Film info

A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy

BAFICI 2009
dates & times 
Info
Year:

2008
Original Title:

A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy
País:

Estados Unidos 
Director:

Robert Drew
Color:

Color
Format:

Video: Digibeta
Duration:

90 min
Cast:
  • Alec Baldwin, Jacqueline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy
Production:
  • GUIÓN: Robert Drew
  • FOTOGRAFÍA: Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles
  • PRODUCCIÓN: Anne Drew

Synopsis

This compendium of images starts letting us know that John F. Kennedy is, at least for cinema, one of the most important American presidents. The reason is that he was the first one from whom tons of images recorded with simultaneous sound are kept, due to the appearance of the first light cameras and sound equipments in his time. Jean-Louis Comolli says that the possibility of filming at the same time the words of any individual and his body turned “legible the multiple ways (unexpected if not unconscious) experienced by the subject of the relationship of his body and his word with the machine that films them.” Apart from this exceptional and revealing circumstance, another one appears in this case, taking into account that the object of the takes wasn’t just “any individual”, and neither was his situation. It’s fascinating in equal amounts to see the capture of a certain intimacy as well as the strategies of representation, at this point political rather than cinematic, and even the imperfect textures of certain TV sequences that unfold with the revealing lucidity provided by the passing of time.