Oliver Stone(I)

Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and
a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film
angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy
performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.

William Oliver Stone was born in New York City, to Jacqueline (Goddet)
and Louis Stone, a stockbroker. His American father was from a Jewish
family (from Germany and Eastern Europe), and his mother, a war bride,
was French (and Catholic). After dropping out of Yale University, he
became a soldier in the Vietnam War. Serving in two different regiments
(including 1rst Cavalry), he was introduced to
The Doors, drugs,
Jefferson Airplane, and other things
that defined the sixties. For his actions in the war, he was awarded a
Bronze Star for Gallantry and a Purple Heart. Returning from the war,
Stone did not return to graduate from Yale. His first film was a
student film entitled
Last Year in Viet Nam (1971),
followed by the gritty horror film
La reine du mal (1974) for which he also wrote
the screenplay. The next seven years saw him direct two films:
Mad Man of Martinique (1979)
and La main du cauchemar (1981), starring
Michael Caine. He also wrote many
screenplays for films such as
Midnight Express (1978),
Conan le barbare (1982),
and Scarface (1983). Stone won his first
Oscar for
Midnight Express (1978), but his
fame was just beginning to show.

1986 was the year that brought him much fame to the U.S.A. and the
world. He directed the political film
Salvador (1986) starring Oscar-nominated
James Woods. However, his big hit
was the Vietnam war film Platoon (1986)
starring
Charlie Sheen,Willem Dafoe,
Tom Berenger, and
Francesco Quinn. Berenger and Dafoe
received Oscar nominations for their roles as the polar opposite
sergeants who each influence the tour of duty of Chris Taylor (Sheen).
Stone won his first Oscar for directing this film, which won Best
Picture and was a hit at the box office. After
Platoon (1986), Stone followed up with
the critically acclaimed
Wall Street (1987). The movie,
starring Charlie Sheen and
Michael Douglas, focuses on the
business world of tycoons and stock brokers. The film was well received
and won an Oscar for Douglas' portrayal of the villainous Gordon Gekko.
Stone returned immediately the following year with
Talk Radio (1988), which talked of a
foul-mouthed radio host (played by
Eric Bogosian) who never fails to talk
about the serious issues. Although it was not as successful as his last
three films, Stone did not slow down at all. He directed
Tom Cruise into an Oscar-nominated role in
Né un 4 juillet (1989).

The movie talked about the return of an embittered, crippled Vietnam
soldier from the war. Although it failed to win Best Picture or Best
Actor, Oliver Stone won an Academy Award for Directing, his third win
to date. After
Né un 4 juillet (1989),
Stone took a hand in producing several movies, including the Academy
Award-winning film
Le mystère Von Bülow (1990).
He returned to the director's chair in 1991, once again with two films.
Val Kilmer starred as the legendary and
controversial Jim Morrison in
Stone's psychedelic film
Les Doors (1991).

Despised by former Doors member
Ray Manzarek, the film is nevertheless a
wonderful achievement, with Kilmer pulling off an almost flawless
impersonation of Morrison. Regardless of opinion,
Les Doors (1991) was overshadowed by
Stone's colossal film JFK (1991), which Stone
himself considers the best of his films. In Stone's movie,
Jim Garrison tackles the conspiracy
behind the murder of America's president
John F. Kennedy. The large cast featured
such well-known names as Kevin Costner,
Tommy Lee Jones,
John Candy, Joe Pesci,
Donald Sutherland, and
Walter Matthau. This film represented a
change in Stone's works, because it was with this film that he really
began to explore the different camera styles and combining them
together to create a multi-dimensional way of showing a movie.
JFK (1991), as with
Platoon (1986) and
Né un 4 juillet (1989),
earned eight Oscar nominations and was one of Stone's most successful
films. However, he failed to win a third Oscar for Best Director.

After this film, Stone directed his third Vietnam film to date.
Entre ciel et terre (1993) was a film
about the war from the viewpoint of a Vietnamese girl, and also
co-starred Tommy Lee Jones (who had
received an Oscar nomination for JFK (1991)).
Despite its new woman's perspective and several positive reviews, it
was a box office failure. Stone was unfazed; his next film is perhaps
his most notorious film to date. Adapting a screenplay by
Quentin Tarantino, Stone made
Tueurs nés (1994)
starring Woody Harrelson,
Juliette Lewis,
Tom Sizemore and
Rodney Dangerfield in his only
dramatic performance. The film was received well at the box office,
while review were very mixed. Because of the violence that people
claimed was inspired by the film, it was compared to
Stanley Kubrick's
Orange mécanique (1971). As
usual, Stone was at the center of controversial subjects; his next film
Nixon (1995) was no exception. The film
focused on the life of President Richard Nixon, played by
Anthony Hopkins, while featuring
another well-known cast, including
Joan Allen in the role of Nixon's
wife. Both went on to receive Oscar nominations, while Stone received
his sixth Oscar nomination for Screenwriting. The film got mixed
reviews, and failed to recoup its budget.

Aside from directing, Stone has worked as a producer on several
different films. There was, of course, the successful film
Le mystère Von Bülow (1990),
which won Jeremy Irons an Oscar and also
nominated the director for an Oscar. There was also the highly praised
and successful emotional drama
Le club de la chance (1993) which
centered around four Chinese immigrant women whose relationships with
their daughters is affected by their own lives. Another highly praised
Oscar nominated film was Milos Forman's
classic film
Larry Flynt (1996)
starring Woody Harrelson,
Edward Norton, and
Courtney Love. Whether the crime/action
film Le corrupteur (1999) or the
brilliant war epic Savior (1998), Stone
has worked in a variety of film genres.

Stone had directed ten films in nine years; now however, he began to
slow down. He directed the film
U Turn - Ici commence l'enfer (1997) starring
Sean Penn and
Jennifer Lopez. As with
Tueurs nés (1994),
it was a dark and twisted satire on violence, but did not have the same
success as the former. Stone was set to direct several projects in the
late
90's but they fell through
and were not made. However, success came back to Stone in the
Al Pacino
film L'enfer du dimanche (1999).
This sports movie centered on the life behind the game of football, and
it starred an impressive cast that included frequent Stone
collaborators James Woods and
John C. McGinley. This film was one of
his most successful box office films, and put him back on track.

The following years brought Stone no new theatrical films, though he
did make three fascinating TV documentaries. Two of them, 'Looking for
Fidel' and Comandante (2003) were
interviews of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, while 'Persona Non Grata'
was an interview of several Palestinian leaders. Stone was also set to
direct American Psycho (2000)
with Leonardo DiCaprio and
Sans frontière (2003), starring
Angelina Jolie and at the time,
Ralph Fiennes. However, Stone dropped out
of both projects, as did a number of the actors mentioned. Finally,
five years after
L'enfer du dimanche (1999), Stone
directed a film he'd long wanted to make; the colossal epic
Alexandre (2004). Starring
Colin Farrell as the Macedonian
leader, Stone attempted to capture the essence of Alexander the Great
through his conquests of the known world. The film focused on
Alexander's relationships with his parents (a brilliant performance by
Val Kilmer and a less impressive one by
Angelina Jolie) and his relationships
with his wife and childhood friend/ gay lover (played by
Rosario Dawson and
Jared Leto respectively).

Alexandre (2004) was a critical
failure, and failed to win back its budget domestically. Despite being
one of 2004's highest grossing films internationally, and recouping its
budget through DVD sales, Stone's pet project was heavily criticized.
Despite a far superior version (Alexander Revisited) being released on
DVD, the film's reputation remains low by the majority. Stone was
personally stung at these attacks, but managed to rebound, if mildly,
with his hopeful film
World Trade Center (2006). The
film centers on two firefighters trapped in the rubble of the twin
towers. It received good reviews, and allowed Oliver to step forward
from his failure towards the possibility of more films.

In late 2007, besides a number of projects Stone was set to direct
"Pinkville", which would have been his fourth Vietnam film to date. It
was set to star a large number of well known actors such as
Bruce Willis,
Toby Jones,
Channing Tatum,
Michael Pitt,
Woody Harrelson, and
Michael Peña. However, a week before
shooting was to begin, the Writer's Strike was started, and the finance
for the film was cut, using the strike as an excuse. After Willis
backed out of the project, it was eventually scuttled, much like
Stone's early productions of
Platoon (1986) and
Né un 4 juillet (1989).
Stone turned to another project he had worked on with former
Wall Street (1987) collaborator
Stanley Weiser. The project was
W., l'improbable président (2008), a biography on president George
W. Bush. Stone initially cast
Christian Bale in the role of Bush but
the actor dropped out at the last minute.
Josh Brolin was cast, and this followed with
a large cast of well known Oscar nominated character actors such as
Richard Dreyfuss,
James Cromwell, and
Ellen Burstyn. The film was made in a
record four months, starting in June and released in October. The film
opened to mixed reviews, and though film's budget was recouped, it was
not a financial hit.

Stone then made the documentary
South of the Border (2009), a
documentary which focused on bringing to light the positive aspects of
the left-wing governments in South America, particularly Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela. Stone was much less critical than usual, instead making the
documentary as a response to the harsh reputation that Chavez has in
the States. The documentary was poorly received in the States. Stone
also began work on
Wall Street: l'argent ne dort jamais (2010).
Starring Michael Douglas,
Shia LaBeouf,
Josh Brolin,
Carey Mulligan, and
Eli Wallach, the film focuses on the 2008
economic crisis, and the return of Gordon Gekko from prison. The film
was screened at Cannes to positive reception, and hailed as Stone's
triumphant return. After this, Stone made a film adaptation of
"Savages", a novel by Don Winslow . The movie follows two highly
successful marijuana growers
(Taylor Kitsch and
Aaron Taylor-Johnson ), whose
shared girlfriend (Blake Lively) is
kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and held for ransom. The movie also
starred Salma Hayek,
Benicio Del Toro,
John Travolta, and
Emile Hirsch. The film was a return to the
tense action and violence of Stone's earlier films, though it polarized
many audience members due to the colorful narrations of Lively's vapid
and naive character, as well as the film's ending.

After completing the ambitious and well-received television project Oliver Stone - Les États-Unis, l'histoire jamais racontée (2012), as well as a documentary on Hugo Chavez, Stone finally returned to feature films with Snowden (2016). Based on the life of American whistle blower Edward Snowden, Stone's film depicted his awakening to the truth behind the massive surveillances conducted by the NSA, and his attempt to warn the general public of what they did not know. The film was done independently, financed by Europeans on a low budget. It was also a return to form for Stone in a way that had not been seen since "Alexander". Joseph Gordon-Levitt, delivered a very strong performance as Snowden, with the supporting cast including Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, Melissa Leo, Timothy Olyphant, and Nicolas Cage. Sadly, the film received a mixed response from critics, and was a box office disappointment.

Since then, Stone has returned to television for his next two projects. One is a series of interviews with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the other is directing a new fictional series based on the abusive Guantanamo prison. It will be his first venture into fictional television.

Oliver Stone is a three-time Oscar winner, and although he has mostly
been stung by critics of his films, he remains a well-known name today
in the film industry. The films he directed have been nominated for 31
Academy Awards, including eight for acting, six for screen writing, and
three for directing. There is no denying that Stone has cemented
himself a position among the legends of Hollywood.