JFK – Special Edition Director's Cut

Cast View all

	Gary Oldman	Lee Harvey Oswald
	Donald Sutherland	X
	Kevin Costner	Jim Garrison
	Kevin Bacon	Willie O'Keefe
	Michael Rooker	Bill Broussard
	Vincent D'Onofrio	Bill Newman
	Bob Gunton	TV Newsman #3
	Wayne Knight	Numa Bertel
	Laurie Metcalf	Susie Cox
	Brian Doyle-Murray	Jack Ruby
	Pruitt Taylor Vince	Lee Bowers
	Joe Pesci	David Ferrie
	John Candy	Dean Andrews
	Jay O. Sanders	Lou Ivon
	Dale Dye	General Y
	Edward Asner	Guy Bannister
	Sissy Spacek	Liz Garrison
	Gary Grubbs	Al Oser
	Tony Plana	Carlos Bringuier
	Jack Lemmon	Jack Martin
	Walter Matthau	Senator Long
	Sally Kirkland	Rose Cheramie
	Marco Perella	Mercer Interrogator
	Peter Maloney	Colonel Finck
	Tomas Milian	Leopoldo

Crew View all

Director	Oliver Stone
Writer	Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar
Producer	A. Kitman Ho, Arnon Milchan, Joseph P. Reidy, Oliver Stone, Clayton Townsend
Musician	John Williams
Photography	Robert Richardson

Trailer

Edition details

Personal

Notes

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

For JFK's third DVD go-around, Warner has carted out the 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer from the second release, which was an improvement over the first release (at this rate, JFK's 18th release will be the greatest DVD ever made). Director of photography Robert Richardson really mixed it up here, employing differing styles and film stocks on his way to an Academy Award for cinematography. And all of it is rendered beautifully, with very little dirt or print flaws. The heavy filtering gives many shots a warm, white glow. Colors are strong and clean, regardless of Richardson's stylistic choice: vibrant or desaturated, it all looks great. Overall picture can be a tad soft, although only the most attentive DVD lovers will notice. Shadow detail and black levels seem equivalent to the previous release. In all, Warner has done a good job with a difficult transfer.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

This third JFK DVD release also features the same remixed English 5.1 Dolby Digital and 2.0 Dolby Surround track from the second release (which was, say it with me, “an improvement over the first release.”). The surrounds are employed to dramatic effect for gunshots, music stings and other sound-effect trickery. Lefts and rights also sound aggressive when necessary. John William's score sounds particularly warm. Dialog is clean, however effects like background TV noise occasionally render the dialogue hard to discern.

A French 5.1 dub is also included, as are English Closed Captions and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

As part of an obvious conspiracy to wring more money out of JFK fans, Warner is re-issuing the film as a full-blown, two-disc set with some old and new extras.

Disc one contains the same Oliver Stone screen-specific audio commentary from the previous release. This rates up with most of the tracks Stone has recorded lately, and as usual he is well-spoken, intelligent and always articulate. Surprising to some, he is not some irate conspiracy theory nut foaming at the mouth; rather, he methodically discusses the intricacies of the plot, the assassination and of course the controversy that greeted the film. A very good track and a must for Stone fans.

Onto disc two and a big new supplement that's actually worth the price of the new disc. It's Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy, a comprehensive and fascinating documentary co-directed by Danny Schechter and Barbara Kopple. Produced in 1992, the film uses Oliver Stone's JFK as a jumping off point to explore the president's death and the various theories surrounding it. Schechter and Kopple utilize mountains of archive footage and interviews, which are combined with plenty of new interviews. In fact, it seems everyone who ever arranged the letters J, F and K in a sentence is included. And there's some great stuff, including an archival sound bite from Cuban president Fidel Castro. After reconstructing the events of November 22, as well as Lee Oswald's assassination two days later, the doc spends most of its 90-minute running time discussing the most plausible conspiracy theories. CBS newsman Walter Cronkite is the most notable participant who believes Oswald acted alone, end of story. Most others are at least willing to entertain the idea that other forces were at work. JFK's stance on Vietnam raises the most eyebrows: some believe Kennedy was killed by the always-ominous sounding military-industrial complex because he was getting ready to pull troops from Vietnam. The documentary also focuses on the many JFK assassination buffs, who make roadtrips, build models and hold conventions to discuss their almost fetishistic interest in Kennedy's death. One leaves Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy fairly convinced that Kennedy's murder was not a one-man operation. How far the tentacles reached will always be in question, but it seems obvious that something was very rotten in Dealey Plaza. The doc is presented in full frame and the audio is a boring two-channel affair that requires an upward volume adjustment. Still, no one is watching this for the audio quality.

This new DVD release carts out the 45 minutes of deleted scenes from the previous release. They can be played with or without instructive audio commentary from Oliver Stone, who provides more pertinent information here, as he discusses Jack Ruby's death from pancreatic cancer and other interesting JFK minutia. Thankfully, included in the menu for the deleted scenes is a notation of whether the scene is an extension of an existing scene or if it was totally deleted.

The second disc also includes an anamorphic 1.85:1 theatrical trailer, and two multimedia essays, "Assassination Update - The new Documents" and "Meet Mr. X: The Personality and thoughts of Fletcher Prouty." Oddly, neither of these extras are "multimedia," nor are they really “essays.” Maybe Oliver Stone can investigate that. The Mr. X segment is a collection of three video interviews with Fletcher Prouty running 15-minutes, while the Assassination Update is really a 30-minute featurette on the post-film controversy and release of new assassination documents. This featurette is a narrated montage of film clips, text from the documents and other photos.

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