Oliver Stone: The First Stone

In part one of the two-part interview, Oliver Stone talks about the new -- his film, U-Turn, and his novel, A Child's Night Dream -- and the old, like the way he lost his virginity, the reason he went to Vietnam, and the time he put LSD in his father's scotch.

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In front of the Santa Monica building where Oliver Stone has his offices, a man with a long white beard, dressed in flowing saffron-colored robes, gets out of a black limousine with Sally Kirkland. The actress is bringing her yoga master, Swami Satchidananda, to meet with Stone, which means my scheduled time with the director will be delayed. And so, as I sit in a room overlooking the ocean, I read the inscriptions on some of the awards Stone has received, one of which is The Torch of Liberty Award presented to him in 1987 by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California: "For your outstanding efforts to broaden the public's understanding of civil liberties and human rights and for letting the light of freedom, justice and equality shine through your motion pictures."

When Stone finishes with the Swami, he takes me on a tour of his offices, introducing me to his editors, assistants and company executives. In the large conference room where he holds readings of scripts with his actors, he shows me framed political cartoons that feature him as a character. In one he is being shot like Oswald was in that Dallas basement; the shooter is not Jack Ruby but the "media critics." "There were dozens of these cartoons," he says. "I'm glad I framed a few of them." He shows me the rows of black file cabinets that are filled with paperwork from all his projects. "I've kept everything," he say: "I'm very paper-conscious. Not that I want to one day give it away or show it. I'd have to go through it and censor myself before I did that. There's some very naked stuff in there. The idea is, the older you get the less you have to hide. It all simplifies down to the basics. At the end of the day, you're shameless. Maybe that's a good thing, because you're ready to move on to another life. It makes it easy to keep calm."

He takes me to a narrow hallway where framed posters of all of his work are hung on both walls. "All in order," he points out, beginning with Seizure, Midnight Express (for which he won an Oscar), The Hand, Conan the Barbarian, Scarface, all films he wrote or cowrote. Then Year of the Dragon, Salvador, 8 Million Ways to Die, Platoon (for which he won the Best Director Oscar),_ Wall Street, Talk Radio, Bom on the Fourth of July_ (another Oscar), The Doors, JFK, Heaven & Earth, Natural Bom Killers, Nixon. These will soon be joined by the poster for U-Turn, his new film, which stars Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, Jennifer Lopez, Claire Danes and Joaquin Phoenix.

The son of a French mother and an American Jewish father, Oliver Stone was in boarding school in his teens when his life came apart as his parents divorced and left him on his own. His search for self and adventure provoked him to leave Yale after a brief stay to teach in Vietnam, then to join the merchant marines. He returned briefly to Yale, and then returned to Vietnam as a soldier. Stone's 15 months of infantry life changed him forever. He was wounded twice and awarded medals for heroism. When he returned to America, he was profoundly alienated and spent a number of years writing in confusion and poverty, during which time he attended New York University film school and gradually put together his career as a filmmaker.

LAWRENCE GROBEL: What is your new film U-Turn about?

OLIVER STONE: John Ridley wrote a book called Stray Dogs. The film's essentially his screenplay, but [long-time collaborator] Richard Rutowski and I did a lot of work on it. It's called U-Turn now, because Stray Dogs is not available--it's a Kurosawa title. And U-Turn is what it's about. [Laughs] It's about the day in a life of a man where he reassesses his character. It's a dark tale, but with a lot of humor in it. I've never done a picture like it.

Q: What's the most personal reaction you've gotten to it so far?

A: My 12-year-old son, Sean, saw it. He gave me some shit. He said, "This is worse than Natural Bom Killers, Pop."

Q: More violent?

A: Not violent, sex. I thought this was a tamer film. But he's 12.

Q: I'd never let my 13-year-old daughter see Natural Born Killers.

A: He sees everything. He saw Natural Born Killers in '93 and appreciated it. My ex-wife, his mother, hated it. Hated it. He got it and he explained it to her.

Q: Did she get angry with you for letting him see it?

A: No, he lives in Los Angeles. These kids are exposed to so much on television. There's no V-chip in our house. He's a smart kid. I talked to him before he saw _Natural Bom Killers _and told him what it was about--that it was a send-up of what's around us, a mirror, not condoning of killing.

Q: Is it more difficult to let your son see something sexual or something violent?

A: I don't look at sex and violence as entities, which is how a lot of Puritans look at it. I look at it as a process. I'm much more interested that he understand the nature of the movie, the characters. I don't like him to see pictures that are shallow, where the violence is taken for granted, where people knock each other off, kill 300 Arabs. If the sex and the violence grow out of the character in the story, it makes sense. As long as it's rooted. By the way, Sean stays with me during weekends and he brings over kids from his class and they check through the Internet and they get into the Playboy Web site, Jenny McCarthy and all that soft-porn. It's hard to keep an eye on that. What do you do at that age? They have adolescent urges. You talk about it, you have to deal with it. You can't say, "Put your penis away." There's no such thing as wrong. It's natural. I want to be a good, natural father and discuss things openly with him ahead of time, so then he understands what's happening to him--these feelings, these urges.

Q: Would you show a daughter the same films you show your son?

A: Probably. I have a daughter, she's a year and a half.

Q: When she's eight, will you let her see Natural Bom Killers?

A: Yeah. It depends on how her development comes along, where she's understanding nature and society. If she's ready for it, I'd show it to her. I'm not actively soliciting my children to like my movies.

Q: John Grisham, responding to the information that Natural Bom Killers is linked to more copycat killing than any film ever made, wants you in court. He said, "It will take only one large verdict against the likes of Oliver Stone...then the party will be over."

A: My God. Grisham's world would be a nightmare for everyone, not just me. it would be a legal paradise for lawsuits. He's arguing for product liability, where the products are ideas. Beethoven could be sued for inspiring violence or aggression with the Seventh Symphony. Picasso would be sued for his fractured people, for [encouraging] mutilation. Every single art form would be subject to review. It would be the end of what we call civilization. The end of civilized debate, freedom of expression. Where it becomes hate speech, there is an interesting argument, [but] Natural Bom Killers is an artistic expression; it's a satire.

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