The assassination of President John F. Kennedy. We know the story. We know the key facts. Dallas. Convertible. Connallys. Dealey Plaza. Texas School Book Depository. Lee Harvey Oswald. Parkland. Arlington. Jack Ruby. Warren Commission. Zapruder film. Our nation stayed glued to the television for three days watching our president’s assassination, the murder of his assassin, and the funeral procession of our nation’s leader. On national TV, we saw Jackie’s desolate wandering on the march to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Caroline’s timid grasp to her mother, John John’s iconic salute. We were heartbroken, still deeply attached to the president we felt like we personally knew. We felt like we were there, yet we weren’t in the backseat of the Lincoln Continental convertible like the president’s wife. We don’t understand the trauma of seeing the atrocity first hand and dealing with its effects. But the December release, “Jackie,” is showing us.
“Jackie,” with the leading role played by Natalie Portman, recounts Jackie Kennedy’s experiences following the President’s assassination in November 1963, as the widow is interviewed by a journalist in the Kennedy Hyannis Port home in the days following her husband’s assassination. Meant to give the ever private First Lady the opportunity to open up and reveal her hidden side to the public, Jackie conforms the interview for her own purposes. She uses the occasion to ideally preserve her husband’s legacy, and cleverly only permits the article if she is allowed to edit it herself. Throughout the interview, she informs the world what she wants them to remember of her and the President, not necessarily how things were. Here, Jackie first refers to the Kennedy presidency as the glamorous Camelot, alluding to the record that President Kennedy loved to play from the 1960 musical about King Arthur: “Don’t let it be forgot, That once there was a spot, For one brief shining moment that was known, As Camelot.”
The film uses the interview to show how talking to the reporter stimulates Jackie’s memory as she remembers the events surrounding the assassination. The plot unfolds as a series of separate memories, viewed as flashbacks into the past, that together connect the thriving Camelot, the three fateful days, and Jackie’s life after the White House. What at first seems confusing and awkward is used to mimic her mind remembering the tragedy. Known for being withdrawn from the public, the film delves into Jackie Kennedy’s brain, showing us the emotional side she kept hidden. Jumping to different scenes, the “Jackie” covers White House balls, her famous White House tour following her extensive renovations, and, near the end, the assassination from her side. The film details Jackie’s part in the funeral preparations, her marching in the funeral procession, and her switch to happy mother to celebrate John John’s third birthday back at the White House after the funeral.
Many of the scenes show Jackie Kennedy alone in her room at the White House, showing us the Jackie we never saw, the Jackie she kept carefully hidden from the public, masked with her publicly composed disposition. But alone, we see Jackie—confused, depressed, desperate, heartbroken—unraveling as she realizes her future of raising her two fatherless children alone.
“Jackie” also includes Jackie’s struggling faith after the assassination, as she confides in a Roman Catholic priest throughout the film. Once a devout Catholic, Jackie finds herself hostileto the God that allowed the assassination of her husband. The priest tells Jackie the parable of the blind beggar. “Right now you are blind. Not because you’ve sinned,” the priest informs the grieving Jackie, “But because you’ve been chosen — so that the works of God may be revealed in you.” Gradually, over the strained conversations, the priest begins to soften Jackie’s heart and help her accept God’s acts. “Every night when I climb into bed, turn off the lights, and stare into the dark, I wonder…is this all there is?” he tells her. “And then, when morning comes, we all wake up and make a pot of coffee . . . God, in his infinite wisdom, has made sure…it is just enough for us . . . The darkness may never go away. But it won’t always be this heavy. Come. They’re waiting for us at Arlington.”
Portman’s supreme ability to master the multitude of the First Lady’s emotions, earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Complete with superb costuming (also nominated for an Oscar, as well as the music score), real footage from November 1963, and Portman convincingly conquering Jackie’s iconic voice, “Jackie” proves to be a captivating film that offers deeper insight into Jackie Kennedy’s side of the tragedy, and her ultimate acceptance. As Jackie furiously edits the journalist’s notes at the end of the interview and film, the journalist says, “The entire country watched the funeral from beginning to end. Decades from now, people will remember your dignity, and the majesty…They’ll remember you.” Jackie Kennedy’s ability to overcome the trauma, shelter her children from the media’s greedy eye, and maintain her faith, preserves her legacy as a woman who upheld dignity and grace, as a woman we will continue to revere, long after the end of Camelot.
Sarah Kikel ’18
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