When I think about Oliver Stone, I imagine a gambler at a craps table who bets every chip he’s got, every time, and usually comes out a winner. And, his gain is ours as well, for he has gambled everything on making some of the best films of our generation.
Check out Stone’s oeuvre, and you will be shocked at how many movies he has made; how many of his you have seen but didn’t know were his. The first Oliver Stone movie ever I saw (but I didn’t know until recently that it was his film) was The Hand with Michael Caine. I saw the film on TV when I was 6 or 7. It is about a cartoonist whose hand is cut off in a car accident, and the hand returns to haunt him and others. I couldn’t sleep for a week. I was constantly looking under my bed to see if a severed hand was there waiting to attack me.
Stone notes that Pauline Kael thought so, dismissing Platoon in her typically reactionary way. Others have thought so, and indeed this memoir will provide some fuel for that particular fire. On the other hand, it was precisely that warrior mentality and specificity of purpose that makes Oliver Stone’s films as vital as they are.
- Overall, this is a resplendent memoir that will surprise anyone who still believes in the image of Oliver Stone as a hard-partying, macho conspiracy theorist. He reveals himself in this book to be ambitious and talented, of course, but also vulnerable, raw, traumatized, and at times self-punishing and emotionally naked.
- It took Stone nearly 10 years to finagle a green light for this biopic based on the memoir of paralyzed anti-Vietnam War activist Ron Kovic. He purchased the screen rights way back in 1978, but it wasn't until Platoon blew up at the box office in 1986 that Universal finally agreed to produce it.
Stone’s just-released memoir, Chasing The Light, reads like a movie script, for Stone’s life and career have indeed been worthy of the big screen. As we learn through riveting prose, the story of the boy Oliver Stone could have been written by Charles Dickens, but Stone is more David Copperfield than his namesake, Oliver Twist. Stone is placed in a boarding school during high school, removed from the parents he adores. His loneliness only increases when he is told over the phone at age 15 that his parents are divorcing and that his mother has moved back to France without even so much as a goodbye. He then learns shortly thereafter that his father has lost his fortune, and with it, Oliver’s inheritance. By his own admission, Stone has yet to fully get over this trauma.
Oliver then had to begin life anew, and to forge his own path, ultimately to the silver screen. It is that lonely journey we learn about in Chasing The Light.
The book opens with Stone’s recounting of his making the movie Salvador (one of my favorites) in Mexico on a shoe-string budget with a cast of characters, including James
Woods with whom Stone has remained friends. But it is the excitement of creating a film with so little backing, and with such a great risk of failure, that excites Stone, and also the reader of his memoir. The results are stunning, with Stone succeeding at making what I believe to be the defining Hollywood movie about Reagan’s vicious war in Central America.
Woods with whom Stone has remained friends. But it is the excitement of creating a film with so little backing, and with such a great risk of failure, that excites Stone, and also the reader of his memoir. The results are stunning, with Stone succeeding at making what I believe to be the defining Hollywood movie about Reagan’s vicious war in Central America.
It is in this section of the book that Stone writes some of my favorite lines of the book:
The truth is, no matter how great my satisfactions in the later part of my life, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as much excitement or adrenaline as when I had no money. A friend who came from the underclass of England once told me, ‘The only thing money can’t buy is poverty.’ Maybe he really meant ‘happiness,’ but the point is, money gives you an edge, and without it, you become, like it or not, more human. It is, in its way, like being back in the infantry with a worm’s-eye view of a world where everything, whether a hot shower or a hot meal, is hugely appreciated.
I have to imagine that, somewhere, there is a sled or other such object for which Oliver pines, reminding him of simpler days, when he was the object of his parents’ love and affection, and when life seemed more certain.
But, as things turned out, Oliver would come to eschew certainty and comfort at every turn. For example, when he was a freshman at Yale, he quit school to volunteer for the US war in Vietnam. To me, it is this which makes Oliver the stand-out individual he is. While cowards like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton would hide behind the ivy walls to avoid service, Oliver went out of his way to sign up to fight. He would become a highly decorated soldier, earning a number of awards, including the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.
In the end, as we learn in his semi-autobiographical film, Platoon, which would win the Academy Award for Best Picture, the war in Vietnam would be a disillusioning experience for Stone. He would learn, as so many others did, that the US was not really fighting for democracy in that far-flung country, and that it was instead brutalizing a poor peasant society trying to shed the yoke of French, and then US, empire.
Platoon was the first Oliver Stone movie I saw on the big screen. I was 17 at the time, and I saw it with my very right-wing father. That movie blew my mind. The scene in which the Charlie Sheen character stops his fellow comrades from raping a Vietnamese girl shook my world. I had no idea until that moment that that sort of thing happened in war, and certainly not by US servicemen. That film, along with Salvador, would help to radicalize me and to make me the person I am today. But what makes Platoon great, I think, is that it captured in a dramatic fashion the cruelty as well as the fog of war. After seeing it, I talked to my boss at the sporting goods store I was working at about it. He was a Vietnam veteran himself, and he readily stated that Platoon was the greatest Vietnam War movie ever made because it told the story of the war so truthfully. This is the highest praise one could receive for such a work.
There is much more to say about Oliver Stone and his memoir. The book is a gripping read, and it is made all the more compelling by Stone’s incredible honesty about himself as a person; about his feelings, including embarrassing feelings that most people would leave to the therapy couch; and about his triumphs and failures. Oliver Stone, first and foremost, is an amazing human being, and to learn about him in his own words, with all his humor and candor, is a delight.
Born: September 15, 1946
New York, New York
American director and writer
New York, New York
American director and writer
Oliver Stone is a writer-director of films with a flashy style that often deal with issues of the 1960s, such as America's involvement with the Vietnam War (1955–75; a war in which the United States aided South Vietnam in its fight against a takeover by Communist North Vietnam). He has won several Academy Awards as a writer and as a director.
Conservative background
Oliver William Stone was born on September 15, 1946, in New York City, the only child of Louis and Jacqueline Goddet Stone. His father was a successful stockbroker. Stone's childhood was marked by all the privileges of wealth—private schooling, summer vacations in France, and most importantly, a sense of patriotism. Stone's father was strongly conservative (one who believes in maintaining social and political traditions and who opposes change). When Stone was a junior at the Hill School, a Pennsylvania college prep academy, his parents decided to divorce. He discovered that his father was actually deeply in debt, which led him to question the values he had been taught. Stone entered Yale University in 1965, but he quit after only one year.
Late in 1965 Stone took a job teaching English at a school in Saigon, South Vietnam. He arrived there at the same time as did the first major commitment of U.S. troops, which were sent to help fight in Vietnam's civil war. Stone left after six months and returned home. While on his way back, he began to work on a novel, which he continued to work on during a brief stay in Mexico and another failed attempt at college. He was unable to find a publisher for it, and he then decided to join the army. Stone continued to work on the novel, which grew to eleven hundred pages. A Child's Night Dream was finally released in 1997.
Shaped by Vietnam experience
Stone could have avoided the Vietnam War by staying in college, but he joined the service and insisted on combat duty in an attempt to prove to his father that he was a man. He soon discovered that real combat was much different than he expected. 'Vietnam completely deadened me and sickened me,' he told the Washington Post. Stone was involved in several deadly battles. He was shot once and wounded by shrapnel (bomb fragments) another time, and he often witnessed the brutal treatment of Vietnamese citizens by U.S. soldiers.
After Stone was discharged and returned to the United States, he enrolled at New York University, where he began to study filmmaking with director Martin Scorsese (1942–). Stone decided he wanted to write screenplays and make movies. Stone graduated from the university in 1971 and within two years had sold his first project to a small Canadian film company. His first writing and directing effort was Seizure (1974), a horror story about a writer whose creations come to life.
Seizure did not make money or receive great reviews, and Stone entered a period marked by heavy drug and alcohol use. He finally pulled himself together in 1976 and decided to write a screenplay about his Vietnam experiences. Between 1976 and 1978 Stone wrote two stories on the war: Platoon, which was based on himself and other soldiers he had known in Vietnam; and Born on the Fourth of July, which was based on the autobiography (the written story of one's own life) of crippled war veteran Ron Kovic. No studio would touch either property; the scripts were considered too violent and too depressing. Stone's writing talents were recognized, however, and he was invited to work on other projects.
Oscars and controversy
In 1977 Stone was hired to write the screenplay for Midnight Express, a drama based on the true-life imprisonment of Bill Hayes in a Turkish jail. Many reviewers criticized the film's violence and accused it of racism (unequal treatment based on race) against the Turks. The controversy (open to dispute) helped the movie turn a profit, and it was also nominated (put forward for consideration) for five Academy Awards. Stone himself won an Oscar for his screenplay.
Stone then wrote and directed the horror movie The Hand (1981), and he wrote scripts for other movies, including Scarface. The film Scarface, which told the story of a ruthless cocaine dealer, offended some with its violence. For Stone, who had rid himself of a cocaine habit while writing the screenplay, it was a very important project. In an effort to exercise more control over his work, Stone then began making films independently. With the backing of Hemdale, a small British production company, he filmed Salvador (1986), based on the violence of the United States-supported Salvadoran army. Hemdale then gave Stone the money to make Platoon (1986). Stone used the script he had written in 1976 and the film won a number of Oscars, including best picture and best director.
Stone followed Platoon with Wall Street, his first big-budget project. Wall Street told
Oliver Stone.
Reproduced by permission of .
the story of a young stockbroker and the ruthless older businessman who influences him. By this time Stone had found the money to film Born on the Fourth of July (1989). With Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise (1962–) as the raging Ron Kovic, who endures not only the horror of battle but life in a wheelchair, Born on the Fourth of July brought Stone yet another Academy Award for best director. Reproduced by permission of .
Stone explored the 1960s with The Doors (1991) and his most controversial feature, JFK (1991). In JFK Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison, the Texas Attorney General who battled what the film views as a plot to cover up the real circumstances behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). The film's mixture of dreamlike scenes and historical details angered many, but even his critics admitted that Stone's methods were effective. Stone returned to the subject of Vietnam for Heaven and Earth (1993), showing the war from the point of view of a Vietnamese woman. His brutally violent Natural Born Killers (1994), the story of two disturbed young lovers who become famous for their killing spree, was attacked for its casual treatment of violence.
Major step forward
Stone's next film was the story of another American president, Richard Nixon (1913–1994), who resigned in disgrace after the Watergate scandal (in which it was revealed that Nixon had broken the law by using bugging devices to listen in on the conversations of his opponents). With British actor Anthony Hopkins (1937–) in the title role, Nixon (1995) earned several Academy Award nominations. Many reviewers praised Stone's newly found ability to overlook his political beliefs and make a universally appealing film.
Stone's more recent film projects include directing U-Turn (1997), writing and directing Any Given Sunday (1999), and serving as executive producer of the TV movie The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001). In 2001 a Louisiana court threw out a lawsuit against Stone and Warner Brothers studios that claimed that viewing Natural Born Killers had led two people to shoot a store clerk, leaving her paralyzed. In 2002 Stone traveled to Cuba, where he spent seventy-two hours filming Cuban leader Fidel Castro (1927–) for a documentary (a completely fact-based film) on the country.
For More Information
Riordan, James. Stone: The Controversies, Excesses, and Exploits of a Radical Film-maker. New York: Hyperion, 1995.
Oliver Stone Book Character
![Oliver Stone Memoir Oliver Stone Memoir](/uploads/1/1/8/5/118504070/603679866.jpg)
Salewicz, Chris. Oliver Stone. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Oliver Stone Book Cover
Silet, Charles L. P., ed. Oliver Stone: Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.