Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director and screenwriter. Stone came to prominence as a director with a series of films about the Vietnam War, in which he had participated as an American infantry soldier, and his work continues to focus frequently on contemporary political and cultural issues, often controversially. His work has earned him three Academy Awards. His first Oscar was for Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978). He won Academy Awards for Directing Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), both of which were centered on the Vietnam War.

A notable feature of his directing style is the use of many different cameras and film formats, from VHS to 8 mm film to 70 mm film. He sometimes uses several formats in a single scene, as in JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994). Some of Stone's films often have been criticized for promoting conspiracy theories and historical inaccuracies. JFK was criticized in the media as being a mixture of truth and fiction. One of the musicians portrayed in his film about the rock band The Doors called the biographical film inaccurate. As well, Stone's film Natural Born Killers was criticized by for its apparent glorification of violence; Stone argued that the film was meant to satirize the media's preoccupation with depicting violence.

Stone was born in New York City, the son of Jacqueline (née Goddet) and Louis Stone, a stockbroker.^[1] He grew up affluent and lived in townhouses in Manhattan and Stamford, Connecticut. His father was Jewish and his mother a Roman Catholic of French birth, and Stone was raised an Episcopalian as a compromise^[2] but has since converted to Buddhism. Stone attended Trinity School before his parents sent him away to attend The Hill School, an exclusive college-preparatory school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. His parents divorced while he was away at The Hill School, and only then did Stone learn of his father's extramarital affairs with the wives of several family friends. Stone's father was also influential in obtaining jobs for his son including work on a financial exchange in France, where Stone often spent his summer vacation with his maternal grandparents, a job that proved inspirational to Stone for his movie Wall Street. Stone eventually graduated from The Hill School in 1964, the same year as former JP Morgan & Co. CEO, Douglas A. Warner III.

Stone was then admitted into Yale University, where he subsequently dropped out after one year.^[3] Stone had become inspired by Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim as well as by Zorba the Greek and George Harrison's music to teach English at the Free Pacific Institute in South Vietnam. Stone taught in Vietnam for six months after which he worked as a wiper on a United States Merchant Marine ship, traveling to Oregon and Mexico, before returning to Yale, where he dropped out a second time. While at Yale, Stone and long-time friend Lloyd Kaufman, worked on an early Troma Entertainment production "The Battle of Love's Return" (1971). Both also acted in the movie, Stone in a cameo role.^[4] Stone eventually graduated from film school at New York University (where he was mentored by director Martin Scorsese) in 1971, after his service in Vietnam. A veteran of the Vietnam war, Stone served with the U.S. Army from April 1967 to November 1968. He specifically requested combat duty and was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, and was wounded twice in action. His personal awards include the Bronze Star with "V" device for valor for "extraordinary acts of courage under fire", and the Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster.

He has made three films about Vietnam – Platoon (1986), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and Heaven & Earth (1993). He has called these films a trilogy, though they each deal with different aspects of the war. Platoon is a semi-autobiographical film about Stone's experience in combat. Born on the Fourth of July is based on the autobiography of Ron Kovic. Heaven & Earth is derived from the memoir When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, the true story of Le Ly Hayslip, a Vietnamese girl whose life is drastically affected by the war. During this same period, Stone directed Wall Street (1987), which earned Michael Douglas an Academy Award for Best Actor; Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio (1988), and The Doors (1991), starring Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison. Stone has won three Academy Awards. His first Oscar was for Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978). He won Academy Awards for Directing Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

For Year of the Dragon (1985) he received a Razzie nomination in the category Worst Screenplay. Other films whose screenplays he participated in are Conan the Barbarian (1982), Scarface (1983), 8 Million Ways to Die (1986) and Evita (1996). In addition, he has written or taken part in the writing of every film he has directed, except for U Turn (1997). The very first film that he directed professionally was the obscure horror picture Seizure (1974). A distinctive feature of Oliver Stone's films is the use of many different cameras and film formats, from VHS to 8 mm film to 70 mm film. He sometimes uses several formats in a single scene, as in JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994).

In the past decade, Stone has directed U-Turn (1997), which he describes as a small film that he would enjoy seeing as a teenager, Any Given Sunday (1999), a film about power struggles within and surrounding an American football team, and Alexander (2004), a biographical film about Alexander the Great. He later said he was stung by the critical pans of Alexander, which was a financial fiasco despite being one of the highest-grossing films internationally in 2004 – production and marketing costs were not recovered.^[6] Stone has recently said that the film has recouped the cost (over 3.5 million DVDs sold in the U.S. alone). He re-edited the film as the Director's Cut, which was shortened from 175 minutes to 167 minutes. A third version of the film, a 3 hour and 45 minute extended cut, was released February 27, 2007 on the DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD formats.

After Alexander, Stone went on to direct World Trade Center, which centered on two Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) cops during the September 11, 2001 attacks. The main undercurrent of the film is hope through times of trial. The film did not do as well as it was expected, grossing $70 million (as of November 17, 2006), though the film was made on a budget of $63 million. As of December 19, 2006, the worldwide box office for World Trade Center was $161,735,806. He is slated to direct Pinkville, a Vietnam war drama about the infamous killings set to star Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum. The film's plot was to focus on the investigation into the 1968 My Lai Massacre of Vietnamese civilians. It would have been Stone's fourth Vietnam film, after Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven & Earth. The film was to have been made for the newly reformed United Artists.^[7] However, United Artists halted its December 2007 production start because of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike.

Stone's latest film is a biopic about George W. Bush, named W. Stone indicated that it would be a "fair, but true portrait of the man", portraying the controversial President's childhood, relationship with his father, struggles with alcoholism, subsequent conversion to Christianity, his political career and presidency up through the invasion of Iraq. The film is based on a screenplay by Stone and Stanley Weiser, who had co-written Wall Street (1987). Josh Brolin was cast in the role of Bush,^[8] James Cromwell as Bush Sr. ^[9] and Elizabeth Banks as his wife. Filming began on May 12, 2008 in Shreveport, Louisiana and wrapped in June.^[10] W. was released on October 17 2008, in time for the U.S. presidential election in November.

Stone's films often have been criticized for promoting conspiracy theories and historical inaccuracies. JFK, for instance, hypothesizes many high-level government officials having a hand in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1991, he showed the film to Congress on Capitol Hill, which helped lead to passage of the Assassination Materials Disclosure Act^[11] of 1992. The Assassination Records Review Board (created by Congress to end the secrecy surrounding Kennedy's assassination) discussed the film, including Stone's observation at the end of the film, about the dangers inherent in government secrecy.^[12] The film JFK was widely criticized in the media as being a mixture of truth and fiction. Stone published an annotated version of the screenplay, in which he cites references for his claims, shortly after the film's release. Similarly, he published an annotated version of his screenplay for the film Nixon, nominated for four Academy Awards, which was also criticized for its portrayal of President Richard M. Nixon.

Stone's screenplay Midnight Express was criticised for portraying the Turkish people in an overly negative light. The original author, Billy Hayes, around whom the film is set, has spoken out against the film, protesting that he had many Turkish friends while in jail. Stone's film The Doors received criticism from Ray Manzarek (keyboardist–bass player) during a question and answer session at Indiana University East (in Richmond, Indiana) in 1997. During the discussion Manzarek stated that he sat down with Stone about The Doors and Jim Morrison for over 12 hours. He said none of the content of the discussion - such as details on important events in the history of The Doors and Morrison's personal life - was present in the film. Manzarek went on to say that Stone's film was highly inaccurate about Morrison and The Doors.

Patricia Kennealy Morrison, the rock critic and author, Morrison's widow (and a high school friend of Billy Hayes), is on record publicly and privately with ferociously angry criticism of Stone's film. She was a consultant on the movie, in which she also has a cameo appearance, but she writes in her memoir Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison (Dutton, 1992) that Stone ignored everything she told him and proceeded with his own version of events. From the moment the movie was released, she blasted it as untruthful and inaccurate.^[13] Surviving members of the band: John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger also cooperated with the filming of 'Doors' but distanced themselves from the work before the film's release.

Natural Born Killers is filmed and edited in a frenzied style where animation, grainy black-and-white 8 mm film, color 35 mm film, and VHS are intercut and juxtaposed in a psychedelic montage of images showing not only the story's action, but also conveying the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The film was criticized by some for its apparent glorification of violence. Stone refutes this claim, saying that it is a satire of the American media's glorification of violence and violent people. The original screenwriter, Quentin Tarantino, was unhappy with the end result of the film because of the attention Stone gave to the aspects of the story involving the media, and asked that his name be removed from the credits. Tarantino was credited with "Story By" on the final film. In 1997, a book about the making of the film, Killer Instinct was written by Jane Hamsher and published by Broadway Books. The book was well reviewed and sold well in Hollywood. It told of an out of control Stone making the film.

Also in 1997, Stone was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany and compared it to the Nazis' oppression of Jews in the 1930s.^[14] Other signatories included Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn.^[14]

In 2003, Stone travelled to Cuba where he interviewed Fidel Castro for three days. The result was the documentary Comandante where Stone and Castro talk about politics, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel's personal beliefs, the Cuban Revolution, important events from the past 50 years and Castro's views on the future of the revolution. The film was scheduled to air in May 2003 on HBO but was put on hold after an incident where hijackers threatened to kill passengers on a Cuban ferry if they were not taken to the United States. The hijackers were subsequently executed and in response to loud protests from the Miami Cuban lobby HBO pulled the film.To this day it has not been released in the United States and is only available on imported DVDs from Britain. Stone returned to Cuba and shot Looking for Fidel, a documentary dealing with conditions on the island and the relationship between Cuba and the United States. That film was aired on HBO in early 2004. Stone has said he admires the Cuban Revolution and supports Cuba's rights as a sovereign nation free from U.S. influence. In December 2006, Oliver Stone shocked audiences at the British Comedy Awards by making a joke in reference to the Suffolk Strangler.

In 1993, Stone produced a mini series for ABC Television called Wild Palms. In a cameo, Stone appears on a television in the show discussing how the theories in his film JFK had been proven correct (the series took place in a hypothetical future, 2007). Wild Palms has developed a moderate cult following in the years since it aired, and has recently been released on DVD. That same year, he also spoofed himself in the comedy hit Dave, espousing a conspiracy theory about the President's replacement by a near-identical double. In 1997, Stone published A Child's Night Dream, a largely autobiographical novel first written in 1966-1967. After several unsuccessful attempts to get the work published, he "threw several sections of the manuscript into the East River one cold night, and, as if surgically removing the memory of the book from my mind, volunteered for Vietnam in 1967." Eventually, he dug out the remaining pages, rewrote the manuscript, and published it. The book is almost a stream of consciousness telling of his experiences as a child, in college, and in Vietnam.

In 2003, Stone made two documentary films: Persona Non Grata, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Comandante, about Cuban President Fidel Castro. In 2004, he made a second documentary on Castro, titled Looking for Fidel. (See also Controversy, above.) Stone is directing a short film about the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where the games were held. He was recently admitted permission by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make a documentary about him. Stone had been previously refused permission by the Iranian government when the President's media advisor, Mehdi Kalhor, denounced Stone^{[21] [22]} as being part of the "Great Satan" of American culture, despite his opposition to the Bush administration. However, Ahmadinejad approved permission a month later, saying he had "no objections" provided the documentary was based on accurate facts. Stone is due to visit Tehran to negotiate the production of the film with Iranian officials, possibly the president himself. Stone and known independent filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman were childhood friends, and have since collaborated on a number of projects.

In 2008, Stone was named the Artistic Director of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Asia.

The future of Pinkville remains currently unknown, though Stone is expected to return to the project, following the completion of W. However, in 2007, Stone was reported to have turned down an invitation to direct a sequel to Wall Street. Original star Charlie Sheen will also be absent, but Michael Douglas is expected to reprise his role as Gordon Gekko.

Oliver Stone (1946. szeptember 15., New York; teljes neve William Oliver Stone) amerikai filmrendező.

Sajátos képi világa, lenyűgöző vizualitása, remekül szerkesztett operatőri munkája teszi jellegzetessé munkáit. Filmjei dinamikusak, rendkívül hatásos kifejezőerővel bírnak. Több munkájában játszott is, legtöbbnek producere és forgatókönyvírója is volt.

Apja, Louis zsidó származású (eredeti neve Silverstein), anyja, Jacqueline Goddet, francia. (Stone gyermekkorában jobban beszélt franciául, mint angolul.) Jó anyagi körülmények között éltek, a fiatal Oliver elitiskolákba járhatott. A filmek iránti érdeklődés apja hatására alakult ki benne, első meghatározó filmélménye Fellini Édes élet c. filmje volt.

1964-ben kezdte meg egyetemi tanulmányait a Yale-en. Egy évvel később már angolt tanított egy katolikus iskolában, Saigon egyik külvárosában, de hamarosan úgy érezte, a tanári pálya nem neki való, így abbahagyta tanulmányait. Hajókon dolgozott, és az írással kezdett próbálkozni.

1967-ben lépett be a hadseregbe, a dél-karolinai Fort Jacksonban kapott gyalogsági kiképzést. 15 hónapot szolgált Vietnamban, 1968 áprilisától egy felderítő szakaszban, amelynek tagjai későbbi filmje több szereplőjének is mintájául szolgáltak. Kétszer sebesült meg; Bíborszívvel és Bronzcsillaggal tüntették ki.

Visszatérve New Yorkba egy kölcsönkamerával amatőr filmeket kezdett készíteni, illetve nekilátott a Break című forgatókönyvnek, mely a Platoon alapjául szolgál majd. Beiratkozott a New York-i Egyetem Filmiskolájába (New York University's Film School), ahol Martin Scorsese előadásai komoly hatással voltak rá. Ebben az időszakban három rövidebb fekete-fehér filmet készített, miközben taxisofőrként próbált megélni. Első egész estés filmje (Seizure) egy kanadai mecénás támogatásával készülhetett el.

Egy ideig Los Angelesben építette karrierjét, majd ismét New Yorkban élt, s – 1976 nyarán – itt látott neki első nagy hatású filmje, A szakasz forgatókönyvének. A kész művel – immár véglegesen – Los Angelesbe költözött. A történetet ugyan egy stúdió sem akarta megfilmesíteni, de Stone tehetségére felfigyeltek, és a Columbia Pictures megbízta Billy Hayes önéletrajzi könyvének, a Midnight Express-nek (Éjféli expressz) forgatókönyvvé alakításával, melyért 1979-ben Oscar-díjat kapott. Szintén forgatókönyvíróként működött közre Brian de Palma remake-jében, a A sebhelyesarcú-ban.

A szakasz forgatásának 1986-ban láthatott neki, a film nyolc Oscar-jelölést kapott, s négy szobrot nyert el, köztük a legjobb rendezésért járót is. (Ezért forgatókönyvíróként is jelölték.) Még 1986-ban jelölve volt a Salvador című politikai thriller forgatókönyvírójaként. A Vietnam-téma trilógiává bővült, 1989-ben készült el a Született július 4-én (melynek rendezéséért szintén Oscart kapott és jelölve volt producerként és forgatókönyvíróként), majd 1993-ban a Heaven & Earth. 1991-ben elkészítette a JFK című életrajzi, összeesküvés elméletet boncolgató filmet, amelyért újabb három kategóriában jelölték. Két évre rá készült el a Nixon című filmje, amelyért legutóbbi jelölését kapta.