Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Dear Mrs. Kennedy

And so the 50th anniversary begins.

There's a new documentary floating around theaters and cable TV right now called "Letters to Jackie" and it's from Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment banner. 

I knew little about this film except that it's based on a book of the same name by Ellen Fitzpatrick.  But I got an e-mail from my local gem of a vintage movie house "The Crest" that they were screening it one afternoon.  Being the Kennedy and assassination buff that I am, I couldn't resist.

I was one of the few.  There were a total of seven folks in the house.  

But we were seven lucky people who got to see this wonderful movie in advance and we can spread the word prior to its television premiere.  Run, don't walk.  Well, at least to the remote control of your television.

After the President was shot to death on November 22, 1963, Americans were apparently moved enough to take pen and paper in hand to write to his widow.   I guess, in 2013, people would jump on Facebook or a White House website.  Fifty years ago, you needed to compose your thoughts and then affix a postage stamp.   It was a lot more effort.

At the outset of this movie, we are told that, by November 25, 1963, Jackie Kennedy had already received 45,000 letters.  Within the next two weeks, that number had swelled to over 800,000.  And this is at a time when you simply didn't hit "send" to convey your thoughts.

In "Letters to Jackie," filmmaker Bill Couturie takes 20 of those letters and lets that become the script for a terrific look at the Kennedy years of Camelot in the White House.  The only writing in the film is done by those twenty folks who took the time to send Jackie their condolences.  And it is amazing to hear that common Americans can be such magnificent poets.  The words that are shared shine brightly as read by the likes of Channing Tatum, Laura Linney, Anne Hathaway, Allison Janney, Viola Davis, Mark Ruffalo, Octavia Spencer, Chris Cooper, and even Betty White.  

The voices and words that are highlighted serve to demonstrate one more time how deeply our country was impacted by this loss.  Meanwhile, in between the letters, archival footage from the JFK Library in Boston sketches together a stirring retrospective of the Kennedy years in Washington, DC.  You see the statesman.  You see the tough leader.  You see the husband.  You see the father.  Many of the excerpts and clips were new to me, culled from home  movies from the Kennedy compound and the assassination itself.  If you can surprise a Kennedy-phile like me with new material, you certainly have done a great job.

And that's exactly what "Letters to Jackie" is.  One more chance to watch America shine.  Through its President and the Americans who watched him live and then sadly die.

When this movie is in your area, whether it be on the big or small screen, please check it out.

LEN'S RATING:  Three and a half stars.

Dinner last night:  Had a big lunch on the plane so nothing really.


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