Oliver Stone Versus

[Dr Movie Jerk 0]

With the release of Snowden (September 16, so I hope this isn't too late), a discussion of Oliver Stone's work may be appropriate. The obvious choice for The Canon is Platoon, which should make it in a walk, but a fun episode would be a versus pitting his two huge 90's films against each other, JFK vs. Natural Born Killers. Both were major touchstones within the culture when they were released, but do they hold up 20-25 years later?

[NathanGordon 1096]

The trailer for Snowden looked terrible -- the visualizations of data and screen overlays made it feel like old paranoid digital thrillers like The Net. I fear that we'll get a lot of Gordon-Levitt staring at computer monitors and seeing them reflected in his glasses. Oliver Stone has never been a nuanced filmmaker and I think what Snowden really needs is a didactic approach like The Big Short -- digital law and information rights are slippery and poorly understood by a majority of people directly affected by them. I'm sure that Stone feels a certain responsibility to be a truthteller, but his films rarely clarify their subjects (war, presidential politics, media circuses, 9/11).

 

Stone is at his best when he's exploring a sort of hypermasculine Hemingway space -- of man (and it's definitely MAN) struggling against man -- especially in his earlier films focused on war. I think that's where he's most succeeded, because that is a subject suited to his big, loud, hamfisted approach to material. War is fucking insane, and Stone is really good at communicating the incomprehensibility and existential angst of humans killing each other.

 

Again, nuance isn't his strong suit; he's not capable of something like Paths of Glory or Bridge on the River Kwai. But Platoon and Salvador both capture an American confusion at the horror and meaninglessness of war, coming out of the country's disillusionment following their Vietnam involvement and the then-ongoing Cold War, as well as multiple conflicts in South America and the Middle East. The US was suddenly beset by unseen enemies on all sides, and people were experiencing this fear through their televisions. Oliver Stone nails this mood during that era.

 

He lost his way in the 1990s and is close to irrelevance today (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is hilariously off the mark). I haven't bothered with most of his work in the 2000s and while I'll reserve judgement for Snowden, it doesn't look to be the work of a director who's found his way again. I had no intention of writing a long post on a filmmaker I don't even really like, but I think that shows how influential and major a figure Oliver Stone has been.

 

I'd love to hear a discussion on Natural Born Killers instead of a slam dunk like Platoon. Killers is a hot fucking mess but I think it's kinda zeitgeisty and of its time. It was one of the last films of his that wasn't just reactive after the fact (Money Never Sleeps, World Trade Center, the Bush film). It could be interesting.

[NathanGordon 1096]

JFK is garbage tho.

[CarlosFerreira 20]

JFK is garbage tho.

 

Yes, with a proviso: it's entertaining garbage. Take it as the outrageous conspiracy theory-thriller that it is, and it's huge fun. If it was 40min shorter it would be on high rotation all the time.

[bleepblopbloop 2]

I'd love to see a Nixon episode. It's been said before, but it's a Shakespearean story featuring everything that's good about his hyperkinetic style and political messaging of the 90's.

 

As a side-note: I realize I'll be in the minority on this but I think W. is a misunderstood masterpiece, as well as his last great and relevant film. People were expecting Nixon when it came out, but the real Bush wasn't as dark or mythic a character as Nixon was. Considering the goofus Bush was and the time of it's release, this was exactly the type of movie that would/should have been made about him.