Moment of Truth: Oliver Stone on Gonzo Docmaking and 'Good Guy' Hugo Chávez

That does come through in the film. The information's there, but also -- and I mean this as a compliment -- stylistically it feels totally gonzo. How do you cultivate your approach with collaborators like Mr. Ali and Albert Maysles?

OS: We play it by ear, really. It was patched together. You have to understand I'm doing a feature film called W., and I'm also trying to do Wall Street [2] while doing Secret History of the United States. And I also interviewed Castro a third time, which is coming out next year. So I've done six documentaries. This is really my fourth coming out. Meanwhile we hooked up with Mark Weisbrot from the Center For Economic and Policy Research. He was really into the policy and the statistics, and I wanted to have him aboard. I read Tariq's stuff, and I interviewed him for Secret History. Having Tariq come on with Mark is a strong combination because one is really analytical about economics -- really dry -- and Tariq has the grand historian flair to tell a story with wit and elegance. I think we needed that; otherwise it would have read like a European Union report.

TA: It was very straightforward. When I looked at some of the footage that they got, the strongest parts of that were Oliver's one-to-ones with these seven presidents.

OS: And those were arranged by Fernando and Max [Arvelaiz, Chávez advisor].

TA: So I said, "It's straightforward: You do it as a political road movie. A Hollywood director with a conscience...

OS: [Laughs]

TA: "...worries about what he's watching on the bloody media every day, hops on a plane, goes to talk to seven presidents, and you give their views -- as much as you can -- to the American people. Views that are never presented in an unmediated way on U.S. television." That's all.

OS: Honestly, what have we done wrong? I wonder what harm there is in this. Is it really going to change? Is it going to make people fall into the trap of the Communist mind?

I've always wondered that. I grew up at the end of the Cold War, and I thought, "Well, that's it." But in the last five years, people have shown they're still terrified of Communism -- of the radical left. Why?

OS: I feel like we're living through a graylist from the Bush era. Or for me it was a graylist. You know, it was clear you were either with us or against us. It was like the old days.

TA: "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists," [Bush] said. I wrote a whole book saying we're not with you, but we're not with the terrorists either -- The Clash of Fundamentalisms. My response to Bush was that we have an independent position. We don't like Osama bin Laden!

OS: Well, there was this old argument of the '50s that the neutral bloc existed.

TA: Exactly.

OS: What's going on now is that if these countries -- these regional powers like Brazil and Venezuela -- can attain their true independence from the United States system both monetarily and militarily, then they will be the third bloc. Actually, they'll be the second bloc, unless you call terrorists the second bloc.

TA: They shouldn't be edified like that.

There's a blind spot to me in this film, at least to me, and that would be the issue of human rights. Particularly in Venezuela, where Chávez has had a judge detained, he's shut down dissenting broadcasters--

OS: Which judge are you talking about? That woman who let a guy fleece $25 million out of the currency? That was a very ugly story.

Still, Chávez held him three years without a trial, and pretrial detention in Venezuela has a legal maximum of two years.

OS: You know the specifics of it. He may not have done the right thing, but the judiciary does operate independently of Chávez. The judiciary has a long history in Venezuela of being somewhat corrupt itself. He can't clean it up any more than he can clean up the police department there. You notice the police department shot at some protesters [in 2007], or that's what they said in the movie. So he doesn't have control of the government. People always say about Cuba, "Well, Castro does everything!" That's not true either. It's not like that. [Chávez] is barely able to assert authority of his own. He's trying to get control of the Oil Department -- which he did, gradually. It's hard to root out corruption. And he flat out said to me, "I've fired people who I liked because I found that they were corrupt." And then the moment they're fired, they go out and say, "Well, Chávez is betraying the revolution, and he's putting me in jail because I'm telling the truth." That's a natural defense when you get fired.

Would you ever revisit Chávez or any of these presidents critically -- the way you did in Cuba with Looking For Fidel?

OS: That was a very specific HBO case. I actually went back a third time now that he's old.

And you don't foresee that occurring in Venezuela?

OS: No. I did what I had to do with Castro. I don't have to do it with Chávez, because frankly, he's a good guy. What harm is he doing? He's doing good for Venezuela. Most people who voted for him agree. Let him try. He's trying a structural reform that might take a long time. And he'd like to stay in office. But he respected the will of the people when they turned down the [constitutional] referendum in 2007. He has always presented himself as an obeyer of the law. He's made some mistakes, but I don't see a pattern of it.

TA: And which political leader, whichever side you're on, doesn't make mistakes? I don't know of a single example in history -- leave alone now -- of a leader who doesn't make mistakes. The thing is that Chávez makes mistakes, of course, and these mistakes are then magnified beyond all proportion because it's him. That's what happens. Whereas you look at this guy who is president of Colombia--

OS: [Álvaro] Uribe.

TA: -- who is a total so-and-so with human-rights violations the size of a New York skyscraper--

OS: Killing teenagers and dressing them up as FARC guerrillas.

TA: --and he was never once grilled on U.S. or European television the way he should have been grilled. Why? Because he's an ally. And these criteria go back a long way: Our allies are good whatever they do.

OS: Think of it this way: If there were one murder that could happen tomorrow in Venezuela that was politically tinged, then it would be, "My God!" And front page. Whereas in Mexico they get bumped every day. In Honduras, seven journalists have disappeared since the coup. Seven. And Honduras is a small country. Why don't we scream about nobody doing anything about the Honduras coup? Who's disappearing them? You know who. Who disappears people in general? It's not the FARCs; it's the paramilitaries in general. Wherever there's that kind of action, you've always got to look at the military first, is what I say.

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