‘Jackie’ Camelot Myth Teased Out by Natalie Portman

This is FRESH AIR. One is “Jackie”, with Natalie Portman playing Jacqueline Kennedy.

“Jackie” is set in the days immediately following Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 as the former First Lady struggles to maintain her husband’s legacy. While the media captured that haunting image of the first lady wearing black and a veil at the funeral, Portman and company reveal that, behind the scenes, Jackie Kennedy, tormented by the memory of that bullet’s carnage, fought hard to give JFK a send-off for the ages. Film critic David Edelstein has this review.

Indeed, Jacqueline Kennedy lived through “such harrowing events” that nearly no one could directly understand. That wasn’t anything I’d even tried before. A strong and elegant woman who happens to face the most tragic event in her life – the assassination of her husband.

Click inside to read Natalie Portman’s comments on being a child star… Jackie is about the heartbreaking necessity of having to reconcile private shock and anguish with the stage-management of political theater, which requires a swift and peaceful transfer of power.

Telling Jackie’s story was more about finding her human side.

All things considered, Portman says that Jackie was more than just well educated, but also keenly aware of more than she was given credit. During the film’s final scene, Jackie wanders through the empty halls of the White House.

“I just think it’s weird with your own family”, Portman tells PEOPLE. Her father’s womanizing influenced how she perceived marriage at an early age.

“People like to believe in fairytales”, Jackie (Natalie Portman), intones to the journalist Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup).

Jackie’s friend and brother-in-law Robert Kennedy (an outstanding Peter Sarsgaard) worries that his family will just be remembered now as “the attractive people”.

“The accent is very specific”. And that’s what we did, I guess.

PORTMAN: (As Jackie Kennedy) What an terrible way to begin your presidency. And I couldn’t agree more with you. The country couldn’t endure another blow should anything – that’s not to say – if it were up to him, he would do anything that might bring you comfort. Shock and lucidity would seem to be contradictory responses, but Jackie makes that duality seem possible and astonishingly heroic. It’s a amusing thing, you know?

PORTMAN: (As Jackie Kennedy) One hundred three. “I was like ‘all right, this is good”.

Yeah, and I think it’s an unpredictable movie and that unpredictability is what makes it interesting somehow.

PORTMAN: (As Jackie Kennedy) Based on what? I thought we were making something nearly like a documentary and then I saw it and I was like ‘What? We’ve intercepted a threat against General De Gaulle from our assets in Geneva. But then I kind of connected with Jackie herself. Then he called me past year and said that he had seen Pablo Larrain’s film The Club at the Berlin Film Festival where he was on the jury, and he was like, “I think this is the guy”.

PORTMAN: (As Jackie Kennedy) Don’t be. At the end of the day, Jack came back to Jackie – and that was it. Larrain’s wide-screen cinematography is created to envelop the viewer in his characters’ mindsets and the stunning environment around them, so it’s be best to see Jackie on a large screen.