{"id":6322,"date":"2017-01-11T08:10:07","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T13:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6322"},"modified":"2017-01-24T09:12:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T14:12:52","slug":"jackie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6322","title":{"rendered":"Jackie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jackie,Chilean director Pablo Larra\u00edn has created a mesmerizing film (trailer<\/a>) about 34-year-old former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy during the unimaginably painful three days between the assassination of our 35th President and the funeral she orchestrated for him. A chief virtue of the film is that, although it is deeply moving, it is free of typically sentimental Hollywood touches. For Americans who remember those days, the film will unearth many painful memories.<\/p>\n

The film purports to recreate the interview between Mrs. Kennedy (Natalie Portman)\u2014caught as Rex Reed said \u201cin the tragic headlights of history\u201d\u2014and an unnamed interviewer (Billy Crudup). In real life, the interviewer was prominent political journalist and historian Theodore H. White and, as in the movie, the interview took place only a week after the assassination for this issue<\/a> of Life<\/em> magazine. You can see his handwritten notes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jackie appreciates the historical significance of her husband\u2019s murder and is determined to give her husband his due. This is as much because she believes the office deserves it as it is to assure his legacy. She takes inspiration for the funeral from that of another assassinated leader, Abraham Lincoln. In the midst of her grief, she embarks on an exercise in myth-making in which the interviewer (again, as in real life) is complicit.<\/p>\n

She has had her own accomplishments, of course. She has restored much of the White House<\/a> with historical accuracy and invited cultural icons for performances there. Her aim, she says, was to make everything in the People\u2019s House \u201cthe best\u201d it could be. In the three compressed days before the funeral, it is sometimes as if she is moving underwater through an ocean of grief. Yet much is demanded of her: planning the funeral and selecting the burial site, celebrating her son\u2019s birthday November 25, preparing to move out of the White House, and supporting her children.<\/p>\n

Natalie Portman well captures Jackie\u2019s breathy delivery and Peter Sarsgaard Robert Kennedy\u2019s Boston accent. Both give excellent performances, allowing you to set aside differences in physical appearance. As a result, Caspar Phillipson, who bears such a striking resemblance to Jack Kennedy, is startling in his brief role.<\/p>\n

Larrain assembled a strong supporting cast\u2014principally, Greta Gerwig as Jackie\u2019s secretary, Nancy Tuckerman; Billy Crudup as the interviewer; John Hurt (whom I did not at recognize at all) as the priest called in to counsel the distraught widow; and Richard E. Grant as her design consultant.<\/p>\n

Next November 22, it will be 55 years since the assassination, and still the loss of innocence, the loss of Camelot, haunts us. Though this idyllic association was inspired by Jackie and first popularized by White, it took root in Americans\u2019 minds because it seemed so right.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics\u2019 rating: 87%; audiences: 73%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chilean director Pablo Larra\u00edn has created a mesmerizing film (trailer) about 34-year-old former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy during the unimaginably painful three days between the assassination of our 35th President and the funeral she orchestrated for him. A chief virtue … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Jackie - a moving, but never cheaply sentimental, portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy's actions between JFK's assassination and the funeral she planned","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[265,266,57,104],"tags":[778,777,782,521,776,779,780,781],"class_list":["post-6322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-history","category-movies","category-the-morgue","tag-billy-crudup","tag-jackie-2016-film","tag-jacqueline-kennedy","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-natalie-portman","tag-pablo-larrain","tag-peter-sarsgaard","tag-white-house"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-jackie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6324,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6322\/revisions\/6324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}