OS: (laughs) The falling-down thesis. Which is simplistic. If
people are just going to freak out and go to their local pharmacy and buy
cocaine for two dollars a pack, fine--I say let them do it. For one
night, two nights, six nights, 10 nights. Let them reach their own
limits. Let them find out for themselves. That's the purpose of life--to
grow, to feel, to sense, to know. It is good for a person to find his own
limits. Individual responsibility.
PT: Drugs have been a problem in Hollywood for a longtime. To what
degree do you think that a filmmaker can be into drugs and maintain his
or her productivity?
OS: It's a personal matter.
PT: But do you think that a productive filmmaker could get into
drugs and use them only recreationally?
OS: Absolutely, it's been done since the silent-film days. It is a
totally personal issue and it has to do with the creative mind, which may
find stimulus from letting go of the portals, from significant mental
journeys which are undertaken at some risk and during which you are going
to delve into the deepest parts of the mind. This is a creative decision,
not a governmental decision. The government doesn't mandate what opera we
write, what symphony we listen to, what kind of mind we should
have.
PT: You are a person with profound power. You can create truths for
minds that don't read and don't have a basis for comparison. They go to
JFK and say, "Oh, that's the truth." They go to Platoon and think, "Oh,
that's the truth."
OS: You give me much more power than I have.
PT: I don't think so.
OS: If my ideas have any power, I would hope it's only because they
strike the public as being valid. Each time I float an idea out there I
start from zero. It's a new idea, and I float it. If they perceive it as
bullshit, they won't go for it. They know it, they smell it out. I think
people are very intelligent, for the most part. You can't get bullshit
past them.
PT: But if you make a movie that promotes a point of view you
believe in, certain people--because of your passion and belief in
it--will be persuaded by it.
OS: I don't think so, you're talking about the innocent teenager
who gets seduced by a film. There is no such thing as an innocent
teenager.
PT: People when they talk about you ask, "When is Oliver Stone
going to get out of the '60s?"
OS: I think that's kind of simplistic. I feel I'm living in the
'90s and trying to deal with life around me. I think that there's a root
to many of our actions that stems back from the '60s because I grew up
then. So that's probably the reason.
PT: Would you rather live in the '60s or the '90s?
OS: I'd like to live in both decades and be able to have my '90s
knowledge in the '60s, but that would be all screwed up. I like both. The
'90s so far, I don't know what's going on. To me the '60s were very
hard--my parents got divorced, I went to Vietnam. There were struggles,
losses I didn't have a sense of.
PT: Spike Lee angrily addresses the problems of blacks and you
angrily deal with your issues. Do you have to be angry or rageful to make
social-commentary films?
OS: No, I don't think you have to be angry, but anger is a health
pulse. It's an exorcism, too, and it should be used as such. You have to
control your anger and you have to step outside of it, so that you can
use it effectively. Anger is a positive tool, not an energy-sapping tool.
I think you need a sense of justice for drive and for passion. A passion
for justice.
PHOTOS (5): Oliver Stone
PHOTO: Stone's latest epic, Heaven and Earth, is scheduled for
release around Christmastime.
Photographs by Sidney Baldwin/Warner Brothers
Tags:
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drugs,
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filmmaker,
fourth of july,
hard time,
hippie,
jfk,
media,
movie,
Oliver Stone,
politics,
potency,
push pull,
railing,
sixties,
stuart fischoff,
tyrant,
wild palms
