Oliver Stone

Isn’t the real problem too many #cops -- on steroids, over-militarized, over-equipped, looking like aliens ready to engage? No police force anywhere in the world is as scary... This use of domestic force parallels directly our foreign problem -- too many troops, heavy-handed, interfering in too many countries.

Somehow we have to learn that we don't have to be number one. We can be partners with the world.

Kennedy provoked such hostility and hatred. His death was cheered in the South because of his support for Martin Luther King... Since that day, the media has chanted the mantra that Oswald did it alone. But the American public... has never accepted it. They smell a rat.

Our Achilles’ heel remains what MLK proclaimed as the 3 evils confronting us -- Racism, excessive Materialism, and Militarism.

William Oliver Stone (born 15 September 1946), usually known as Oliver Stone, is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director and screenwriter.

Quotes

• There was a civil war in this country... Kennedy provoked such hostility and hatred. His death was cheered in the South because of his support for Martin Luther King. He was moving to change things on all fronts. He was starting to end the Cold War. He made a deal with Khruschev and Russia in 1962 to end the missile crisis, and he furthered the... Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. He... described the Soviets for the first time in American history as mortals, like us, who care about their children. He seemed to have an expanding vision of the world, much like Gorbachev did in Russia in the '80s... Since that day, the media has chanted the mantra that Oswald did it alone. But the American public... has never accepted it. They smell a rat.
  • Quoted in Oliver Stone Defends 'JFK' against conspiracy Dunces by Roger Ebert Interviews 22 December 1991

• My father was a Republican and he hated Roosevelt. And that's sort of been the battle of my life, I think. You have to understand I grew up a Republican conservative. I hated Castro. And I put my money where my mouth was because I went to war, but I understood pretty quickly that this was another place, another culture and we would never fit in there.
  • The Observer paragraph 20, (July 2010).

• The most shocking part [about the assassination of JFK] is...the sequence of the shooting, the timing,... the wounds and the autopsy. It’s all quite shocking when you...think seriously about it. It doesn’t make any sense the way they described it. That’s the most shocking part of the case. When you start to investigate Oswald, of course there are a thousand interesting things that come up. The files on Oswald were much more closely supervised by the CIA then we knew at the time and were omitted by the Warren Commission. They treated it like a routine investigation, but it was hardly so.
  We draw a line between the cover-up and the assassination. The cover-up is filled with another cast of characters. That is to say, the Warren Commission itself, who is in charge of the investigation; and the main man, Alan Dulles, the ex-chief of the CIA and one of the most powerful figures in government. He was fired by Kennedy, as were all his top officials, two years earlier. He was put in charge of the investigation and buried certain information. That’s part of the cover-up.
  • Quoted in Oliver Stone Looks Back at ‘JFK’, Rolling Stone , (4 November 2013)

• Fidel Castro was a brilliant person who predicted everything that has happened in the world since 2001... I made the film Comandante with the idea that it would be a historical profile of the man. The film can be seen on YouTube, but it could never be screened in theaters in the United States because they censored it and removed it a week before it was due for release...Then we made Looking for Fidel, which was possibly the most aggressive interview with Fidel. I asked him very difficult questions and that movie was screened on HBO. However, given the good job that Fidel did answering the questions they do not put it on enough on U.S. television. HBO instructed me to ask Fidel hard, tough questions, to put him on the spot. As you all know, that was not easily done and he was brilliant in his answers to all my questions. I think that’s why HBO has not shown the movie again.
  • Quoted by Michel Hernández in Oliver Stone: We are going to miss Fidel (granma.cu) (14 December 2016)

• Putin is the most mature statesmen in the whole world right now. He's been there for four American presidents, since Clinton...He's been everywhere, met everybody. And he sees the world as needing balance. It's not a uni-polar world, dominated by the United States... He's been very clear that we need balances of regional power. Unfortunately, the United States just doesn't want to believe that...it's our military side that scares the sh-- out of me,.. as we tend to be arrogant, that's when you become very dangerous. Somehow we have to learn that we don't have to be number one. We can be partners with the world.
  • Quoted by John Lynch in Oliver Stone says comparing 'disaster' of Bush's presidency to Trump is ridiculous and 'trivializes the situation, Business Insider (29 Oct 2018)

• In all my public statements, I was not at all in favor of anything he G.W.Bush did. He was a disaster for the country in his reaction to 9/11...Worst president we've ever had... To say that Trump is similar is ridiculous because it trivializes the situation.... He's got enough nutcases around him between Bolton and Pompeo that I would worry very, very much... You've got to look back at George Bush... and understand what a mess he put us into. We have not gotten out of Iraq. We have not gotten out of Afghanistan. We have not gotten out of the War on Terror... which is the greatest fiction since the Cold War back in 1945.
  • Quoted by John Lynch in Oliver Stone says comparing 'disaster' of Bush's presidency to Trump is ridiculous and 'trivializes the situation, Business Insider (29 Oct 2018)

• We have an obligation to those who died ... to remember
  • Oliver Stone: Satire and Controversy - Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity [1] (Oliver Stone reminiscing about Charlie Sheen's comments on Platoon's relevance as message vs entertainment)

2019

• In January 2018, the experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight, where it had stood during the darkest days of the Cold War, from 1953 to 1960. The latest move of the hands was precipitated by the recklessness in Trump’s nuclear thinking and the deepening crisis over Korea. Trump wondered aloud about the point of having nuclear weapons if he couldn’t use them.
  • 2 Minutes and Counting, Crises that seemed contained not long ago have now spiraled out of control—and the prospects for resolving them peacefully look depressingly bleak, the Nation, Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, (3 April 2019)

• Acting like a hegemon, the United States, starting in 1999, took advantage of Russian weakness and broke its promise not to expand NATO, eventually adding 13 countries, the last of which was Montenegro, in 2017. When Bush announced plans to incorporate Georgia and Ukraine, Putin drew the line. Following the US-backed Ukrainian coup, he took back Crimea and made clear that there are limits to his toleration of NATO expansion...
  • 2 Minutes and Counting, Crises that seemed contained not long ago have now spiraled out of control—and the prospects for resolving them peacefully look depressingly bleak, the Nation, Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, (3 April 2019)

• But now, in March 2018, Putin was declaring that the US effort had failed. He unveiled the existence of five new nuclear weapons, all of which could circumvent US missile-defense systems. He concluded defiantly, “I hope everything that has been said today will sober any potential aggressor,” adding, “No one listened to us. Listen to us now.”
  • 2 Minutes and Counting, Crises that seemed contained not long ago have now spiraled out of control—and the prospects for resolving them peacefully look depressingly bleak, the Nation, Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, (3 April 2019)

• In the movie the main speaker – heavyweight Ukrainian politician, opposition leader –Viktor Medvedchuk is being interviewed by the renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone...also sat with Russian president Vladimir Putin to ask him a questions about Ukrainian crisis. They share their thoughts on the reasons for the conflict and ways to solve it. The audience will be guided through a behind the stages of the real “games of power” in a way that they can’t see in any mainstream mass media.
  • Revealing Ukraine, Official Trailer, Igor Lopatonok, (27 Jun 2019)

• Oliver Stone, an American writer and an Oscar winning filmmaker will present his documentary about Ukraine [Revealing Ukraine] at the 65th Taormina Film Festival... in Sicily on June 30 - July 6. ... The documentary... reveals the details of the 2014 uprising in Ukraine, discloses the connection between interference to the recent presidential elections in the U.S. and Ukraine, casts the light into the current situation with the conflict in Donbas.
  • Oscar winner Oliver Stone to present his documentary at 65th Taormina Film Festival, (29 June 2019)

• Former president Jimmy Carter recently made a profound and damning statement — the United States is the “most warlike nation in the history of the world.” Carter contrasted the United States with China, saying that China is building high-speed trains for its people while the United States is putting all of its resources into mass destruction. Where are high-speed trains in the United States, Carter appropriately wondered.
• As if to prove Carter’s assertion, Vice President Mike Pence told the most recent graduating class at West Point that it “is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life... You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.” Clearly referring to Venezuela, Pence continued, “Some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.” In other words, Pence declared, war is inevitable, a certainty for this country.
  • We must stop our nation’s push for relentless war By Oliver Stone and Dan Kovalik, Boston Globe, (July 1, 2019)

• For Christmas, remember those who suffer needlessly & please read these #johnpilger bulletins on #JulianAssange’s health and the railroading of his case by #England, #Sweden, and #US.
  • Twitter, (3 December 2019)

2020

• Martyr for truth, conscience, and freedom of press, #JulianAssange, going into hearing this week for extradition from #London to #US, is being robbed of human rights in the name of criminality. Let’s all pray, petition, and meditate for his release.
  • [[2] Twitter], (25 February 2020)

• See latest from #PepeEscobar. Could this be the darkest side of the story? Could we have started a biological attack on #China’s economy and it backfired? I’d rather believe not, but past research at #FortDetrick has done the world a lot of harm.
  • [3] Twitter], (20 March 2020)

• It’s not a time for more #US aggression against #Venezuela or #Iran. Below is an essay @danielmkovalik and I wrote for today’s @NYDailyNews
  • Twitter, (4 April 2020)

• Despite all our problems mismanaging this virus, we still manage to attack #Russia. My Irish friend, journalist @27khv, with his feisty, independent mind, sets us straight on Russia’s #COVID19 situation.
  • Twitter, (22 April 2020)

• It’s always insidious like this, the creeping up in our minds of this kind of phobia. The US #MSM is in a class by itself in creating fiction. Be it a #ColdWar with #Russia or now #China, the echo chamber grows into its own self-fulfilling disaster.
  • Twitter, (30 April 2020)

• See ... Lee Camp’s latest on US #police. Isn’t the real problem too many #cops -- on steroids, over-militarized, over-equipped, looking like aliens ready to engage? No police force anywhere in the world is as scary... This use of domestic force parallels directly our foreign problem -- to many #troops, heavy-handed, interfering in too many countries. The worm will turn.
  • Twitter, (5 June 2020)

• Our Achilles’ heel remains what #MLK proclaimed as the 3 evils confronting us -- Racism, excessive Materialism, and Militarism. Our #Western disease is well-analyzed here... (referring Tomgram: William Hartung, What Makes Us Safer?
  • Twitter, (9 July 2020)

2021

• As one of our interviewers, David Talbot, says in the film, once you kill a sitting president in high noon in Dealey Plaza and blow his head off, you're not going to go back to normal and say, "Oh, wow! We found this whacky--this crazy lone nut who killed him." It doesn't work. It doesn't really work as a narrative for this country. What happened was much deeper than that, and there was so many inconsistencies, so many holes in the Warren Commission... The point is that you cannot remove legitimacy from government like that and get away with it, and the people knew something was wrong. They didn't know exactly what was wrong, but they sensed that something had gone astray, like anarchy has set in. Some method of control was being exerted because forces that were more powerful than one person were able to kill him, forces that were somewhat, I mean, clearly related to intelligence agencies, to possible military agencies, and these forces came to dominate American life...
  • Transcript: A Conversation with Oliver Stone, (streamed live on youtube) The Washington Post, (12 May 2021)

• After Kennedy was killed, and nobody asked... what was Kennedy's real policy on Vietnam? Well... he was going to pull out of Vietnam. He was very clear about it, and that's what people get confused. Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, who took over the office went right to war quickly. He went to a far more aggressive posture of Vietnam, which resulted in more-- It was a lie, another lie, and that war was a disaster... Unfortunately, the same forces that made that war happen continued in our life, and they controlled us and pushed us into another war and another war and another war... we propagandize an enemy, make him far bigger than he is, and I don't know what we're fighting.
  • Transcript: A Conversation with Oliver Stone, (streamed live on youtube) The Washington Post, (12 May 2021)

• There's been a campaign, a war against Russia going on for a long time. It started again in the United States around 2006... there's no evidence really of the aggressiveness of Russia. The aggressiveness is truly coming from the NATO forces that have encircled Russia and that are also, by the way, encircling China. You know, this is a big policy point, huge, of huge importance... we have to have people in the United States who speak up for the peace point of view... Let's get along with China. Let's get along with Russia, Iran, and so forth. We have to change our point of view because we are seeking to still be the only power in the world that is in control of the world. We cannot continue on this path; it's a suicidal path. And I think many Americans agree with me, but it's never been allowed to be stated politically. People who say this type of stuff never win elections because they're ridiculed or marginalized in the press, to be honest.
  • Transcript: A Conversation with Oliver Stone, (streamed live on youtube) The Washington Post, (12 May 2021)

• The Warren commission (into Kennedy’s assassination) was a sham. They (meaning the intelligence agencies) appointed it. Lyndon Johnson basically didn’t want problems because he says he feared war with Russia over Cuba. That was his excuse. But if he’d really looked at the case, if he had had proper intelligence agencies working with him, he (would have known) that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with this assassination.
  Robert Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy wrote to (Russian president) Khrushchev saying, We know it’s not you; we know it’s a right-wing plot from our own country. And that’s what it was.
  • As quoted in 'An unrepentant contrarian won’t change his position on JFK’s murder', by Stephanie Bunbury, The Sydney Morning Herald, (1 December 2021)

• He (JKF) is one of the most important presidents because he was for peace at a time when we were on the brink of war. In 1960, when he ran, the Pentagon was ready to take out Russia on the first strike. This was what their thinking was: ‘We gotta nail these bastards now’ ... That was their Dr Strangelove thinking. Johnson put us right back smack into the middle of the biggest war we’d ever had since WWII and it was a disaster, as you know. A debacle.
  • As quoted in 'An unrepentant contrarian won’t change his position on JFK’s murder', by Stephanie Bunbury, The Sydney Morning Herald, (1 December 2021)

Wall Street (Director’s Commentary) (2000)

• I wanted to explore the new Wall Street. When I was writing Scarface in Miami, there was so much coke around and so many lunatics, and I met so many kids from Wall Street who were millionaires. I thought older men were rich, but here were these kids, 25 or 28 or 35 years old, with millions of dollars playing the markets all over the world around the clock. My father would have been shocked by the new electronics that allowed it…. Dad was a stockbroker on Wall Street when there was more integrity and class.
• Wall Street was an extension of Scarface.
• This is about getting into a corporation, screwing it up, putting in poison pills so your competitor can’t swallow it…. Very intricate game played in the 1980’s…. Mike Milken did it with junks bonds, Drexel Burnham.
• I’m ambivalent. I like Gekko, which is partly why Michael Douglas did so well…. Gekko is despicable but kinda fun too.
• Money never sleeps.
• All these Wall Street lawyers are running the system according to Buckminster Fuller. After World War II they took most of the money out of the United States, they drained the blood out of the United States and put it abroad, overseas capital…. Fuller calls it Lawyer Capitalism, the lawyers run the show. Tax laws are the key. In the postwar years, tax law allowed US capital to go abroad…. It all fled the country and stayed abroad and America changed tremendously…. We became a world power, yet a rapacious one, with capitalists really doing a major theft of our money…. Nixon took us off the Gold standard in 1972 because America went bankrupt…. All these recessions in the 70’s, 80’s…. My father got wiped out on Wall Street.
• It’s funny to read articles about Gordon Gekko as if he exists…. If you really listen to Gekko’s speech, half of it makes sense…. But it’s the excess, losing moderation, that destroys all…. There is nothing inherently wrong with greed as a human motivator, greed motivating evolution…. But there’s a huge disconnect between the classes. It is very demoralizing to work for someone who makes a billion dollars a year while you make just barely enough to make it.
• Greed is good. Taken from Ivan Boesky’s speech saying ‘Greed is right.’… Gekko says he wrecks it ‘because it is wreckable.’ There is an impulse in Gekko to take, to rape…. Kirk Kerkorian destroyed MGM and UA…. Buy both companies and destroy both. And that was the end of the movie business. UA and MGM were two great film companies. Suddenly they were one lousy company. Kerkorian did it for the money, like Gekko. He didn’t care about film. Never. He sold it off in pieces. He cannibalized it. Just like Gekko. These guys do what suits their short-term.
• Zero sum game implies winners and losers. If somebody wins, somebody gotta lose…. I don’t agree with that. Because all boats can rise on a rising sea. Good films help other good films. Different psychology. If you’re overly competitive, you say it is exclusionary, a zero sum game: I must win so he must lose. That’s not true. We can all win without forcing the other guy to lose.
• Balzac was right…. There is tremendous jealousy about money.
• I leave Bud Fox in the canyons of Wall Street, just another ant, one of millions of ants…. We’re all absorbed in this system of capitalism…. You join the collective unconscious.

See also

• Category:Oliver Stone films