Recounting the tumultuous 1960s and, more specifically, the assassination of President Kennedy, has long been a ceremonial ritual in itself. After the umpteenth classic-rock montage of the decade’s political murders, Woodstock, and the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and after all the postmodern refraction by novelists, avant-garde filmmakers, and artists, it takes a lot to crack open the era and say something genuinely insightful. A new film called “Oswald’s Ghost” is merely a primer, and its simplicity suggests a dismaying assumption by its director, Robert Stone, that the outlines of the Kennedy assassination are being forgotten. Mr. Stone’s last film, “Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst,” had a similar feel. Like his newest effort, “Guerrilla” was a fascinating story, told with striking, little-seen footage and audio recordings, but for those already familiar with the events, it illuminated little, stuck on the singularity of its history.

Of course, more audiences know the history at play in “Oswald’s Ghost,” often by chapter and verse. But Mr. Stone, who designed a 22-part installation on the murdered president for Boston’s John F. Kenned Museum, doesn’t probe the material beyond a static, curatorial look. Aside from tidbits on Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother and a couple of requisite dug-up evidentiary oddities, “Oswald’s Ghost” trots out the familiar incantational boldface-name circuit of Dealey Plaza-Oswald-Zapruder-Ruby-Garrison-Johnson, et cetera.

For the talking-head baton-passing, Mr. Stone has assembled original doubters Mark Lane (the author of “Rush to Judgment”) and Edward J. Epstein (“Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth”), as well as Priscilla MacMillan, a journalist who seems oddly defensive about Oswald’s character. The late Norman Mailer gives sporadic color commentary that perks up the saggy historiography. Also in attendance are Dan Rather, who gave a first-look account of the Zapruder reel for a Texas television station; a well-coiffed Gary Hart, of all people, testifying to Kennedy’s aura; and Columbia journalism professor Todd Gitlin, who is identified first as “student activist.”

“Oswald’s Ghost” implicitly sides with skeptics who deride the infamous magic bullet, articulated by Senator Arlen Specter, who was then a junior counsel for the Warren Commission and is shown in fussy debate on a BBC talk show. And Garrison’s numerological flights of fancy are hoisted by their own absurdity. Otherwise, “Ghost” doesn’t mobilize the evidence toward any particular case, though it does offer notable artifacts, such as extended footage of the black-eyed Oswald’s denials to reporters and a suited Oswald in prouder times distinguishing the finer points of communism and socialism.

A concession to the aura of conspiracy, if not the theories to go with them, comes with recordings from the polygraph test conducted on Oswald associate and Garrison witness Perry Russo. As Russo, zonked on sodium pentathol, relates a possibly dreamt meeting attended by “Leon Oswald,” it’s the sort of riveting and bizarre “evidence” that sends people to the blackboards to scrawl charts of suspicious coincidences and persons of interest.

The sole substantive claim forwarded by “Oswald’s Ghost” (and not just by Mailer) is that the country was inevitably headed toward a progressive majority before the decade’s globe-altering assassinations. Stated so explicitly, this idea becomes significant, because it’s the tacit implication of most ’60s go-rounds that bemoan shattered dreams. Yet needless JFK-burnishing pushes it to the background in “Oswald’s Ghost.”

But as the film winds down, offering clips from the making of Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” the question of lowered expectations is settled: Generational amnesia means that merely recounting history with little comment is regarded as sufficient. And the film’s mention of our post-traumatic era in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, is never developed. To add to the final slate of statistics that runs after the film cues up Mozart’s “Requiem,” 400,000 tourists visit Dealey Plaza annually, 200 books on the subject have been written, and now one more unsatisfying documentary.