Feature: 5 Films That Understand November 22, 1963

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Interview with the Assassin (2002)

The Interviewee (Raymond Barry) Visits the Scene of the Crime in ‘Interview with the Assassin’ Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

Made almost ten years after “JFK,” this low budget gem piggybacks off the former film by taking it one step further – presupposing that the real killer of the president (portrayed brilliantly by character actor Raymond Barry) is still alive and ready to confess to the crime. Directed by Neil Burger (of the upcoming “Divergent”), the film is shot in “found video footage” style, which increases the intense paranoia throughout. Is the character portrayed by Barry telling the truth? The cosmic spotlight of truth is tested as strange events start to occur between the interviewer (a laid off news cameraman) and the interviewee. As more revelations about the assassination are exposed, more danger appears. The film is short on facts, but high on suspicion, and Barry is superb. Available on DVD through Magnolia Pictures.

Parkland (2013)

Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti) Captures Historic Footage in ‘Parkland’ Photo credit: Exclusive Media Group

The most recent JFK assassination film steps back from theory and spotlights the people who had roles on the day of the shooting. Sticking with factual information, it profiles the medical staff at Parkland Memorial Hospital – charged with trying to save a fatally wounded president – Lee Harvey Oswald’s hapless brother Robert (James Badge Dale), local Dallas FBI and Secret Service officials and Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), the innocent Dallas businessman who ends up capturing the most important 25 seconds of the assassination on his home movie camera. An intensely compelling portrait of that weekend – written and directed by Peter Landesman, and produced by Tom Hanks and Bill Paxton – “Parkland” succeeds by displaying ordinary people caught up in an insane series of events. Giamatti is amazing as Zapruder, capturing the odd accent of an immigrant Texan, and the assassination itself is impressively shown from his point-of-view, perched in Dealey Plaza. Available on Blu-ray and DVD through Exclusive Releasing.

BONUS: The Zapruder Film (1963)

The Aftermath: Frame from the Abraham Zapruder Film in the DVD ‘Image of An Assassination’ Photo credit: MPI Home Video

Often called the “most important film in history,” the odd life of a little home movie is as monumental as the event it captured. Shot on a Model 414 Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Camera, the film sequence runs for 26.6 seconds, and has 486 frames. Standing on the concourse in Dealey Plaza, near the grassy knoll, Abraham Zapruder got the key elements of the shooting, including the fatal head shot – which is still stunningly shocking. The film was suppressed from media and public view for 12 years after the assassination, the rights bought by Time-Life magazine, which led to several theories of evidence tampering. It survives as the real deal, a street shooting without tears, and shows an event that changed the country profoundly. Available on DVD (“Image of An Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film”) through MPI Home Video.

I was a toddler when the events of the assassination occurred, but like the babies born in a post 9/11 world, the United States after JFK became a less optimistic, more suspicious place. It was also a precursor to the revolution of the 1960s, which morphed into more assassinations, the war in Viet Nam, Richard M. Nixon and Watergate. The official findings of the “Warren Commission” spawned a cottage industry of theories and deceptions, and even today there are advocates who continue to sponsor the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald – a 1950s drifter who somehow was able to freely travel and defect to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War – was the lone assassin. The truth was killed by Jack Ruby, and obscured through a compliant media, a shocked nation and the persons or entities who wanted this event to happen. Why have a strong, peaceful and optimistic nation when there is chaos to be created, and money or power to be had as a result?

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com