For the Baby Boomers, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy took on the same sense of tragedy as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did for Generation Y -- not only for the effect that it had on the nation's morale but for the conspiracy theories that would follow in its wake as well. In the aftermath of the assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson plunged the country into a divisive and questionable war in part due to paranoia, thus creating an atmosphere of distrust and
disillusionment that would linger for decades to come. Later, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, President Richard M. Nixon's flagrant abuse of power seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of American idealism. In this documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Robert Stone (Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst) speaks with such renowned figures as Norman Mailer, Edward J. Epstein, Tom Hayden, and Gary Hart in order to explore the malaise that still lingers since the Kennedy assassination while drawing telling parallels between that pivotal event and the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Oswald's Ghost is a thorough and systematic primer on how and why the JFK assassination became a generational obsession, and seemed to signal the demolition of at least one version of the American dream.
Of course, it doesn't tell us what really happened; that's still shrouded in mystery and always will be, since Lee Harvey Oswald was shot within two days of his arrest.
Never quite fanning the flames, this superficial, 90-minute documentary only has enough time to touch the surface of the lingering questions surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald.
The more interesting question to raise might be "What toll does it take on a society when someone as inconsequential as Lee Harvey Oswald can slay someone as historically significant as JFK?
Filmmaker Robert Stone doesn't have the answer, but his curiosity about Oswald and the entire assassination experience has been shaped into this fascinating documentary.
Veteran conspiracy buffs probably won't find much of Stone's material particularly new, but Stone's film does serve as a neat summary for the rest of us while offering a number of intriguing insights into how conspiracy theories work...
Though the film may not change many minds about what happened and why, at least it attempts to describe and explain events like few other documentaries on the same topic.
Though the material is hardly fresh, it retains some fascination, and Stone has assembled Oswald's Ghost well, with few of the stylistic tics that marred his Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst.
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.
The title of this nonfiction examination into JFK's assassination implies that its focus is the legacy of Lee Harvey Oswald and his infamous crime, but the truth is far more mundane.
Outstanding (and admirably evenhanded) documentary about one of the most defining mysteries of the last century, from director Robert ("Guerrilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst") Stone.
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