June 9, 2012

A television documentary project

Hello,

What a story !

As a French person who has been interested in the Kennedy assassination for years, a published author who is on the Warren-Posner-Bugliosi side, I am getting ready for the 50th anniversary.
As the new, revised and expanded French edition of my Kennedy-assassination book should be out any day now, after having been read and proofread by my publisher, I am now working on the English edition, but it takes longer than I thought.
In the meantime, I am working on a big project : a TV documentary. Indeed, I am currently having talks with a French TV documentary producer with whom I have a good chance of making a documentary on the JFK assassination. For obvious reasons of secrecy, I cannot give any specifics here, as to what angle we have chosen and so I shall not, in this message, go into further details about our project. I can only say that we want to interview some researchers.
The aim is to make a documentary for French television, conducted in English with American researchers and subtitled, that would later be distributed in the United States for the 50th anniversary.
I am now working on the synopsis. Our aim is to get the equipment and the funding from the TV producers.
About a week ago I started letting my goal known on the Internet, sending messages to prospective interviewees, namely well-known researchers who surely have interesting things to share.
I made it clear that we don't want to take sides in our documentary : our aim is to serve history, and not any specific theory (neither mine nor any other’s). That's a promise.
I hope this documentary will be a success. The interviewees don't have to agree with me, nor be fond of me, nor anything, to accept to be interviewed. And we will not censor anything. I repeat : we're not doing a documentary on my work, nor on my views about the Kennedy case. We want to do a documentary on the Kennedy assassination, pure and simple.
Alas.
A thread was opened by researcher Pat Speer on The Education Forum (with the aim of helping my message to be known) and unfortunately, all the members who hold a grudge against me (for whatever reason, even invalid) started pouring their "anger" (for lack of a better word) without even knowing what I had in mind, let alone consider the issue. That's too bad. [the funny part is that most messages were written by unknown people whom I would NEVER want to interview anyway…]

So I have to reply here in three parts :

-1. Granted, o
ver the years, I have sometimes "slapped" people in writing. But I was slapped in return. I have indeed insulted people at times, but it is also true that I have been insulted in my turn. I have, on occasion, been rude, and have received my share of rude replies as well. Granted, I have not always been respectful of people or rules. But I am not the only one, that's for sure ! Well, I know a lot of researchers don't really appreciate me, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I can't reverse the clock. But I don't mind. And that's not what's important. What matters here is whether an unbiased documentary could be produced and could be of interest to all those who have researched the Kennedy assassination. If I can make such a documentary, wouldn't it be good if well-known researchers came to share their views, instead of throwing their sarcasm at me without even listening in the first place ?

-2. On The Education Forum, David Lifton had the nerve to mention the occurrence when I met him and interviewed him in 1996, at the JFK-Lancer conference. Lifton wrote what seems to me to be a derogatory comment. Let me add my comments here. I did two taped-interviews of David Lifton : one, in 1990, of a long telephone conversation we had. And the second one in 1996, in Dallas. In the six-year span, I had tremendously increased my knowledge by reading books and was no longer a Lifton fan. I easily cornered him by asking him questions to which he had no answer (such as : "If there were only shots from the front, how do you account for Connally's wounds ?", or : "So you are saying that the plotters decided to have Kennedy shot from the front while accusing a so-called patsy to have fired from the rear. Is there any logic in your proposition ?", and so on…). Lifton had no answer. He was cornered. He could not find any reasonable thing to say. I was very disappointed. He may have felt upset because, here he was, facing a man with critical-thinking skills, who did not want to buy his nonsense. Which is why he wrote his post on the Education Forum earlier today. Well, whatever … It is well known that I do not believe in Lifton's theories. He is a conspiracy believer whom I debunk in my book. He and I are on opposite sides. OK, granted. Still, I would have loved to have him in my documentary. And I would have interviewed him with respect, letting him share his views, without even trying to give my opinion.

-3. Our documentary can only exist if we can interview well-known researchers. I have been able to get in touch with several researchers. So far I have received a good number of answers. If I am not mistaken (and please correct me if I'm wrong), here are the answers I have yet received :

John McAdams : agreed to be interviewed
Robert Harris : agreed to be interviewed
Walt Brown : agreed to be interviewed
Pat Speer : agreed to be interviewed
Anthony Summers : contacted but no answer yet
Greg Burnham : wants none of it, without even listening to what I have to say
David Lifton : wants none of it, without even listening to what I have to say
James DiEugenio : wants none of it, without even listening to what I have to say

I am still hoping that the word will be passed around. I would like my list to expand.

I'd like to interview these researchers : Jim Marrs, Ian Griggs, Mark Lane, Robert Groden, Harrison Livingstone, Gerald Posner, Stewart Galanor, Cyril Wecht, Jim Moore, Henry Hurt, Michael Kurtz, Edward Epstein, Josiah Thompson.

I don't know much about making documentaries. I only know about the Kennedy assassination. That's why being helped by professionals is such a good opportunity that I don't want to pass up.

If I can make it, fine, I'll be happy. But if I can't, for lack of candidates, well, then, too bad. No big deal. I'll survive.

Regards,

/François Carlier/

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