Days after her husband was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy sat down for an interview with LIFE magazine. She told the interviewer that she couldn’t get a particular line from one of his favorite songs out of her head: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.”
That line, from the 1960 musical Camelot, would come to be associated with JFK’s presidency and now, more than 50 years later, it is spoken by Natalie Portman in the first trailer for Jackie, in which she plays the former first lady. The film by Pablo Larraín debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month to rapturous raves, especially for the performance of its leading lady.
The movie takes place in the days following the assassination, framed around the LIFE interview which forces its subject to look back on her life with the 35th president of the United States. The trailer, at first, plays like a montage of home video reels—Jackie as dignified public figure, picture of elegance, doting mother—but quickly ratchets up the drama of sudden loss and grief and desperation.
Jackie hits theaters Dec. 9.
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