The
frontline video gave a really interesting picture of Lee. It made Lee come to life
more than the book usually does by giving pictures and sound bites of
him. When the film talked about how Lee cut his wrists to try to get the
KGB to let him stay in the Soviet Union, that reminded me of in the
book when he shot himself in order to stay in Japan. Linking those two
things makes the historical aspect of Libra all that more real.
I
feel like the book is doing a better job at describing Lee's
transformation into this person who shot JFK better than the film. The
film sorta glosses over his childhood and goes straight into his days of
being in the military. Without those details on his childhood, it sorta
frames him as a monster and doesn't give us the side of seeing that he's
a product of his environment. It's very removed from Lee and his thoughts, which without reading the book at the same time would lead me to believe that he was always a horrible person.
I
guess if you want to respond to this blog post, do you think the film
tries to sway us toward Oswald being a bad person or not?
As with most people who grow up on the margins of society like Lee, there simply isn't a whole lot to go on when reconstructing his childhood (aside from public records, school attendance, and his mother's detailed but often contradictory biography as told to the Warren Commission). So DeLillo is fictionally improvising on relatively scant materials here (Lee cited the Rosenbergs trial as a formative experience for him; his truancy arrest at the Bronx Zoo was his first time "in the system"). Oswald has maybe the most thoroughly documented life of any civilian in the 20th century, and there are still gaps. And as far as understanding his psychology, we're inherently in speculative/analytical territory, drawing meaning from the bits and pieces we have to work with.
ReplyDeleteLike Mr. Mitchell said, I think that the fiction part of the book is especially necessary in filling in this part of Lee's life. I think every action has a reason behind it, and obviously there are factors contributing to Lee's mentality and motives that we could never know. I think general conspiracy theories try to grasp that, but DeLillo is really able to capture the reality of conspiracy that other theories leave out. "More than we know" doesn't just mean government influence, but also childhood factors.
ReplyDeleteI have very little relevant to say since I didn't watch the movie, but I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that the movie gives you pictures and sound bites of Lee because that's sort of the feel that Libra gives me; like it's composed of little bits of detailed sensory information plucked from various places, various characters' lives, woven in with a complicated overarching plot. Of course, these bits are less real than if you're actually watching them happen in a movie, but I can just imagine Delillo getting the inspiration for the vivid little snapshots watching clips or looking at pictures from documentaries.
ReplyDelete