Oliver Stone is late. It's been almost 40 minutes since we were supposed to meet on Zoom and I'm still waiting for him, afraid to step away in case he appears. Did he forget about our meeting? Did he change his mind and decided not to be interviewed? Or did I maybe send him the wrong link?
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"I'm sorry," he apologizes immediately upon connecting, "I'm on vacation in Italy with my wife. Too much pasta, too much ice cream, too much everything. I completely forgot that we were scheduled to speak. I'm sorry you had to wait."
I don't tell him this but for the opportunity to interview one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century, I would be willing to wait much longer than 40 minutes.
Stone is, after all, the man who wrote "Scarface," who won his first Oscar for adapting "Midnight Express" to film, and two more for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July." He directed "JFK" and an array of provocative films such as "Salvador," "Wall Street," "Talk Radio," "Natural Born Killers," "The Doors," "Nixon," "U Turn," and others that have become an integral part of American cinema of the 80s and 90s.
I speak with Stone, who is turning 77 in September, ahead of his arrival at the Jerusalem Film Festival where he will be awarded a certificate of appreciation and present his new documentary, "Nuclear Now," which argues that nuclear energy is the solution to fight climate change.
"I'm very much looking forward to visiting Israel," Stone says, "I've visited it several times in the past, and I'm coming back because I'm curious. I received a very nice invitation from the festival. They wrote to me that they want to give me a lifetime achievement award. I don't see it as a political thing. It is given to me for the films I've made. It comes from a place of deeper critical and artistic appreciation of my work, and I'm happy to share it with the Israeli and Arab audiences, and with anyone who comes.
"I visited Israel 20 years ago. I came to film a documentary called 'Persona Non Grata', which dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I interviewed Shimon Peres and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. It was crazy because during the conversation with Netanyahu, a bomb exploded further down the street and everything became very dramatic. I also interviewed [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat and the al-Aqsa [Martyrs'] Brigades. Then I almost got stuck in Ramallah. The Canadian ambassador managed to get us out of there at the very last minute, a second before a siege began. Lucky, because otherwise we would have been stuck there for a month."
Q: Your father was Jewish. Growing up, was Jewish culture present in your life?
"I was raised in between. My mother was Catholic, and my father was Jewish, but they decided as a compromise to raise me as a Protestant. They put me in Sunday school very early on. So no – I never had any knowledge of Judaism. My father was a tough man and he hated the Old Testament. Well, maybe 'hate' is a bit of a strong word, but he didn't find any use for it and thought it was bull***. In my opinion, it's actually a very exciting and historically interesting book. We studied it in Sunday school."
Q: Do you keep track of what's happening in Israel politically?
"I don't really know or understand what's going on there. It seems that Netanyahu is doing the best he can, but he has undoubtedly chosen some strange partners. Fundamentalist types, I would say. I can't say that I have respect for these people."
Q: As we speak, tens of thousands are protesting against the government. There's talk of a civil war. So perhaps you should bring your camera along.
"Oh no. Last time I almost got stuck in Ramallah. Don't tell me I might get stuck in Jerusalem this time. What are the protests about?
Q: About democracy.
"I see. Democracy is beautiful, beautiful and important."
"I'm coming to Israel because of my films"
The decision to invite Stone to the Jerusalem Film Festival garnered a lot of criticism in the media in recent weeks due to the director's several controversial statements throughout his career, such as statements viewed as antisemitic he made in 2010 while promoting his documentary miniseries "Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States."
"I am not an antisemite," Stone clarifies firmly when I tell him that many in Israel still remember his remarks. "I was never an antisemite, and I don't think the things I said were antisemitic. I apologized for the things that were said, and various Jewish organizations in the US cleared me of any guilt."
Q: You said at the time that Hitler was misunderstood and that Jews control the media.
"It sounds really terrible when you say it like that, but it's out of context. If you watch the documentary series I made – 12 hours long – you can see exactly what I think and say about Hitler, Germany, and World War II.
"But most people haven't necessarily seen the series. Most people feed on headlines and soundbites. The series speaks for itself. It provides a very interesting and unorthodox view of WWII, among other things. So what else do you want me to say?
"I'm coming to Israel because of my films. I'm not coming to make a documentary about the ongoing political bull***, that's not my goal here. I'm an older man. I'd rather talk about other things, and not degrade my career by bringing up things I said In the past. I prefer to talk about nuclear energy."
And indeed, "Nuclear Now" is very different from what one would expect from Stone, both due to the subject and the direct and matter-of-fact tone used to convey the message.
According to Stone, he became interested in the subject after reading "A Bright Future" by Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist. Stone originally thought to adapt the book to film, but eventually decided on a documentary approach.
"As I see it, the matter goes beyond parties, countries, and continents. Conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Right, Left – this is relevant to everyone. There is a clear conclusion that nuclear energy works, and that it can be a solution to the climate crisis. Many years ago we foolishly turned our backs to something that works.
"We show in the film how nuclear energy was shunned. We deal with the reasons why people are afraid of it – Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Chornobyl disaster; the horror films produced in the 1950s, with all the monsters created as a result of radioactive radiation: 'The China Syndrome' with Jane Fonda, 'Silkwood' with Meryl Streep, and of course the HBO series, 'Chernobyl', which shows an exaggeration of what happened.
"In movies, nuclear energy is never a good thing. From the beginning, people made the wrong connection between nuclear bombs and nuclear energy, but the two are so different. It's a glaring lack of understanding of the matter."
Q: How come?
"Because even if you don't believe in global warming, I would argue that nuclear energy is the cleanest and most effective type of energy we have. This is not to say that solar energy and wind energy are not effective, because they are. But they don't work all the time, and their hours of activity are limited. Nuclear energy works around the clock. You can't do that with the other energies. For example, in winter, when there is no sun or wind, the substitutes used today are methane or coal, and methane is one of the largest pollutants. It's a terrible solution. The oil companies love it, of course."
Q: And what made you make this movie specifically now?
"I'm older. I have children, and hopefully grandchildren soon. What will happen to them in 2050? The world is spending trillions of dollars on renewable energy, but according to the reports coming out in 2020, when we started working on the film, carbon dioxide levels are still rising. So we're not doing enough, it's not working. The change is not big enough. The world needs to shift its consciousness. Nuclear energy should be put back on the agenda, it should be encouraged.
"We were in Davos last February. All these important people, sitting there on the stage talking about the future of the world and blah-blah-blah. They never talk about nuclear energy. Why?"
Q: Do you think humanity is ready for such a shift in consciousness?
"Yes. Radioactive radiation is a fact and a part of life, and we should stop being afraid of it. There is radiation in dental clinics and is part of cancer treatments. It is all around us whether we like it or not, and we have to accept it. President Eisenhower praised nuclear energy. Kennedy also supported it. It was already on its way to happening. In the 1970s we aimed to make America a nuclear nation by the year 2000. But as we show in the film, the oil and coal companies lobbied against it. They tried to say that any amount of radiation is harmful to us, but that's not true, it's been proven. The film is about facts, not opinions or theories.
"I like to compare nuclear energy to Cinderella. She's the ugly sister who stays at home and cleans the floors, while her sisters go out and have a life. Then one day we all find out that Cinderella isn't ugly at all, she's actually beautiful. That's how I feel about nuclear energy. It's a misunderstood topic that got a bad reputation undeservedly."
Living according to the "Socratic method"
Although he hasn't made a feature film since "Snowden" in 2016, Stone has been very busy in recent years. Besides "Nuclear Now", which premiered at the latest Venice Film Festival, two years ago he released "JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass," a documentary that brought him back to the conspiracy surrounding the assassination of Kennedy, 30 years after the monumental feature film he directed on the subject.
Stone also took advantage of downtime during the pandemic to write a fascinating memoir titled "Chasing the Light" about the struggles, disappointments, and successes that characterized the first decade of his film career.
"It was very easy and fun for me to go back in time to write the book," he says. "It gave me an opportunity to step aside for a moment and step outside of myself. It allowed me to examine my life as a philosopher. As a writer, you look at the things you've done in your life and examine yourself. You think about the meaning of your actions. This is the Socratic method – to look for the best way to live. That's what I try to do. I don't always succeed, but I try."
Q: Your book ends with you winning an Oscar for "Platoon," based on your experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. Are you planning to write the rest of your story?
"Yes. The book ends when I'm 40 because so many things happened to me until then. I would like to go back and tell the story until the end because it's a piece of a story. This book is about the dream, about the person who dreamed it, and about the first great fulfillment of the dream, that happened with the release of 'Platoon' and 'Salvador.'
"I wanted to show the reader that there is a lot more to this business than success. I wanted to write about the lessons I learned. To tell how each of these films was made and how difficult it was to make them. There was nothing more difficult than making these two films.
And of course, there are also all the scandals and stories surrounding the 'Midnight Express', 'Conan the Barbarian', 'Scarface' and 'Year of the Dragon', which I wrote for other directors. I saw so much along the way and felt like I had a lot of insights into life that I wanted to share. I tried to be as honest as Ron Kubik was in his book, on which I based the movie 'Born on the Fourth of July.'
Q: Almost all the films in your filmography were very difficult to make. There is no way they would be produced today.
"I agree with you that the atmosphere today is very different. My breakthrough happened when Reagan was in the White House, I was part of the reaction to it. But even so, during my career, there were more films that I wasn't allowed to make than films that I was allowed to. So maybe I became too dangerous at some point ".
Q: And yet, you have directed at least 20 cult films.
"I was very lucky, I guess. But these days it's so expensive to make movies and market them. That's why most movies have to be blockbusters, and those movies can really be very boring and repetitive. The Fast and Furious franchise, for instance. How many car crashes can we watch? Or the 'John Wick' movies. Keanu Reeves kills 400 people there, and you don't believe anything he does. It's so easy for him to kill people. It's ridiculous."
Q: I'm sorry, but how is that different from the movies of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 80s?
"True, I guess you're right, but don't compare me to them. In ' Natural Born Killers' I made a satire. I had to say it over and over again because people didn't understand. The murders in the movie were ridiculous and intentionally extreme, like in a cartoon. The idea was that America was going crazy and that the media makes the violence sensational and a major news subject. I started to notice it with the OJ Simpson trial and all kinds of other cases that happened at the time. But I never made a movie with that kind of violence again."
Q: You've known many successes during your career, but also some painful failures. When you look back at the films you've made, are there any that you feel didn't get the fame they deserved?
"Many of them," Stone says, laughing. "I think 'Alexander' is one of my best films, but people weren't ready to accept it and it received very harsh reviews. In my opinion, undeservedly so. I released another version of it in 2007, which lasts three and a half hours. There were places where it was successful, mainly in Europe, so they didn't forget it. But in the English-speaking world, it was scorned and it wasn't fair in my opinion. It obviously hurt a lot.
"I really like 'Heaven & Earth', which I think is a beautiful film, but no one has seen it. I also really like 'Talk Radio' and 'U Turn' – a kinky and crazy film. I think 'Any Given Sunday' is a classic football film.
"The movie I made about the events of 9/11, 'World Trade Center,' didn't do well either. They said I was conservative, and all the attention was directed to 'Flight 93,' which presented a complete fantasy because nobody really knows what happened on that plane. But my film was authentic and showed the truth behind what happened. It was very difficult to make.
Hollywood scandals
Professional and personal scandals accompanied Stone throughout his career and became one of his hallmarks early on. Over the years, he has also been accused of racism, misogyny, historical distortions, the glorification of serial killers, and a fondness for conspiracy theories, and the list of people he has clashed with in Hollywood is endless.
However, in recent years most of the criticism directed at him is related to his unusual affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2017, Stone directed a four-hour documentary series, which consisted of interviews with Putin, and the result was severely criticized due to the director's forgiving and flattering attitude toward the Russian leader.
"I hear a lot of criticism from overconfident people who say, 'Stone got old and went completely crazy. He used to make good movies, but at some point, he took a wrong turn.' All this sh**. That's what people want to believe about me. But it's too early to tell whether I'm on the right side of history or not. History is still in the making."
Q: A year and a half following the invasion of Ukraine, do you still believe Putin is a great leader as you said before? Or has your opinion changed?
"Putin is protecting the interests of his country. The conflict needs to be understood in a different way. If you don't recognize that the NATO alliance threatens Russia's territory, you ignore reality. He is in a difficult position because many Western countries are facing him. To tell the truth, I am surprised by the lack of understanding and the lack of empathy toward Russia. Very surprised even."
Q: You said in an interview once that you hated dictators and thugs. But in your political documentaries, such as the ones about Putin, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez, you seem to be drawn to them. How do you explain the contradiction?
"There's something very important to understand in this context. The reason I went to talk to these people is because they all stood against the imperialist policy promoted by the US. I didn't go to them to interview them about what was going on in their backyard. What interested me was how they stood against this empire, against America. That's my perspective."
Q: I'm also very curious to hear about your prediction with regard to next year's presidential elections in the US.
"The upcoming election will be the craziest election we've ever had. I don't know what's going to happen. Biden has become very militant and is under the control of people who are worse and no less crazy than the fundamentalists in your government."
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Q: Do you think there's a chance Trump will return to the White House?
"Yes. I don't support him and I never voted for him, but like Netanyahu, the fact that he is so attacked and hated only ensures that he will get more attention. Because a lot of people are really tired of the so-called mainstream media. Anyway, we have become a polarized and broken country and that's a real shame. The American Civil War was 150 years ago. What's happening now looks similar. I think the problems started in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected. I don't think he was elected legally. I had a feeling that evening that something strange was happening. Since then everything has been messed up."
Q: To sum up, would you ever make a film about Netanyahu?
"As you know, I have already interviewed him before. But no, I would not make a film about him. He does not fit my profile. He is very much in favor of the American empire. Trump played into his hands and gave him everything he wanted. It is Biden who stands in front of him and confronts him on vital issues. It makes me laugh to see how these things work sometimes. We live in a world that no longer has black or white. Only shades of gray remain."
