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Features an interview with Oliver Stone followed by 15 essays that examine his films, from his inauspicious directorial debut with Seizure (1974) through Nixon (1995).
In this powerful and evocative memoir, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, Oliver Stone, takes us right to the heart of what it's like to make movies on the edge. In Chasing The Light he writes about his rarefied New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface. Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while taking miscellaneous jobs and driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with vivid details of...
Challenging audiences and critics alike, the films of Oliver Stone have compelled many viewers to re-examine some of their most revered beliefs about America's past. Stone has generated enormous controversy and debate among those who take issue with his dramatic use of history. This book brings Stone face to face with some of his most thoughtful critics and supporters and allows him room to respond to their views. Writers including David Halberstam, Stephen Ambrose, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Walter LaFeber and Robert Rosenstone critique Stone's most contested films to show how they may distort, amplify or transcend the historical realities they appear to depict.
Ranging from 1981 to 1997, the 15 conversations featured in this collection reveal a man frustrated by what he sees as the hypocrisies of American politics, of conservatism, and of the Hollywood film industry. Though the subjects of "Nixon, JFK, Born on the 4th of July, The Doors", and "Heaven and Earth" are rooted in the turbulent 1960s, Stone as interviewee and filmmaker is firmly entrenched in the present. Film stills.
Oliver Stone has written and directed many memorable films while also developing a reputation for tackling controversial subjects, such as the Turkish prison system (Midnight Express), the Vietnam war (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), insider trading (Wall Street), presidential assassination (JFK), and a voyeuristic media (Natural Born Killers). Along the way, Stone has been nominated for more than 10 Academy Awards and three times received Oscars for his work. In The Oliver StoneEncyclopedia, James M. Welsh and Donald M. Whaley provide an overarching evaluation of Stone's work as screenwriter, producer, and director. While the entries in this volume address all of the usual aspects ...
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Three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone is one of the most controversial and well-known contemporary American directors. He began his professional life as a screen writer and was responsible for the scripts of Midnight Express and Scarface. As a director he made one of the all-time great Vietnam war movies, Platoon, and went on to helm such definitive cinematic works as Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Natural Born Killers and, most recently, Alexander - an epic biography of the legendary Greek king starring Colin Farrell and Anthony Hopkins. This indispensable guide takes each of Stone's writing and directoial features in chronological order, discussing them within categories such as Casting, Cut Scenes, Music Conspiriacy Theory? and Controversy. It looks at the inspiration behind his work, its connection with the real world and the story behind each film's development. Whether the subject is war, politics, sport or the defining aspects of an era, Stone is an expert at polarising audience views. This is an essential reference for all fans of Oliver Stone, writer, director and one of the most influential filmmakers of the last twenty-five years.
Stone himself serves as guide to this no-holds-barred retrospective—an extremely candid and comprehensive monograph of the renowned and controversial writer, director, and cinematic historian in interview form. Over the course of five years, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (Midnight Express, Scarface, Platoon, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Snowden) and New York Times bestselling author Matt Zoller Seitz (The Wes Anderson Collection) discussed, debated, and deconstructed the arc of Stone's outspoken, controversial life and career with extraordinary candor. This book collects those conversations for the first time, including anecdotes about Stone's childhood, Vietnam, his struggles...
These prominent filmmakers, “two of our most provocative and radical voices,” discuss American historical events that have been forgotten—or hidden (Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation). In working together on two challenging documentaries—South of the Border and the Untold History of the United States series for Showtime—filmmaker Oliver Stone engaged with author and filmmaker Tariq Ali in a probing, hard-hitting conversation on the politics of history. Their dialogue brings to light a number of forgotten—or deliberately buried—episodes of American history, from the US intervention against the Russian Revolution to the dynamic radicalism of the Wobblies; to how Henry Wallace’s nomination for the vice presidency was deliberately thwarted by Democratic Party machine insiders; to the ongoing close connections between various US presidents and the Saudi royal family. For Stone, an Academy Award–winner, and Ali, an acclaimed novelist and journalist—two of our most insightful observers on history and popular culture—no topic is sacred, no orthodoxy goes unchallenged.
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book analyses the work of Oliver Stone - arguably one of the foremost political filmmakers in Hollywood during the last thirty years. From early productions like Platoon (1986) and Wall Street (1987) to contemporary dramas and documentaries such as World Trade Center (2006), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) and The Untold History of the United States (2012) Stone has re-defined political filmmaking in an era when Hollywood and the United States in general has been experiencing rapid and radical change. Drawing on previously unseen production files as well as hours of interviews with the director and his associates within the industry, this book is a thematic exploration of Stone's life and work, charting the development of political and aesthetic changes in his filmmaking. Those changes are mapped onto academic debates about the relationship between film and history as well as wider critiques about Hollywood and the film industry.