Oliver Stone: The Stone Age
Platoon is filled with numerous dismemberments and disfigurements, as is Born on the Fourth of July, in which Tom Cruise gets shot in the chest in Vietnam and loses the use of his sex organs. Male urinary-tract problems resurface in The Doors, where Val Kilmer's propensity to show off his tumescent manhood results in all sorts of legal wrangling and leads to several unparalleled American tragedies: Morrison's death, the subsequent death of his wife, and the release of the song "Touch Me."
Then, in JFK, Stone returns to the leitmotif that has served him so well in the past: exploding skulls. When JFK was released, a friend of mine speculated that Stone's next movie would be about Jim Jones or the Moonies or the Church of Scientology, but I'm not so sure. When you're dealing with a guy as obsessed with head trauma and ball-busting sluts as this guy, you've got to figure Marie Antoinette is going to turn up eventually.
All this said, it would be a mistake to dismiss Oliver Stone's movies as merely spectacularly obvious, misogynistic buddy films in which people lose important parts of their bodies. Oliver Stone's movies are spectacularly obvious, misogynistic buddy films in which people lose important parts of their bodies that already have lots of drugs in them. Midnight Express is a movie that deals with testicle loss in which the drug of choice is hashish. Scarface depicts the bifurcation of a human skull with a chain saw; the drug of choice is cocaine. Year of the Dragon has decapitation, bullet holes in the cheeks and strangulation with piano wire; the drug of choice is heroin.
In Born on the Fourth of July, a paraplegic Platoon, the drug of choice is tequila (yes, alcohol is a drug). Platoon itself showcases men shot in the head and nailed to trees; the drug of choice is grass. JFK covers exploding skulls,- the drug of choice is cocaine. Conan, Buddy of Kurt Waldheim deals with crucifixion, decapitation and having one's flesh ripped apart by vultures; the drug of choice is mead.
Oliver Stone certainly knows how to recycle his best material. Buoyed by the audience response to the scene in Midnight Express where Brad Davis bites a nice chunk of flesh off the prison snitch's face, Stone reprises the scene in Conan, having Arnold Schwarzenegger rip a vulture's lungs out with his teeth. (Arnold is pretty awful in the film, but this scene is a whole lot more convincing than the one where he makes love to Sandahl Bergman in what amounts to a steroid version of Wuthering Heights.)
Buoyed by the audience response to the scene in Year of the Dragon where a cop has a half-dozen bullet holes rip through the back of his skull and come out through his rather ruddy cheeks, Stone reprised the scene in JFK, where the audience is repeatedly treated to the sight of the President's head flying off in Jackie's general direction. Nice touch, Ollie.
Thematically, Oliver Stone conveys three messages that are repeated over and over again in his films. They are:
1. America sucks.
2. If you get too caught up in your work, it's going to ruin your family life.
3. Beware of foreigners.
The first message is so obvious that we need hardly belabor it. But what kind of an Oliver Stone article would this be without a little belaboring of the obvious? So let's do it. Salvador and Born on the Fourth of July tell us that Republicans are ruining the country with their filthy little wars. Platoon and JFK tell us that Democrats are ruining the country with their filthy little wars. Wall Street tells us that greedy businessmen are ruining the country. Scarface tells us that Latin American cocaine dealers are ruining the country. The film 8 Million Ways to Die also tells us that Latin American cocaine dealers are ruining the country, but throws in alcohol for good measure. Year of the Dragon tells us that Chinese heroin dealers are ruining the country. Talk Radio tells us that redneck assholes who murder people like Eric Bogosian are ruining the country. Midnight Express tells us that Turks are ruining the country, or at least making it hard for clean-cut American hashish smugglers to travel abroad without being hassled.
I don't have any idea what The Doors tells us, except not to whip out your cock in Miami. In any case, once you've blamed all of the country's woes on Republicans, Democrats, businessmen, drug dealers, drunks, foreigners and rednecks, that only leaves three entirely blameless people: Bill Moyers and Ben & Jerry. This is ultimately what is wrong with Oliver Stone's movies: If you blame everyone for everything, it's impossible to blame someone for something or anyone for anything.
Stone's second message is a tad more subtle, but if you look at his movies from the American Heart Association's point of view, one message comes through loud and clear: Type A behavior is going to ruin your family life. Consider the following chart.
WHAT HAPPENS TO GUYS WHO GET TOO CAUGHT UP IN THEIR WORK
Character, Film
Result
Mickey Rourke, Year of the Dragon
Wife leaves him, then gets the strangled
Val Kilmer, The Doors
Band breaks up, common-law, wife leaves him, dies
Charlie Sheen, Wall Street
Ruins family, loses good job, goes to jail
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Barbarian
Girlfriend dies, no kids
Eric Bogosian, Talk Radio
Wife leaves him, he gets murdered, show cancelled
Brad Davis, Midnight Express
30-year sentence in Turkish jail, loses girlfriend, wrecks family, frequently beaten
Kevin Costner, JFK
Wife gets really pissed off, loses case anyway
James Woods, Salvador
Loses wife and kid; friend gets killed taking dumb photo that wasn't going to win any Pulitzer Prize anyway
Al Pacino, Scarface
Wife leaves him, sister tries to kill him, Mom won't talk to him, ends up with 500 bullet holes in his body
Jeff Bridges, 8 Million Ways to Die
Loses wife and cute daughter; ends up with Rosanna Arquette
Tom Cruise, Born on the Fourth of July
Becomes paraplegic, loses girlfriend, wrecks family
Tom Berenger, Platoon
Kills fellow officer, turns into real asshole, dies horrible death
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