20 Things You Didn't Know About JFK
3. Those Are Real Tears
The final scene is Jim Garrison's nearly half-hour-long summation of his case, where he lays out everything that supposedly occurred on November 22, 1963. It's the third time we've been through the events, Stone modeling the events at Dealey Plaza and the conflicting accounts of the aftermath after films like Rashomon and Z, each time revealing the assassination from a different point of view.
The speech, it's clear, is a noble failure. One can even see one of the jurors smiling while Garrison's head is turned away from them. But it was real enough for Costner to muster up tears at the conclusion, even though the script didn't call for it.