Line #8 Film/Parkland


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/parkland_ver4_xlg.jpg]]
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3	''Parkland'' is a 2013 film directed by Creator/PeterLandesman.
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5	It is about the 1963 assassination of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy. The famous and infamous people associated with the Kennedy assassination--John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson--are mostly offscreen or TheFaceless. Instead the story is told through the POV of various observers: the Parkland Hospital trauma staff, the Secret Servicemen on the presidential detail, the Dallas FBI office, and Lee Harvey Oswald's brother. All of them have their lives turned upside down when the president is murdered in Dallas, Texas.
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7	The AllStarCast includes Creator/ZacEfron, Creator/ColinHanks, Creator/MattBarr, and Creator/MarciaGayHarden (Doctors Carrico, Perry, and Mikkelson and Head Nurse Nelson, respectively); Creator/RoryCochrane (Earl Rose); Creator/JackieEarleHaley (Father Oscar Huber); Creator/RonLivingston and Creator/DavidHarbour (Agents Hosty and Shanklin of the Dallas branch of the FBI); Creator/TomWelling and Creator/BillyBobThornton (Secret Service Agents Roy Kellerman and Forrest Sorrels); Creator/PaulGiamatti as Abraham Zapruder; and Creator/JamesBadgeDale as Lee Harvey Oswald's brother Robert.
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9	It was released on October 4, 2013 in the United States.
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12	!!Tropes for the Film:
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14	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Mostly avoided in what was a highly accurate film. However, in RealLife Hosty actually interrogated Lee Oswald in the Dallas jail on November 22 and this was when he realized that Oswald left the note. In the film this is omitted.
15	* AssholeVictim: Lee Harvey Oswald, everybody. The HospitalGurneyScene ends with the Parkland staff wheeling Oswald into Trauma Room Two because they don't want to treat him in Trauma Room One where Kennedy died. When Perry briefly thinks that they might be able to save Oswald, he says "We might get to keep this one," only for someone else to answer "Do you want to?".
16	* DestroyTheEvidence: On the orders of his boss, Agent Hosty burns his file on Lee Harvey Oswald as well as the note Oswald had left for Hosty at the office. In RealLife this incident has been fodder for conspiracy theorists ever since.
17	* DiesWideOpen: Kennedy's face is never shown but Oswald's is, staring sightlessly upwards from the operating table.
18	* DisturbedDoves: Pigeons flap upwards at Lee Harvey Oswald's sad funeral.
19	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Almost all of them, right down to Abraham Zapruder's secretary who was there with him as Zapruder took his famous film.
20	* HospitalGurneyScene: Both JFK and Oswald are dramatically wheeled through the hallways of Parkland.
21	* InvisiblePresident: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The film never shows the face of the actor playing JFK. LBJ's face is only shown once, when he refuses to leave Dallas without Jackie.
22	* ItsAllAboutMe: Lee and Robert Oswald's mother Marguerite (Jacki Weaver) is shown to be an epic narcissist. When her son Robert meets her at the police station she says "Well, you finally found me!" Throughout the weekend she's preoccupied with how much money she's going to get from the tragedy.
23	* LonelyFuneral: As in RealLife, the only people to show up for Lee Oswald's funeral are his mom, brother, and wife (and his two baby daughters). Robert Oswald has to get reporters at the scene to help him carry the coffin.
24	* MagicalDefibrillator: Played straight, with the Dallas doctors using a defibrillator on a flatlining Lee Oswald, complete with dramatic "clunk" noise and Oswald's body violently jerking off the gurney. Only averted when Oswald does not revive movie-style.
25	* ManlyTears: Abraham Zapruder bursts into tears when he finally meets up with his wife after a very eventful day.
26	* OhCrap: Just about the Oh Crappiest OhCrap movie that ever Oh Crapped. Some standout OhCrap moments include a close-up on Abraham Zapruder's face as he watches the President get murdered, and the horrified reaction in the Dallas FBI office when they realize that not only did they have a file on Oswald, he had visited their office just ten days previously.
27	-->'''Zapruder:''' They killed him!
28	* ThePlace: Parkland Hospital, where both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were taken.
29	* PinkMist: Yes it definitely can happen when one is shot by a high-power rifle bullet. Abraham Zapruder and the people who watch the freshly developed UsefulNotes/ZapruderFilm all gasp in horror when John Kennedy's head explodes into PinkMist.
30	* ReflectiveEyes: The UsefulNotes/ZapruderFilm is first shown reflected in Abraham Zapruder's glasses as he watches in horror, right after the film is developed.
31	* StockFootage: Peppered with stock footage of Kennedy's trip to Dallas and the aftermath of the assassination.

Context Film / Parkland