Mr. Stone’s Not So Fine Adventure

Putting the knock on the movie “JFK” has become a cottage industry in the journalism trade. In this recession year I am told that the “JFK” knocking business has thus far consumed 1.2 million words. Very impressive. That is the greatest expenditure of words since 1988 when the knocking-Dan Quayle industry was established and employed hundreds of journalists before it leveled off.

To show the power of this thing, “JFK” has provided enough dismay, scholarly lament and visceral rage to fill 27 columns in the New York Times alone. One columnist, a founder of the knocking industry, recently expressed fear for the nation’s children because of “JFK.” Another has analyzed director Oliver Stone’s childhood, seeking clues that would explain his celluloid crime.

Brilliant strokes, but you get similar results with your Washington Post, your Time and your Newsweek. The word count at Newsweek has passed the 60,000 mark, according to our research, and shows no sign of flagging. This coming week, director Stone is scheduled to speak at a Washington, D.C., luncheon honoring the leaders of the “JFK” knocking industry, and the word count resulting from the luncheon will be wondrous.

You may have noticed that my tally of the “JFK” industry leaders fails to include this publication or our dear journalistic brothers to the north, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner. Alas, it seems that California has missed a trend.

Oh, we’ve put the occasional knock on “JFK” here and there. But nothing much, nothing with real enthusiasm. No, the real “JFK” knocking business is as firmly fixed along the Eastern seaboard as the computer trade is fixed in Silicon Valley.

Why, you say? Glad you asked. Because that is the core of today’s inquiry. Let’s start with a recap of the knocking industry’s beefs against “JFK.” As you probably know, the industry accuses director Stone of making a movie that displays wanton grassy knollism.

And wanton it is. Stone believes that JFK was killed as result of a CIA-Mafia-Army-Navy-LBJ conspiracy, and during the three hours of the movie there is nothing to suggest that any other explanation makes sense. The hero of “JFK” and pursuer of conspirators is none other than Jim Garrison, onetime D.A. of New Orleans who brought to trial the single criminal case involving the assassination.

If Stone’s grassy knollism has a familiar ring, consider this: In the 29 years since Kennedy’s death, some 600 books have been written on the assassination, and most of them have posited one form of conspiracy or another. Each year a couple more get published.

In other words, grassy knollism is as old as the assassination itself. On its own, grassy knollism generates as much editorial heat as a plugged drain. If Oliver Stone, for example, had chosen merely to write the 601st book, titled it “JFK,” and placed it on the dusty shelf along with its predecessors, we would never have witnessed the rise of “JFK” knocking.

So what was the real crime? Simply this: Stone took grassy knollism and made it into a $40-million movie.

And that changed the rules of the assassination trade. With one act of flawed celluloid, Stone suddenly controlled the 29-year-old debate over Kennedy’s death. More people would see that movie than have read all the books in all the libraries. And the former owners of the Kennedy debate, our friends along the Eastern seaboard, found themselves displaced. Outgunned.

Put it another way: Hollywood, operating with its usual disregard for historical honesty, had snatched away a piece of intellectual turf from the ink-stained wretches back East. Said wretches, accustomed to fine-sifting the nuances of the Kennedy legacy, knew they had lost control. And that knowledge hurt.

Well, if possible, let me offer some consolation. The situation may not be as bad as it seems. There are certain truths about movies that are difficult to grasp back East. Out here, we tend to understand those truths because, look, it’s all we got.

The truth is this: The power of a movie tends to last only as long as the lights are down and the screen flickers. While you’re watching, it owns you.

But as soon as you walk out of the theater and the cold air hits your face, the movie starts to evaporate, almost like it’s leaking through your skin. By the time you reach the parking lot, it’s mostly gone.

You weren’t really riding the Chisholm Trail. You weren’t shooting it out with Danny Glover. And you weren’t solving the Kennedy assassination. It was a movie.

In the end, with this kind of struggle, the books will win. And Stone will lose. So sleep tight, wait it out, and watch Variety for falling grosses.