Academy Award Winning Director Oliver Stone Speaks At Rider University

Academy Award winning director Oliver Stone visited Rider University on Nov. 2, and spoke about his film "JFK" and the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. The conference coincided with the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination.

Stone was the keynote speaker in a conference coordinated by the Rider's Film and Media Studies program. 

This fall, Rider offered two courses focused on issues related to the Kennedy assassination including Dr. Thomas Simonet’s course, “The JFK Assassination in Film and Media,” which analyzes representations of the assassination in film and other media; and “The Kennedy Assassination 50 Years Later: Who Dunit?” taught by Dr. James Ottavio Castagnera which examines the various speculative theories about who killed Kennedy.

Stone’s film JFK challenges the findings and the results of the Kennedy assassination. A New Orleans District Attorney takes it upon himself to uncover more information involved in the case, including the theory that there were multiple shooters.

Professor Cynthia Lucia, director of the Film and Media Studies Program and English professor at Rider, was instrumental in bringing Stone to campus. 

“First of all, students in the JFK courses had direct access to Mr. Stone, and were able to hear about the kind of research that went into creating JFK, the movie," Lucia said "Students who are not as familiar with his work also had an opportunity to hear him speak and to ask him questions about the creative and collaborative process more generally.”

Other scholars from the UK, Washington University in St. Louis and SUNY Cobleskill also participated in the panel discussion, along with nine Rider professors. 

As part of the Film and Media Studies program, other events included “JFK and Historical Intervention,” “Oliver Stone: Myth, Philosophy and Religion,” “The Aesthetics of Oliver Stone,” “War, the Presidency and Power,” “Oliver Stone and History,” and “JFK: Media and Meaning.”