Press
Reviews and Blurbs
Peter Wong at BeyondChron:
The beauty of Max Good’s film “The Assassination And Mrs. Paine” is that its inconclusiveness turns out to be the best approach in recounting Paine’s story.
Good, to his credit, doesn’t handwave away the new information he encounters. But his questioning of Paine never veers into either aggressive challenges or softball queries with easy escapes tossed into the wording.
Isn’t “The Assassination And Mrs. Paine”’s refusal to draw its own conclusions about the Kennedy assassination a weakness of the film? Given how that traumatic cultural event has gone from shared reality to a plethora of individual interpretations, Good’s stance becomes an unfortunately logical reaction to human nature.
John Seal at Berkeleyside:
Berkeley-based director Max Good’s film doesn’t draw any firm conclusions, but it also doesn’t shy away from confronting Mrs. Paine with difficult questions — which she bats away with impressive equanimity. CIA agent, Quaker peace activist, or both? Until the federal government finally releases all the relevant classified documents — and Trump and Biden both flinched when presented with the opportunity — we’re unlikely to find out.
Author David Talbot (The Devil’s Chessboard and Brothers):
The Truth Will Set You Free… I just had the chance to view Max Good’s new documentary, “The Assassination & Mrs. Paine” and I highly recommend it to anyone who cares about the tragic trajectory of this country over the past six decades.
Good, whom I met several years ago when he was first setting out on his project as an MFA student at Stanford, had the courage to seek answers. Good’s unsettling line of questions, posed to Ruth near the end of his film, shed a harsh light on this self-righteous Quaker woman.
Watch “The Assassination & Mrs. Paine” — now available on Amazon and iTunes. Dare to know.
Film historian and professor Joseph McBride:
Max Good has made a fascinating, well-researched, provocative documentary on Ruth Paine, a likely collaborator with the CIA in the assassination of President Kennedy. THE ASSASSINATION AND MRS. PAINE is now available for viewing on iTunes, Amazon, Vimeo, and Google Play (it was released on June 14). Max persuaded Mrs. Paine to sit for extended interviews at her retirement home in northern California and confronts her with the evidence. Like