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) is an American film director and screenwriter. He has received numerous accolades including four Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.

Quotes

1991–2010

• 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 (December 22, 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.
• [In comparison with the Vietnam war] It's the same story in Afghanistan, Iraq and South America. It's white people meeting people who they think they are better than. And I feel that this war is the war of my life. I've seen it over and over again and if I can do one thing with what's left of my remaining years, it's just to cry it out and say it, I hope, with enough entertainment that people will want see it.
  • "Oliver Stone and the politics of film-making" The Observer (July 18, 2010).

2013–2018

• We have an obligation to those who died ... to remember
  • Oliver Stone: Satire and Controversy - Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (March 22, 2013) Reminiscing about Charlie Sheen's comments on the relevance of Platoon (1986) as message vs entertainment)

• A sad occasion in that Julian could not follow me out the door. He lives in a tiny room with great modesty and discipline.
• Strong mind, no sun, friends who visit, work to be done, one documentary coming out from Alex Gibney that is not expected to be kind.
• Another film from Dreamworks which is also going to be unfriendly … I don't think most people in the US realise how important WikiLeaks is and why Julian's case needs support.
• Julian Assange did much for free speech and is now being victimised by the abusers of that concept.
  • Tweets (April 2013), as quoted in "Oliver Stone meets Julian Assange and criticises new WikiLeaks films" The Guardian (April 11, 2013)
  • Published while Julian Assange was in the Embassy of Ecuador, London (granted asylum) having skipped bail prior to his extradition to Sweden. For the Alex Gibney film, see We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (2013). For the film produced by DreamWorks, see The Fifth Estate (also 2013)

• 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 (November 4, 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) (December 14, 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 (October 29, 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 (October 29, 2018)

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, The Nation (April 3, 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, The Nation (April 3, 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 3, 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, (June 27, 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", (June 29, 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)

2021

• [On his documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass (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", The Washington Post, (May 12, 2021) (streamed live on youtube)

• 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, (May 12, 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, (May 12, 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, (December 1, 2021)

2023

• Putin is a great leader for his country and the people love him.
  • Quoted in "Oliver Stone: 'Putin is a great leader for his country'", The Guardian (May 2, 2023)

Quotes about Oliver Stone

• Movie critics have complained that the movie lacks coherent vision. The fault may not be Stone's. We know what [Alexander] did, and it continues to astonish us, but we don't know how or why he did it... Stone suggests some noble purpose for Alexander's mad, bloody tromp across Asia. He and his historical consultant shared a need to give meaning to a meaningless conquest.
  • Eugene N. Borza, About the film Alexander, as quoted in "Expert says Hollywood 'Alexander' gets a lot wrong: Stone may have been thrown by historians' lack of agreement" (3 December 2004), by Rebecca J. Ritzell, Intelligencer Journal

• In their ten-part cable television documentary series and seven-hundred-page companion book The Untold History of the United States, filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick ask: "Why does our country have military bases in every region of the globe, totaling more than a thousand by some counts? Why does the United States spend as much money on its military as the rest of the world combined? Why does it still possess thousands of nuclear weapons, many on hair-trigger alert, even though no nation poses an imminent threat?" These are key questions. Stone and Kuznick condemn the situation but do not answer the questions. The authors see the post-World War II development of the United States into the world's sole superpower as a sharp divergence from the founders' original intent and historical development prior to the mid-twentieth century. They quote an Independence Day speech by President John Quincy Adams in which he condemned British colonialism and claimed that the United States "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." Stone and Kuznick fail to mention that the United States at the time was invading, subjecting, colonizing, and removing the Indigenous farmers from their land, as it had since its founding and as it would through the nineteenth century. In ignoring that fundamental basis for US development as an imperialist power, they do not see that overseas empire was the logical outcome of the course the United States chose at its founding.
  • Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (2014)

See also

• Category:Oliver Stone films