Oliver Stone is one of a handful of true artists left in modern cinema who will almost always place a greater importance on the craft rather than economic considerations. He has written, directed, and produced such popular and sometimes controversial masterpieces as Any Given Sunday, Nixon, Heaven & Earth, and Born on the Fourth of July. He has also written and directed Platoon, JFK, Salvador, Natural Born Killers, The Doors, Wall Street, and Talk Radio.
Oliver Stone was born in New York City on September 15, 1946. His father, Lou Stone, was a native, atheistic born Jewish stockbroker. During his successful career, Lou also wrote and published a monthly investors’ newsletter focused on economics and politics. Jacqueline Stone, Oliver’s mother, was a very optimistic upper class Catholic French woman.
The Stone family was wealthy and lived in townhouses in Manhattan and Stamford, Connecticut. Oliver’s parents were very much into the social scene and he spent much of his childhood raised by nannies. At the age of five, Oliver was already writing marionette-style skits in which he cast his cousins. At the age of seven he was writing stories, which his father would pay him a quarter a piece for. By the young age of nine, Oliver began to write a nine-hundred-page book about his family and life in general.
He attended Trinity School, an elite school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and later attended the Hill School, a college preparatory academy in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. During summer break, Stone would regularly spend his vacation with his maternal grandparents in France. To his dismay, during his junior year of high school in 1961, at the age of 15, Stone’s parents divorced. Oliver then came to the realization that his parents had been growing apart for some time. His father had been having several affairs with the wives of his friends as well as friends of Jacqueline’s.
Lou was having great financial troubles and was headed towards bankruptcy. He disclosed to Oliver that he was deeply in debt, and informed him that he would pay for Oliver’s college education, but otherwise he was on his own. This was a big wake up call for Oliver as he realized that he had been taking all his privileges for granted. Still in high school, Oliver looked into going to Congo as a mercenary but decided against it.
In 1967, Oliver Stone, feeling dejected and disillusioned with the direction his life was taking, decided to enlist in the United States army, specifically requesting combat duty in Vietnam.
After graduating from high school, Oliver entered Yale University to study the Liberal Arts. After only one year Stone left Yale. He had read Joseph Conrad’s novel Lord Jim, and along with George Harrison’s sitar music and Zorba the Greek, Oliver was inspired to move to Saigon and teach. He had heard of a position with the Free Pacific Institute (a Chinese school in Cholon) in the ethnic Chinese district of Saigon, South Vietnam. After being accepted to the program, Stone, now 18, arrived in Saigon in June of 1965. Stone’s arrival was approximately the same time that the first ground infantry troops and marines arrived, and Stone recalls in a Time magazine interview that many of the troops would walk around firing off their guns for no apparent reason.
After six months of teaching the Vietnamese/Chinese students such things as English, math, and history, Oliver decided he had had enough. He signed on as a wiper on a U.S. merchant marine ship. After a short stint in Oregon, he traveled on to Guadalajara, Mexico. There he began to write his first novel, a 1,400-page book titled “A child’s Night Dream”, based on his experiences in Southeast Asia. Stone decided to return to Yale and try the college thing one more time. He was devoting so much of his time writing his novel that his grades suffered and he eventually dropped out of the University for good. After completing his novel and failing to interest a publisher, Stone became frustrated and threw half of the manuscript into the East River.
In 1967, Stone, feeling dejected and disillusioned with the direction his life was taking, decided to enlist in the United States army, specifically requesting combat duty in Vietnam. Upon arrival in September of 1967, he was placed in the 25th Infantry Division near the Cambodian border. Stone noticed an extremely different scene present in Vietnam compared to the scene during his last visit a couple of years prior. The very same people who had welcomed the presence of the American troops before were now showing extreme animosity. Director Martin Scorsese was Stone’s first teacher, and a man whom Stone credits with helping him to focus and channel his rage.
Initially very driven about fighting for the rights of the people, Stone realized only a day into the war zone that his decision to join the army was a rash and stupid one. No one there wanted to fight, they all just wanted to survive and go home. Two weeks into Stones tour of duty (which was 15months), he was ambushed by three NVA soldiers and shot in the neck but luckily survived. Stone, like many other soldiers during that time, lost his sense of what was right and what was wrong.
Many villages were set on fire and many people killed. To the soldiers, it was just another day in the war. Much of Stone’s experiences were brought to the big screen in his movie Platoon. Stone was the victim of other injuries during the war. He sustained several shrapnel wounds in both his leg and behind. Stone was also the recipient of various awards during the war, including one for extraordinary acts of courage under fire. He also received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster. Stone was eventually transferred to Saigon for MP duty and then to long-range recon patrol.
Next he went to the First Cavalry, and eventually after his 15-month commitment, Stone was discharged and he returned to the U.S. in 1968. Very confused and regretful of things he had done, Stone went to Mexico. Upon his re-entry to the U.S., he was caught with two ounces of marijuana and thrown in jail. He eventually found the courage to call his father to bail him out but realized he needed to shape up his life.
Under the G.I. bill, Oliver Stone enrolled in New York University’s Film School, a decision that he proclaims was his salvation. This decision offered Stone a way to express both his feelings and his creativity. Director Martin Scorsese was Stone’s first teacher, and a man whom Stone credits with helping him to focus and channel his rage. While he was a student at the university, Stone made two short films. The first was Last Year in Vietnam, a story about a war veteran wandering the streets of New York. The other was titled Michael and Marie and was a take-off of several gangster films of the time.
After graduating from NYU in 1971with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Stone wrote 10 different screenplays. During this time, he worked as a cabdriver and a xerox messenger to support himself. With no agent to represent him, he was having trouble getting noticed as a writer. Finally in 1973 at the age of 27, a Canadian production company bought one of Stone’s screenplays. The script was a horror story about a fantasy writer whose characters come to life. Although the company hired a writer to rework the script, they asked Stone to direct the film. With a budget of a mere $150,000, Seizure was produced and released in 1974.
Upon completion of Seizure, Stone dropped into a state of disillusionment and further frustration. He began working at a sports film company, which he hated, meanwhile continuing to write screenplays. During that time, he completed a total of fourteen screenplays, five of those about Vietnam. Finally in 1976, as the United States was celebrating the Bicentennial, Oliver Stone began to put his demons of Vietnam into words by writing a screenplay called Platoon. Producers optioned the script, but since another movie about war titled Apocalypse Now was currently in production, the company decided to put this movie off. Columbia Pictures did eventually assign Stone to write a screenplay for an upcoming film of theirs, Midnight Express, which was produced by David Puttnam and directed by Alan Parker.
Midnight Express was a low budget picture based on the real-life escapades of an American College student named Billy Hayes, who was vacationing in Turkey and was jailed in a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of the country. The film was released in 1978 and it received controversial reviews by numerous reporters, the biggest criticism being given to Stone himself for the screenplay. This controversy however, helped to make the film a commercial success and may have been a factor in the film’s five-academy award nominations. The movie took home one award, presented to Stone for best screenplay adaptation. He was also awarded both the Golden Globe and the Writers Guild Award for the screenplay.
He was becoming dependent on drugs, was falling into the party scene and needed an escape. While in Paris, he began to work on a screenplay for a remake of the movie Scarface
After his success with Midnight Express, Stone began to receive steady work. During that same year, he began to write a script of a memoir by Ron Kovac (a paraplegic Vietnam War vet). The screenplay was called Born on the Fourth of July, and was to star Al Pacino. Although all the props, the set and even the cast were ready to film the movie, the funding for the picture was not there and the project was dropped.
In 1981 Edward Pressman, a producer for Orion Productions, contracted Stone to write and direct a suspense/horror film titled The Hand. The film was based on a novel by Marc Brandel called The Lizard’s Tail, had a $6.5 million budget, and starred Michael Caine. The story focused around a cartoonist who looses his drawing hand in an accident and becomes obsessed with the thought that his lost hand is stalking his enemies. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics although it was not successful at the box office. Stone found that after the failure of The Hand, the steady work he was receiving before had disappeared. All those seeking him out the year before were now looking towards others.
In 1982, Stone once again found himself working with producer Edward Pressman, although this time the film was much different than before. Pressman had written a script to Conan the Barbarian in 1976, and after finally settling on the rights to the character, hired Stone on to write a second version. He also felt that Stone could be helpful in getting financial backing for the film. John Milius was hired on as the film’s director and wrote a third script for the film. After completion of the script, Stone moved to Paris to try and get away from the Hollywood scene for awhile.
He was becoming dependent on drugs, was falling into the party scene and needed an escape. While in Paris, he began to work on a screenplay for a remake of the movie Scarface (proposed by director Brian De Palma). The film was originally produced in 1932 by Howard Hawk, and was a gangster film. Re-written by Stone in 1982-1983, the story focused on a Cuban refugee named Tony Montana. Trying to live out the “American Dream”, Montana rises to the top through the trafficking of cocaine in Florida but eventually succumbs to his own greed and in the end is killed.
The biggest area of critical concern about the film was that of all the violence. Many critics felt that the film dwelled far too much on violence and selfishness, although some hinted that the movie did resemble the effects many businesses and Hollywood itself could have on people. After Scarface, Stone worked out a deal with Producer Dino De Laurentiis that would be to the benefit of both parties. In exchange for Stone writing a script for a 1981 novel written by Robert Daly titled The Year of the Dragon, De Laurentiis promised Stone he would make Platoon. Year of the Dragon was similar to Scarface in that it centered on drug trafficking.
The story was about a New York detective’s one-man crusade to try and put an end to the Chinese Mafia and its drug-dealing network. The movie was released in 1985 to poor reviews and numerous boycotts (mainly by Chinese-Americans whom found the film raciest). Year of the Dragon turned out to be a box office flop, and as a result De Laurentiis neglected to keep up his part of the bargain with Stone. He was unable to find an American distributor for Platoon and therefore the film could not be made at that time.
In the summer of 1976 Stone was broke, down on his luck and had no prospects for the future. He spent 12 hours a day working on the script, which he completed in approximately five weeks
Oliver Stone’s next picture, Eight Million Ways to Die (1986) also turned out to be a flop in the box office. Frustrated by the way things were going, he decided to establish a mark as an independent writer-director (rather than trying to get big-budget film deals). Stone found his first subject matter by looking through some pictures a friend had taken while covering the civil war in El Salvador. Stone co-wrote a semi documentary about a photojournalist’s experiences and eventual self-discovery in El Salvador.
Many in Hollywood did not welcome the script and Stone could not find any financial backing for the picture. He decided to put a second mortgage on his house and finance the film himself, but was saved by support from British producer John Daly whom offered to direct the movie free of charge. Salvador was filmed on location in Mexico for under $5 million, and starred James Woods and Jim Belushi. Although the movie received fairly good reviews, wide range distribution in the United States was hard to secure. It was not until after the success of Platoon, when Salvador was re-released in theaters, that it was widely distributed.
David Halberstam, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Vietnam War, proclaimed Platoon as “the first real Vietnam film and one of the greatest war movies of all time.” The first script for Platoon was written in the summer of 1976. At the time Stone was broke, down on his luck and had no prospects for the future. He spent 12 hours a day working on the script, which he completed in approximately five weeks.
The script itself was generally based on Stone’s own experiences in the war, along with the characters being based on people Stone had met during that time. As stated before, the script was rejected several times as well as being placed aside for other projects by many studios. Finally, Platoon found financing through a foreign production company called Hemdale, which also produced Stone’s previous film, Salvador. Orion, the distributor in the U.S. provided $2 million for the production of the film. Platoon was released into theaters in December of 1986.
Film critics praised the film, giving it rave reviews for both its acting and technical aspects. As for the general public, the film caused a great deal of debating for its political significance. At the time, Platoon was the top grossing film in the country. Eventually the movie brought in a total of $136 million in box office sales. The film was also a recipient of several awards, including a Directors Guild of America Best Directors Award, eight Academy Award nominations and four Oscars including the prestigious Best Picture of 1986.
Because his father worked on Wall Street, Stone had always wanted to write a film about the lifestyle. He got the idea while working on Scarface. Through his research, he noticed several similarities between the “professions” such as the tension, get-rich-quick mentality and high levels of stress that plague all that are involved. Stone co-wrote the script for Wall Street with Stanley Weiser, and the film starred Michael Douglas as a trader who corrupts his protégé’ played by Charlie Sheen.
The film was shot on location in Manhattan New York and was released in December of 1987.The biggest criticism of Wall Street was that the film seemed too unrealistic and not thoroughly thought out. Critics commented on how they felt Stone avoided the real issues of the stock market, rather on crude and ruthless lifestyles of unrealistic characters and situations. Although numerous critics were not giving the film high praises, Wall Street was popular and successful at the box office, and Michael Douglas received an award for Best Actor in 1987.
Stone fought to get the film made for the next 10 years but no one would take on the project
The next year, Oliver Stone was brought on as a script supervisor before finally taking the helm as Director for Talk Radio. The film was based on a script for a play about a real-life talk show host. The same group that worked on Wall Street, producer Edward R. Pressman and co-producer A. Kitman Ho, produced the movie.
Although Born on the Forth of July was released into theaters in 1989, the process of making the film began in the early 70’s. Initially, Stone was brought in to re-write a screenplay for the film in 1978. After the script was complete, producer Martin Bergenan hired a director (Dan Petrie) and a main actor (Al Pacino). Four days before the filming was to begin the project was canceled. The main reason was that the investors fell through with the funding, and consequently Al Pacino moved on to a new project.
Stone fought to get the film made for the next 10 years but no one would take on the project. Finally, after the success of Platoon, Stone had quite a bit of credibility. Actor Tom Cruise and Stone happened to have the same agent, and had discussed doing a movie together. Eventually one thing led to another and the result was Born on the Forth of July staring Tom Cruise. The film had a budget of $17.8 million. Although the film was from a very different point of view than Stone’s previous war-based film Platoon, Stone was criticized all the same.
The difference this time was that the critics felt Stone’s sincerity towards the main character was too much, that he was emotionally overwhelming. Like so many times before, this Oliver Stone movie did extremely well in the box office despite the criticisms. Oliver Stone received the Best Director of the Year award from the Directors Guild of America, and Born on the Forth of July received 8 Academy award nominations, taking home 4.
Throughout the 1990’s Oliver Stone continued to explore the depths of humanities dysfunctions. He had always worshiped Jim Morrison, proclaiming once that the day Morrison died, for him, was in comparison to how others felt when JFK died; in other words, he was completely shattered. When the opportunity was presented to make a film about his life (The Doors, 1990) Stone jumped at the opportunity.
Natural Born Killers (1994) exemplified the way the media turns real life tragedy into public entertainment. The film, in general, is used to satirize tabloids, to poke fun at justice and the law, and to open people’s eyes to the idea that not everyone views right and wrong in the same manor.
Two of Stone’s films in the 1990’s focused on ex-Presidents of the United States, JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995). Both films were highly criticized due in most part to people feeling that Stone was basing the story on his point of view. Critics felt the films were too bias, that the facts were steered away from, and too much focus was placed on conspiracy, as well as Stone’s own perspective.
Although Oliver Stone is only in his 50’s, he is credited for writing and or directing over 20 full-length feature films. Whether fact or fiction, his films always focus on some aspect of humanity and all our trials, tribulations and triumphs. Although often criticized and typed as a pulp writer, Stone has written and directed many of the most talked about and enjoyed films of the last 20+ years. To this day, he continues to search for inspiring people and their stories.
Credit : www.filmmakers.com
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