Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412230016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Answer: "No, I'm a filmmaker."
And why did he show blacks as overrepresented in the prison population in "Natural Born Killers"?
Answer: There is a disproportionate number of blacks in prison.
He was trying to leave the stage when a young woman waving from behind one of the audience microphones caught his attention.
"This will be the one I regret," he predicted, then told her to go ahead and ask a question.
"My mother says I would have more luck opening a Chinese restaurant" than getting anywhere as an actress, the Asian-American woman said. What are the prospects for Asians in films? Has Hollywood become more inclusive?
"Come on up here and let me get a closer look at you," Stone said, seemingly half in jest, and the audience burst into laughter.
But the woman complied, striding down the aisle in a pair of tight-fitting acid-washed blue jeans. With microphone still in hand, she looked as if she were about to burst into a karaoke number. Then she strode up onto the stage. Then up to the podium, where Stone backed away slightly. She leaned her elbow on the lectern and put her chin in her hand, gazing up at the famous director.
Stone blushed and, in good directorial fashion, pointed at a spot on the stage about 8 feet to his right and said, "Stand over there."
Like a good actress, she took the order and stood to his right. Stone stammered out something about having cast an unknown Asian-American woman in "Heaven and Earth," straight-facedly advised the audience that the 20-year-old woman on stage with him "could be a star" and said good night.
Backstage, the young woman was in Stone's dressing room when a journalist and photographer showed up for an interview. She left, and Stone explained that she was going back to Washington, D.C., with him and his small entourage when the interview was over. He looked straight into a news photographer's camera for 20 minutes of rapid-fire photo-journalism while he answered questions and never once blinked; he seemed to know where the camera was at all times. Then he caught a glimpse of his hair in the dressing room mirror. He wondered if it looked all right. He is balding, but has a youthful look about him. Maybe it's the gap-toothed grin.
Outside the door, the would-be star was waiting. It was quietly suggested that maybe she was a little young for him. He froze in the doorway. "You think? How old do you think I am?"
"Forty-seven."
He sighed and said goodbye, smiling all the way.
Oliver Stone is an unlikely combination of naivete and in-your-face confidence. What he had to say to Tech students could be summed up in five words: Question authority (especially the media).
Burned by some especially vitriolic attacks after-and he claims even before-the release of "JFK," Stone has adopted a cynical view of the press and media sensationalism. But he takes no pains to avoid the negative attention he deplores.
Stone had received bad press before "JFK" burst onto the scene, with its wide-angle conspiracy theory. But he said he was stunned by the ferocity of the attacks on the film and him personally.
"Anthony Lewis [of the New York Times] called me a crackpot," Stone said. "I was really attacked by the political press ... but I expected more support from the movie press."
With publicity for his most recent movie, "Natural Born Killers," behind him, he seems utterly weary of bad reviews and the journalistic spin he believes reporters put on stories. What he doesn't seem to be aware of is how like a journalist he is-particularly an old-fashioned muckraker. Except that he is even more powerful because the medium of film is "so visceral, so sensual," as he himself admits.
Take "JFK," for example: A poll showed that seven of 10 people who saw the movie came away with the belief that the CIA killed the president. But he has no qualms about having that kind of impact on public opinion.
"I believe that [the CIA killed the president]," he said. "But a movie is only the beginning. It starts the process."
It pleased him that people went to bookstores to read more about Kennedy assassination theories after seeing "JFK."
Film should function in American culture like "the great Hindu and Buddhist ideographs," he told the audience of about 2,000 at Tech, but it should also "exorcise" to bring about healing.
He found out that the wounds in the American conscience from Vietnam were too fresh when he made his films, "Platoon," "Born on the 4th of July" and "Heaven and Earth." That is how he explains the negative reaction to the latter two films, which received very mixed reviews.
Journalists should try harder to present all facets of the truth, to resist "consensus journalism." Critics should take into account the subjectivity of their own viewpoint, he said, and attempt to take into account the filmmaker's intent. He urged students to use the alternative media and ferret out "the truth" for themselves.
And "never underestimate the power of corruption to rewrite history."
For a guy who has won two Academy Awards for direction (for the first two of the three Vietnam films), another for screenwriting ("Midnight Express") and made a lot of good, old-fashioned Hollywood money, Stone seems pretty dissatisfied. Or jaded. But he seems to be taking a turn for "the spiritual."
He told the Tech students to take a year off from school and travel to a poorer culture, and to look for ways to integrate the spiritual into their lives. His travels to Thailand taught him about "awareness of spiritualism on a daily basis," and he has reportedly begun to study and practice Buddhism.
He would not say what his next directing project would be (never trust the media,) but he said he is writing something "political." He is producing a remake of "Planet of the Apes," in which Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed an interest, but "Noriega" and "Evita" are definitely in the trash can.
The movie "Thunderheart" stole too much thunder from the story of Leonard Peltier, whom he called the "premier political prisoner" in America. (Peltier was convicted on scant evidence in the killing of two FBI agents on an Indian reservation.) So he probably will not make that film.
But Stone obviously has many projects in the making. As for the Student Who Would Be A Star, anything is possible. If Oliver Stone is proof that pure brashness is the key to success, then someday she will have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
by CNB