Four Days in November

very powerful documentary made in 1964, so it was fresh in everyone's mind. movie centers on nov 22-25, 1963. elm st.. the day before the assassination,, the day of,, and the 2 days after,,, chronicles the action of the VP. the process of the swearing in,, what happened to the body,, the brain all of the stat movie focuses on Lee Harvey Oswald and his life. I watched this entirely for the archival footage and not so much to learn anything new,, I did learn a few things,, but not being born when all of this took place it was nice to get a look at all the archival footage that their was,, this movie was a companion piece to the JFK marathon on the history channel for the 50th anniversary of the assassination. didn't really change my mind about things.. just makes you wonder that much more,, to be honest we probably won't ever have a definitive answer one way or the other of who shot Kennedy,, but I know one thing,, he didn't act alone,,,, that duck don't hunt...

I've just rented this movie and let me tell you that, if you do are not familiar with JFK's assassination, this is the best to have or rent.

It speaks about the tragedy from the first day President Kennedy and his wife arrive in Texas, till the sad day of his burial.

The movie is very well narrated and it makes you feel almost like if we were there at that moment.

We can see all the speeches that JFK did until the morning of his assassination, showing a man with a great sense of humor. It's too bad that he left so early. He looked like a great person even if it wasn't the same advice for everyone.

I appreciated the chronological telling of the story. This documentary relied a lot on narration rather than interviews, but I still think it made for compelling viewing. Everything was tastefully done and reported with accuracy.

There are two reasons I can't give it above an 8 out of 10:

The coverage of the actual day of the shooting felt rushed. I think the existence of the Zapruder film, which the doc-makers would not have known about back then, has made this part of the doc seem lacking by comparison. I can't faul the filmmakers for that, but it's something that dates the documentary.

The other reason this film wasn't perfect was because too much time was given to the somber aftermath. Yes, it was important to include footage from the procession and the funeral, but devoting 30 minutes was too much.

Archival footage is used to recount the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It follows Kennedy before arriving in Dallas as well as following Lee Harvey Oswald's footsteps. There is a small section for the actual shooting in the middle and then the aftermath dominates the second half. It's a very traditional documentary. There is a wall-to-wall old guy narration. It's timely released a year after the assassination. It got nominated for the Oscar. Its traditional newsreel style never really breaks and it follows the story mostly chronologically. The most compelling is probably hearing from Oswald himself and the foreboding description of his life. Basically, it's the standard documentary to encapsulate the event.

Four Days in November (1964)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated documentary taking a look at the four days in November where the country changed forever. I've watch dozens of documentaries on Kennedy and several just this past week on the 50th Anniversary of the president's assassination. I was rather late coming to see this popular film and even though I've seen quite a few there was still countless bits of footage that I had never seen before. I think what really makes this documentary stand apart is that it was made less than a year after the assassination so needless to say there's all sorts of footage that just typically doesn't get shown today. I think some of the most interesting moments deal with the moments right after the assassination when people were just hanging on to see whether or not the president was going to survive his wounds. The aftermath of course is another thing and it's interesting to note that hints of a conspiracy theory on displayed here and a couple of them would later be used in Oliver Stone's JFK. There's no doubt that history buffs will want to check this thing out because there's simply so much news footage that you really get a great idea of what it was like, television wise, when this happened. I will say that the film feels a tad bit long when watched today and it's also a bit too dry and at times lingers on. Still, there's no question that all the news footage makes this one worth checking out.