The President and the Provocateur: The Parallel Lives of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

President John F. Kennedy was said to have been murdered by a lone crazed gunman in a Dallas motorcade a half-century ago. The accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was also murdered under mysterious circumstances just a couple days later. Alex Cox, like most of the American and British public, does not buy into the moth-eaten establishment tale about the regicide. The President and the Provocateur is not the usual conspiracy volume, and is structured almost like the film Rashomon, including varying views of the story with different fonts and sizes. The Kennedy assassination saga has obsessed filmmaker Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy) for most of his life. The President and The Provocateur is Cox's informed meditation on the conspiratorial tale, and as such is an imaginative rendering of the parallel structures of the lives of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. Cox's films are available from the renowned distributors Criterion, the BFI, and Microcinema. They include Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, and Walker.

Reviews

"Anyone who has seen one of Cox's films knows he is a great story teller, and this book is no exception. He lays out the history of events leading up to and after the assassinations of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald in a clear and easy to understand manner. He not only does a remarkable job of bringing the charged political atmosphere of the late 1950s and early 1960s to life on the page, but does his best to be as objective as possible." - Richard B. Marcus, Seattle PI "This focus on American extremism isnt unexpected if youre familiar with Cox as the dissident, migr filmmaker behind Repo Man and Walker. If some Kennedy obsessives will inevitably depart from the personal view Cox lays out in the last chapter, its nonetheless fascinating to learn how his lifelong interest began as a 15-year-old in the U.K.back when Warren Commission skepticism was a little more fashionable." --Georgia Straight
"Anyone who has seen one of Cox's films knows he is a great story teller, and this book is no exception. He lays out the history of events leading up to and after the assassinations of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald in a clear and easy to understand manner. He not only does a remarkable job of bringing the charged political atmosphere of the late 1950s and early 1960s to life on the page, but does his best to be as objective as possible." - Richard B. Marcus, Seattle PI "This focus on American extremism isnt unexpected if youre familiar with Cox as the dissident, migr filmmaker behind Repo Man and Walker. If some Kennedy obsessives will inevitably depart from the personal view Cox lays out in the last chapter, its nonetheless fascinating to learn how his lifelong interest began as a 15-year-old in the U.K.back when Warren Commission skepticism was a little more fashionable." --Georgia Straight

Author Bio

Alex Cox: Alex Cox is a film director, screenwriter, actor, and author. Among his features are REPO MAN, SID & NANCY, WALKER, and REVENGERS TRAGEDY. He teaches film production and screenwriting at the University of Colorado, is married to author and publisher Tod Davies.