Last week, when I got my new tape adaptor that actually played music correctly, I found myself listening to Assassins. It's hard to listen to when the radio's not working because of the levels of recording but it's such an incredible soundtrack. It follows the stories of the American Assassins- the four presidential assassins and the five attempted assassins. The four presidential assassins are well known: John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln), Leon Czolgosz (William McKinley), Chalres Guiteau (James Garfield- one of the greatest assassination stories) and Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy). The other five are less well-known: Giuseppe Zangara (FDR), Sarah Jane Moore and Lynette "Squeaky" Frome (Gerald Ford), Samuel Byck (Richard Nixon) and John Hinckley (Ronald Reagan).
It's not as easy to follow the story with the soundtrack because there is a lot more than just the songs. I am still cursing myself for not going to see it when it was in Boise back when I was in college because I just adore the soundtrack. The most interesting character is the Balladeer who watches and narrates the three presidential assassinations, starting with the man who began it all, John Wilkes Booth. The Balladeer later explains to the assassins, who complain the they never got the rewards they were promised, that their actions didn't solve their problems or the country's problems and that their prizes come from following the American Dream. The
assassins realize that they will never get their prizes, that no one will ever care if they live or die, and briefly sink into absolute desperation before Byck coaxes them into not giving up and then leads them into a performance of "Another National Anthem", a song to be sung by all Americans dispossessed by the dream. The Balladeer attempts to convince them to be optimistic and seek other ways to be happy but the Anthem grows louder and louder until the assassins force the Balladeer offstage.
This is where the Balladeer changes to Lee Harvey Oswald, sitting in the Texas School Book Depository, contemplating suicide. He's about to go through it when he is visited by John Wilkes Booth who seems to know everything about him. Booth slowly and carefully attempts to convince him to not become his own victim and to instead assassinate JFK. The world will not remember him for killing himself- it will remember him for killing the president.
Assassins is unique in the way that it looks at the motivation for the assassinations. Guiteau didn't get his Ambassadorship to France. Czolgosz didn't get his job. Lynette Frome wanted her boyfriend, Charles Manson to testify at her trial and convince the world to follow him. Hinckley wanted Jodie Foster to notice and pay attention to him. I'd highly recommend seeing this show if you have the opportunity. Here are a few of my favorite songs.
(can you tell who sings the "Balladeer" part? hint.... suit up!)
(this is the version i have and i just love it....patrick cassidy is incredible as the balladeer)
(i love nph but i really like patrick cassidy's original cast version better- but i can only post it with another song and it's ruuul long so this'll do)
Going along with this theme of assassinating (cheery, eh!?), Mom, Abba and I decided to watch "The Conspirator", a movie about the Lincoln assassination and conspiracy directed by the talented Robert Redford. It follow a young Union captain and lawyer who is forced to defend Mary Surratt, played by Robin Wright. Mary Surratt owned a boarding house where the conspiracy between John Wilkes Booth, Surratt's son Johnny, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt and several others. The plan was for Booth to kill Lincoln, Atzerodt to kill Vice-President Johnson and Powell to kill William Seward (of Seward's Folly). Atzerodt backed out last minute, saying that he had only signed up for a kidnapping (the original plan) and not a murder. Andrew Johnson was never attacked, Seward was saved from a stabbing by his neck brace (he had been laid up from a nasty fall from a carriage) and any red-blooded American knows the fate of Abraham Lincoln.
"The Conspirator" follows mainly the military tribunal trial of Mary Surratt and Aiken's slow transition of skeptic to slowly beginning to uncover evidence that casts doubt on the allegations and conducting a spirited defense. He begins to realize that Mary Surratt is being used as bait and a hostage in order to capture her son, Johnny, who is the only conspirator to have escaped the manhunt after the assassination. It becomes his duty to find and uncover the truth.
I really enjoyed this movie a lot. I loved that there were great actors in nearly every role- Justin Long, Jonathan Groff, Toby Root, Chris Bauer (who I've just been watching almost nightly as Fred Yokas on Third Watch), Johnny Simmonds (I JUST watched him in "The Greatest"), Alexis Bledel, KEVIN KLINE, Tom Wilkinson, and Evan Rachel Wood. I really enjoyed the costumes and the sets, which made me feel like I was back in the 1860s. Also, Robert Redford did a great job with directing. It would have helped to have a little more enlightenment on some issues (the beginning scene with the three pronged assassination would be confusing if you didn't know details of the assassination) but overall, it was a really great movie and I'm glad that we ended up watching it.
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