibilities of action, of
shaping identities, of shaping visions of justice and order. (Fox- Genovese
222)

Greenblatt refers to this generative power of art as "social energy, "
which
is "manifest in the capacity of certain verbal, aural, and visual traces to
produce, shape, and organize collective physical and mental experiences"
(Negotiations 8). Thus "energy revised within the aesthetic sphere of the
theater recirculates into the non-theatrical world that is transformed by
it" (Thomas 192). Greenblatt's notion of "social energy" is derived from
Foucault's theory that power does not emanate from a few "oppressive
institutions" but is the universal result of social relations: "Power is
everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from
everywhere" (Holstun 200). In this paradigm, cultural artifacts " Produce
the very society that produces them" (Thomas 181). The purpose of such a
theory is to demonstrate that art does not exist in an entirely "autonomous
realm" but is embedded in economics, politics, and social structure"
(Miller
345).

In large part, new historicist theory has been applied to English
Renaissance texts; thus, claims that art forms influence the "complex
network of institutions, practices, and beliefs that constitute the culture
as a whole" are difficult to demonstrate convincingly, especially since the
twentieth-century critic is four hundred years removed from the culture
under consideration (Thomas 180). As a result of this dearth of direct
information regarding public reactions to literary production, scholars
have
told and retold the few events that seem to confirm their thesis-among
them,
the staging of Shakespeare's Richard II (including the oft-censored
deposition scene) on the eve of the Essex rebellion. According to
contemporary scholars, the production was supposed to stir the masses to
mutiny and rage. Tragically, public support for the fiasco never
materialized; the subversives wandered around for a while, feasted and
drank
in a local pub, and finally went home, where they were later arrested. In
this case, it may be that the London dramatists sought to employ their art
in such a way that it would impact on the social structure; however, it is
difficult to argue that the effort was successful.

The purpose of this discussion is to suggest that in the recent reaction to
Oliver Stone's film JFK, the circulation of social energy, so fundamental
to
historicist theory, is overtly manifest. The film itself seems to be
calculated to awaken public outrage and smoldering resentment for what many
believe to be an elaborate conspiracy and cover-up in the assassination.
Indeed, the dialogue of the drama provides the, paradigm for action. An
anonymous official from a covert government agency advises Jim
Garrison/Kevin Costner to stir the

shit storm; try to reach a point of critical mass that will start a chain
reaction of people coming forward; then the government will crack. Remember
fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth, and the truth is on your
side.

Such advice would seem to be a blueprint for the sociological objective of
the film-to create an atmosphere in which public outrage would force the
government to make all of the classified information on the incident
available. Indeed, in the final trial scene, Garrison's address to the jury
is clearly intended to be an encouragement of the American people to strive
for a credible account of the events of that day in 1963. The film even
provides a brief list of the appropriate suppressed documents whose release
it hopes to effect. The specific demand is for the release of "the
fifty-one CIA documents about Oswald and Jack Ruby and the CIA memo on
Oswald's activities in Russia." Garrison tells the jury to show the "world
that this is still a government of the people, by the people, and for the
people," and he reminds them that "nothing in their lives will ever be more
important." Finally, looking directly into the camera, obviously addressing
the cinematic audience, he says, "It's up to you!" The call invokes
Americans' sense of social responsibility, and it appeals to the people' s
desire for justice.

Of course, the righteous resolve that the audience is supposed to
experience
at the conclusion of the film has been catalyzed by a conspiracy theory
which is, even by the director's admission, potentially spurious. The film
begins with newsreels of the highlights of the Kennedy administration: Bay
of Pigs, Cuban missile crisis, and early United States involvement in
Southeast Asia. Such a credible beginning helps to veil the obviously
fictional quality of the other elements in the film. The highly convoluted
story revolves around Jim Garrison, district attorney of New Orleans, who
was the only individual to bring charges in the Kennedy assassination. The
conspiracy that Garrison presumably uncovers involves the military
industrial complex, the CIA, and the anti-Castro Cuban nationals. The film
suggests that Kennedy made a deal with Khrushchev not to invade Cuba if the
Soviet premier agreed to remove nuclear weapons from the island nation.
This action angered Cuban nationals in the United States. In addition, the
conspiracy theory includes Kennedy's planned withdrawal from Southeast Asia
and his desire to break up the power structure of the CIA, two presidential
actions that infuriated the relevant government agencies. As the theory
goes, these various groups concluded that if they could kill the president
and make it look a communist plot, they could justify an attack on Cuba as
well as continued involvement of the United States in Vietnam. Perhaps, the
most shocking attribute of the narrative is Lyndon Johnson's alleged
complicity in the scheme.

Despite the artful and obviously fictionalized account of the historical
event, the film has had the impact of a late-breaking news headline; JFK
ignited a media firestorm, and the reactions of the nation's print media
have been particularly vituperative. The attacks ensued as soon as the
filming of the project began. Jon Margolis of the Chicago Tribune, as early
as May 14, 1991, called the film "an insult to the intelligence"; Anthony
Lewis of the New York Times complained that JFK wrongfully "tells us that
our government cannot be trusted to give an honest account of a
Presidential
assassination"; George Will of the Washington Post referred to the film as
"an act of execrable history and contemptible citizenship. . . "; and
Bernard Weinraub from the New York Times (Dec. 24, 1991) actually called
for
studio censorship and labeled JFK "a divergence from the official record"
(Petras 15-17).

Television programming has also reflected the excitement generated by the
film's release. Oliver Stone appeared on Arsenio to much applause and
postulated a link between the JFK assassination and the murders of both
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Moreover, on CBS news, Dan
Rather, with great zeal, repeatedly attacked the film as fabrication.
Current Affair devoted an entire program to the revelation of new
information that had actually been discovered and dismissed years ago. (I
refer specifically to the audio tape of the assassination that is believed
to reveal more than three gunshots.) The Fox Network aired a conspiracy
documentary that continued the fictionalizing of the event by linking the
assassination to the Watergate scandal. In addition to substantial coverage
on the major networks, the various cable channels have continually run JFK
documentaries. PBS presented the Nova special on the subject, and Arts and
Entertainment has played three documentaries repeatedly: Who Killed JFK?,
The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Kennedy episode in the In Search Of
series. As is always the case when a single issue gets so much attention,
there have been a considerable number of comic parodies that have emerged
in
the wake of the film. It is difficult to forget the hilarious Seinfeld
episode, parodying the magic bullet theory and, on the Weekend Update
portion of Saturday Night Live, the phony newsman announced the CIA' s
intention to release classified documents. He then revealed one of the said
documents; every word had been blotted out except the name Oswald. The
newsman then stated that it is indeed true that Oswald acted alone. Such
media attention reveals the power of art to influence the culture that
generates it. The film energized public interest in the issue.

The academic world has responded to the controversy with articles and
conference sessions, debating not only the film's merits but also the
assassination theories themselves. One such session entitled "JFK:
Conspiracies, Legends, and Mythologies" was formed at the 1992 Popular
Culture Conference in Augusta, Georgia. Moreover, Cineaste, an academic
journal examining the politics of film, devoted half of its 1992 (vol. 19)
issue to the controversy surrounding Stone's film; the articles include
examination of cinematic techniques, discussions of the hysterical press
reactions to the film, theories of history, studies of gender and
homophobia, and interviews with the makers of the film, Oliver Stone and
Zachary Sklar. Finally, I cannot ignore the role of my own discussion in
the perpetuation of these analyses. Of course, the preceding are only a few
of the countless scholarly reactions.

The unprecedented response to the film can be most clearly seen in the
myriad of public statements emanating from official government offices,
most
notable of which is Senator David Boren's legislation, enacted into law
calling for a review of all government documents relating to the Kennedy
assassination. This includes the mysterious files whose release is called
for in the final scene of Stone's film. These documents would otherwise not
have been seen by the public until well into the twenty-first century. The
senator's invocation prompted the new CIA director, Robert Gates, to
release
some files immediately and to deny the involvement of his organization in
any conspiracy or cover-up, suggesting that such innuendos were the worst
kind of falsehood because they inspired mistrust in government. This
release was the same act that inspired the Saturday Night Live parody. Even
more recently, the House of Representatives voted to release most of the
remaining documents, and Congressmen John Conyers commented that the action
might help either to prove or to put to rest conspiracy theories. In his
address to the National Press Club, Oliver Stone expressed his gratitude
that JFK was "a part of the momentum to open previously closed files in the
matter of the assassination." He specifically refers to statements made by
two public officials: Louis Stokes, congressman from Ohio, who chaired the
House Select Committee on Assassinations, expressed his desire to see the
release of classified documents, and Judge William Webster, former director
of the FBI and CIA, urged the disclosure of all information previously
classified by government agencies including the House Committee, the FBI,
and the CIA (Stone 23-24). Another official denunciation of the film was
made by George Lundberg of the American Medical Association who stated that
Kennedy was killed by two bullets from the same gun. He then attacked
Oliver
Stone, arguing that the director was promoting "paranoia" for the sake of
"profit." Finally, the film's influence even reached the highest office of
the government. President Bush, a former director of CIA, announced that he
had never seen any convincing evidence of a conspiracy in the
assassination.

In the past year, the impressive response from officials and civilians
alike
has died down and with it the excitement that some imminent revelation on
the matter was at hand. However, the phenomenon has become even more
interesting as it has receded. The return of the status quo has set off
those few months in bold relief, revealing a significant sociological
phenomenon, the "circulation of social energy." JFK was the first cause.
The myriad of responses of the country resembled a "chain reaction of
people
coming forward" often reacting to each other rather than the film. However,
the theory examining the social production of cultural artifacts is not the
only facet of new historicism that facilitates an understanding of the
sociological impact of Stone's film.

One of the most divisive debates among new historicist critics involves the
role of the artist in the promotion of cultural change. To what extent is
the artist able to escape the ideological predispositions of his age in
order to promote truly revolutionary ideas? Greenblatt maintains that the
individual is "remarkably unfree, the ideological product of the relations
of power in a particular society" (Greenblatt, Self-Fashioning 256- 57).
Thus art forms entertain subversive notions only to reject them and,
thereby, to affirm the dominant culture. On the other hand, Louis Montrose
contends that the artist can achieve a "relative autonomy" in order to
affect cultural change (Howard 36). In a recent book, Alan Sinfield calls
this paradigm in which subversion is usually contained "the entrapment
model" (Sinfield 39). In the film JFK, Stone suggests that it was the greed
of the military industrial complex that fueled the assassination of the
president and that, with his death and the subsequent demise of his
intention to withdraw American troops from Indochina, the industrialists
had
the opportunity to generate billions of dollars in revenues through the
sale
of arms. Indeed the film begins with Eisenhower's now famous warning of the
power of the military industrial complex. My point is to determine the
extent to which the film actually promotes change. Although I would not
attribute to the director any motive other than the ardent desire to
establish justice, I must question the ultimate effect of the film. It
could be argued that it reinforces the same values it condemns. JFK
generated millions of dollars in revenues at the box office, money that
then
circulates into the economy promoting free-enterprise and-the chief
culprits
of the film-greed and materialism.

In a recent trip to Dallas, I was able to witness the growing
commercialization of the Kennedy assassination and to glimpse the way in
which Stone's film has become implicated in other social practices. For
three dollars, vendors on the "grassy knoll" sell seditious newspapers
postulating conspiracy theories and answer questions about the
assassination. When tourists show a further interest in the events of
thirty years ago, the vendors direct them to the "Assassination Information
Center" at West End Market Place approximately three blocks away,
maintaining that the owner was a principal consultant on Stone's film. Thus
in search of this center, the conspiracy minded must weave her/his way
through the crowded market with all of its alluring neon lighted shops. The
wares in the mall are clearly designed to appeal exclusively to tourists
searching for souvenirs. The center itself exhibits a large cardboard
promotional display for Stone's film, and the store's credibility is
presumably confirmed by its owner's association with that film. Here, the
assassination has become business, and JFK serves to publicize that
business, rekindling interest in the mysterious events of 1963. Thus the
energy generated by the film has been redirected into the same social
practices that it regards as responsible for the president's death.

According to new historicist theory, art bolsters the dominant ideology by
demonstrating the ultimate futility of subversion; it may depict rebellion
only to crush it and thus reveal that sedition is pointless (Miller 347).
Consistent with this paradigm, JFK, in its depiction of a vast plot to kill
the president, reveals that resistance to governmental authority is
unavailing and potentially dangerous. The film reinforces the notion that
the bureaucracy of the state is impenetrable, this idea being clearly
manifest in the continual frustrations and final failure of the movie' s
central character, Jim Garrison, as well as the fruitless chaos of the
nation's response to the film. The film's subversive argument regarding the
government's potential complicity in the murder has demonstrated the
validity of the "entrapment model." The accusation against the government
agencies has served only to consolidate their power. The angry public
response to the film reveals this. Even the group most likely to attack the
culprits in the film, the press, has assumed a militant patriotic stance,
affirming the integrity of government (Sharrett 13). It continues this
support despite its own involvement in uncovering covert government
operations that undermine the democratic process, such as Watergate and the
Iran/Contra Affair: these scandals make official involvement in the
assassination seem more likely. So although JFK does promote mistrust in
government and the desire for justice, it does not succeed in making the
government seem assailable. It, therefore, bolsters the dominant power
structure that is portrayed as invulnerable.

One of the common complaints about the film is that it challenges the
accepted history of the assassination, and, in his address to the National
Press Club, Stone takes issue with this assertion, contending that there is
no "settled body of history" for these events; the Warren report is as
mythic as most of the conspiracy theories (Stone 23). This debate over the
validity of historical record is another of the central concerns of new
historicism, one referred to as the "textuality of history." This term
emphasizes the "unavailability of a full and authentic past"; historical
"documents" always "incompletely construct the history to which they offer
access" (Montrose 8). "History is the cognitive compatriot of literature,
available only in textual mediated form" (Horwitz 792). Thus these
historical texts are subject to the same critical uncertainty as are other
rhetorical documents (LaCapra 18-19), and such a conclusion undermines the
notion that one can achieve a truthful and accurate representation of
historical events, dissolving the usual "distinction between the aesthetic
and the real" (Greenblatt Negotiations 8). The historian is in fact a
dramatist arbitrarily reconstructing past events out of the often
conflicting mass of details conveyed to us through problematic language.

It is not difficult to recognize the relation of Stone's film to this
perception of historical knowledge because the director mixes fact,
fiction,
and speculation in the drama. The editing of the film mirrors this view of
history:

. . . the integration of old and new footage suggests the dual time frame
in which the investigation has always operated, the way in which historical
revision is locked in the present while working with fragments from the
past. (Simon 14)

The film provides an illustration of the fragmentary nature of historical
record by blending "television spots, radio announcements, documentaries,
newspapers articles, home movies, books, whispered rumors, or shocked
announcements" (Dowell 10). Generally, the factual information is shown in
the original black-and-white footage, while the reenacted events are in
vivid color; however, occasionally, Stone will reenact scenes in black and
white perhaps to lend them a greater credibility by associating them with
the film's documentary clips or to demonstrate the obviously fictionalized
account of those events that has become official record. One such example
is the interrogation of Oswald at the Dallas Police Department and his
subsequent murder by Jack Ruby (Simon 14). There is actual photographic
documentation of these events, yet Stone has chosen to reenact them anyway.
The purpose for this montage structuring of the film is to demonstrate that
"the past we thought we shared is a mosaic of conflicting histories, a
history just this side of chaos" (Dowell 10).

The public response to the film has consistently indicated a faith in the
availability of an accurate historical reconstruction, and many critics
blasted the film, arguing that it is a bastardization of the truth. Andy
Rooney of 60 Minutes urged his viewers to see the film, but advised them to
remember that it is a fiction. He pointed out that most accounts of
Kennedy's death have been concocted, and, to demonstrate this thesis,
showed
a New York Post headline that said "Hoffa Killed Kennedy." Newsweek
magazine
called the film "twisted truth . . . a film in which the real and the
imagined, fact and fiction, keep shading into one another" (Simon 14).

Despite public uproar over the considerable invention involved in the JFK
script, the film illustrates an important aspect of historical record. It
reveals the glaring unreliability of official accounts of the events. When
challenged to defend his obviously fictionalized theories, Oliver Stone
responded that the burden of proof is not necessarily on him because no
credible explanation of the events has been advanced. Thus his film is not
necessarily a change to widely accepted and firmly substantiated official
theories. Considered in this light, JFK reminds us that those theories that
will be passed on to future generations, those theories that will become a
part of this country's historical legacy are not widely accepted a mere
thirty years after the events, and, with each passing decade, the details
will become even more obscure. The film then suggests that history does
indeed have "many cunning passages, contrived corridors / And issues, "
that
even official history, advertising itself as a faithful account of the
facts, is partially invention. Thus, at the same time that Stone' s film
urges its viewers to seek for truth in the mass of conflicting details
surrounding the assassination, it also confirms that such an account of the
past is unavailable.

The JFK assassination is truly a post-modern experience. Those few moments
in Dallas that are so fraught with history have been the subject of
countless studies, and paradoxically, the event has become obscured by the
overwhelming number of details. Oliver Stone's JFK accurately illustrates
the confusion wrought by too much information, and this is true both of the
film's content and of the public reaction to that content. Just as the
myriad of facts and theories postulated in the film do not ultimately add
up
to a widely accepted conspiracy hypothesis, the hysterical reaction of the
public both for and against the film has dissipated, and for all that toil
and trouble, there has been no significant release of documents, no
important revelations in the matter. Stone's film certainly promotes
subversive notions, and it had a measurable, if momentary, impact on
American culture, but the culture reprocessed all of the seditious
materials
and, out of them, produced a social discourse that legitimizes rather than
undermines the dominant power structure.

Author's note: On August 23, 1993, the social energy released by Oliver
Stone's JFK culminated in the declassification of thousands of pages of
documents on the JFK assassination previously withheld from the public.
Preliminary observations of these documents suggest that they contribute
nothing new to the understanding of this historical event.

WORKS CITED

Dollimore, Jonathan. "Introduction: Shakespeare, Cultural Materialism, and
the New Historicism." Political Shakespeare. Ed. Jonathan Dollimore and
Alan Sinfield. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1985. 2-17.

Dowell, Pat. "Last Year at Nuremberg: The Cinematic Strategies of JFK."
Cineaste 19 (1992): 8-11.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. "Literary Criticism and the Politics of New
Historicism." The New Historicism. Ed. Aram Veeser. New York: Routledge,
1989: 213-224.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Chicago: U of Chicago P,
1980.

--. Shakespearean Negotiations. Los Angeles: U of California P, 1988.

Holstun, James. "Ranting on the New Historicism." English Literary
Renaissance 19 (Spring 1989): 189-225.

Horwitz, Howard. " 'I Can't Remember': Skepticism, Synthetic Histories,
Critical Action." South Atlantic Quarterly 87 (1988): 787-820.

Howard, Jean. "The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies." English
Literary Renaissance 16 (1986): 13-43.

JFK. Dir. Oliver Stone. Warner Bros. 1991.

LaCapra, Dominick. History and Criticism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP,
1985.

Miller, Paul W. "The Historical Moment of Caroline Topographical Comedy. "
Texas Studies in Language and Literature 32 (1990): 345-73.

Montrose, Louis. "Renaissance Literary Studies and the Subject of History."
English Literary Renaissance 16 (1986): 5-12.

Petras, James. "The Discrediting of the Fifth Estate." Cineaste 19 (1992):
15-17.

Sharett, Christopher. "Debunking the Official History: The Conspiracy
Theory of JFK." Cineaste 19 (1992): 11-14.

Simon, Art. "The Making of Alert Viewers: The Mixing of Fact and Fiction in
JFK." Cineaste 19 (1992): 14-15.

Sinfield, Alan. Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of
Dissident Reading. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992.

Stone, Oliver. "Who Defines History?" Cineaste 19 (1992): 23-24.

Thomas, Brooke. The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics.
Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991.

PHOTOS (2): In JFK, Oliver Stone mixes documentary imagery with fictional
imagery.

PHOTO: JFK: Stone perpetuates the commercialization of the actual
historical
setting of the Kennedy assassination.

PHOTOS (10): The mixing of fact and fiction in JFK is accomplished by
employing both well-known actors and actual historical personalities.

PHOTO: Jim Garrison plays the role of Earl Warren in JFK.

~~~~~~~~

By JAMES R. KELLER
JAMES R. KELLER has a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Florida
and is currently a professor of Renaissance literature at Mississippi
University for Women. He is author of Princes, Soldiers, and Rogues: The
Politic Malcontent of Renaissance Drama, published this year by Peter Lang.

Copyright 1993 by Heldref Publications. Text may not be copied without the
express written permission of Heldref Publications.

Keller, James, Oliver Stone's JFK and the `circulation of social energy'
and the`textuality of history.'., Vol. 21, Journal of Popular Film &
Television, 06-01-1993, pp 72.