JFK: History on Film; The Biopic

--As docudrama: where/how is the balancing in JFK of actual material and melodramatic form?

As melodrama: who is the weaker, victimized party here?

Is there the kind of moral clarification we associate with melodrama?

--As historical film: what ethical issues arise? Why?

--As historiography: what claims does JFK make (and how does it do it) about:

--“facts”

--knowledge

--inquiry

Is the “outlaw history” Oliver Stone says he presents in JFK empowering?

--How does JFK (as history) support Rosenstone’s argument that history is constructed? What does the film say about the process of formulating history?

--What are the conventions of historical film? How do these function in JFK?

--Rosenstone says “history must be fictional in order to be true” (p. 70)—how does this idea apply in the case of JFK?

--To what extent is JFK a biopic, according the conventions of that kind of film outlined by George Custen?

--What are the kinds of warrants evident in the classic biopic? Are they at work here?