Oliver Stone: Stoned Again

Q: Scarface's producer, Martin Bregman, once said he was your rabbi--were you that close?

A: Rabbi? That's a good word. No, I think that Marty thought he was my rabbi. My break came a little bit from everywhere. My first break came off of Fernando Ghia and Robert Bolt in '75. Bolt signed me to William Morris and taught me something about screenwriting. Shortly thereafter I wrote The Cover-Up for Robert's company and Fernando Ghia produced it. Then I wrote Platoon on my own as an original. Marty bought and shepherded that, but unfortunately he didn't get it made. But Peter Guber loved the script and hired me to write this low-budget movie, Midnight Express, in England. The picture was a huge hit.

Q: When Midnight Express came out, the star, Brad Davis, looked like he was the next James Dean. What happened to him? Was it a lack of direction?

A: Lack of sophistication. I knew Brad. When the movie was being made he was a very sweet kid, very lucky, grateful. Next thing you know he was a big superstar and he couldn't be approached at parties--he'd be in the corner with his entourage; doing his coke out in the limousine. Then years later, his agent brought him in for something, and he was a very bitter young man. I've seen so many actors repeat this--a little bout of success goes to their heads and they believe they're immortal. The media promote these people like hotcakes, and they believe it. Next thing they know, they haven't done anything significant, because they haven't really been honest with themselves. Those who don't seem to get aware die along the way pretty fast.

Q: Did you ever fear that could happen to you?

A: It could have.

Q: Many people consider Salvador your best film. Where do you place it?

A: That's an elitist point of view--_Salvador_ is the littlest seen of my films, and it's the first. I've grown so much since then. I'm not the same filmmaker. If it happened to catch the zeitgeist of that moment, great, but that picture's as flawed as any I've done.

Q: Do you think it wasn't commercial because it lacked a big star?

A: Look, you had Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford in The Devil's Own. That was as purely unsatisfying a movie as has come out, and it had the two biggest stars. Both with guns. It had all the ingredients.

Q: During the filming of Platoon in the Philippines, did your Filipino crew go on strike because you kicked the head crew person in the ass?

A: That's exaggerated, but I booted him in the butt because I had gotten fed up with the numerous fire engine delays. We had huge special effects, and water towers and fire engines were required, and every time the water truck was late. I d had enough and booted him in the ass. Apparently he had a gun and was going to shoot me.

Q: Did the guy get to slap you in the face to save face?

A: Perhaps so. It was no big deal to me. I apologized to him.

Q: Didn't Val Kilmer like to mess with your mind on The Doors?

A: We fought a few times. He did hurt me, but it wasn't anything dramatic. They hurt me more in the press. I always thought I had a good relationship with Daryl Hannah and Meg Ryan, but I was surprised by what they said in the press. I really was hurt. It came out of the blue. The press looks for that, especially with me. How many people have said nice things about me that never get in the press? Anthony Hopkins said marvelous things about me as a director--but I never read one word about it. People are only looking for negative images of me.

Q: Norman Mailer didn't care for The Doors, but wrote that Born on the Fourth of July came near to being a great movie, and he said of JFK, "The first thing to be said about it is that it is a great movie, and the next is that it is one of the worst great movies ever made."

A: [Laughs] That's very funny. What do you say? Mailer writes well, and it was kind of him to do that to help the movie because it was being attacked quite a bit.

Q: He said something else about you: "He is one of our few major directors, but he can also be characterized as a brute who rarely eschews the heavy stroke. All the same, he has the integrity of a brute, he forages where others will not go."

A: [Laughs] Those are funny lines, I forgot that. What he's saying is that with subject matter I'm very frontal, like an infantry soldier. I'm going after big game. It's ridiculous for me to defend myself, but don't you think van Gogh could get the same attack? In those days they probably were saying he was a brute. That intensity that van Gogh had--he was so lonely and isolated in a strange way. But when painting was flourishing and all painters were starting to be recognized, he was having to go through this horrible period of abnegation and denial and no money and no recognition. That must have been terrifying. And his madness, too--I can understand that.

Q: You hoped that _JFK'_s mythology would replace the Warren Commission Report. Think you succeeded?

A: Unfortunately the Establishment media went after it big time. They saw the danger in it before I saw it. I thought they were overreacting--I hadn't realized how deep a nerve this was. Who knew that it was that deep? I thought you had to be a moron to accept the Warren Commission. I still do. Look at the Zapruder film, which is the most beautiful film made. It should have gotten the Best Short at the Academy Awards for '63.

Q: Six years after all the hoopla regarding JFK, do you think any minds have changed?

A: Oh sure, I opened some minds.

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