# Oliver Stone's 'President' movies

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 16, 2000, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918 "2000-12-16T17:25:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918/1 "2000-12-16T17:25:01Z")

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He’s planning another one, this time dealing with the assassination attempt on Reagan by John Hinkley.

And while I remember watching JFK’s point-by-point assault on the Warren Commission’s report and his weird treatment of Nixon, I have always wondered about the historical accuracy of Stone’s movies. Particularly the whole “back and to the left” bit in JFK.

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**Author:** ![Road\_Rash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@Road\_Rash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Road_Rash)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918/2 "2000-12-16T17:33:13Z")

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Historically accurate? Not even close. He took a number of conspiricy theories and threw them into a piece of historical fiction. I can’t think of all of them, but it really started losing me when Oswald’s picture was edited by adding guns. And the testimony of that attorney during the trial? Pure trash. I certainly would have said not guilty if I was in that jury.

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918/3 "2000-12-16T17:36:40Z")

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If Oliver Stone’s credibility was the only evidence I had, I reserve my opinion on whether there was even a president named Kennedy.

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**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2000, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918/4 "2000-12-16T22:38:57Z")

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Well, what about…?

[http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert\_reviews/1991/12/686250.html](http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1991/12/686250.html)

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2000, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stones-president-movies/45918/5 "2000-12-17T00:23:46Z")

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Even if you like or respect Ebert as a film critic, he is not a historian. (Even Ebert notes that Stone

> [@](#):
>
> rewrites history to supply his Garrison character with material he could not have possessed at the time of these events.

and

> [@](#):
>
> That is not to say that we are quite sure, when it is over and we try to reconstruct the experience in our minds, exactly what Stone’s conclusions are. “JFK” does not unmask the secrets of the Kennedy assassination.

If you are interested in the facts of the JFK assaination, there are good works on the subject.

Stone is a polemicist (and a good one) with a vision of how he sees the U.S. vs how he thinks the U.S. _should_ be. Like him or loathe him, Stone is powerful. However, Stone rarely tries for deep historical accuracy. He is interested in the vision, not the grubby little facts.