In the spring of 2017 Showtime aired
a series of interviews of Vladimir Putin done by filmmaker Oliver Stone. By
this point in his career Stone had all but abandoned the kind of brilliant
filmmaker that had made him one of the greatest directors during the 1980s and
1990s and increasingly become more of a left-wing propagandist in the few films
he made. Part of me wondered what Putin was thinking when he agreed to sit down
with Stone, considering everything that had happened in the aftermath of the
2016 election.
Looking at so much of Stone’s work
leading up those interviews I have a pretty good idea. “You know, I’ve spent so
much time the last few years focused on the useful idiots on the right that I’ve
neglected my oldest friends in America. If Michael Moore won’t agree to the
interviews I’m sure Oliver Stone will.”
Particularly among the world of
academics in the left there has always been a heavy Marxist streak that has
never gone away no matter how much the world learns about the horrors of the
Soviet Union (which they will always call a failed experiment). They continue
to argue it in their economic theory, using academic terms such as
neo-liberalism that frequently refer derogatorily to Democratic practices and
lean in heavily towards their Marxist ideology. And well before the
conservative movement leaned toward Viktor Orban and Hungary as an ideal model
for their ideology, Naomi Klein one of the most famous leftists – and author of
the Green New Deal – signed a 2004
petition “We would vote for Hugo Chavez” IN 2007 she described Venezuela as a country
where ‘citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve
their lives.” In her book The Shock Doctrine reviewers argued that the
Chavez government would produce a bright future in which worker-controlled
co-operatives would run the economy. By that time, the Chavez regime had
experienced severe democratic backsliding, as he suppressed the press,
manipulated electoral laws and arrested and exiled government critics. The murder
rate increased significant and corruption in the police and government continued.
Poverty, inflation and shortages continued throughout the decade. By that point
he was essentially a dictator. At no point in her career did she ever back away
from her position on Chavez despite the fact that Venezuela is now in worse
straits then it was when he took over and his Vice President has essentially
left the country in ruins.
It is fair to argue against the
limits and weaknesses of America as a country but there is a line between legitimate
criticism and essentially holding up as your model form of government leaders
dictators and strongmen. And well before his interviews with Putin Oliver Stone
had essentially made it clear in a series of documentary films that he was fine
with them as models of government.
This became very clear in his
first documentary South of The Border which he directed and was written
by Tariq Ali and Mark Weisbrot in 2009. Stone traveled down from the Caribbean to
explain the phenomena of the continent’s pink tide. He made it clear he wanted
the film to explain Chaves who he said was wrongly ridiculed “as a strongman, a
buffoon, a clown.” The film is an argument against capitalism being the factor
in Latin America’s economic inequality. He suggests that the financial
collapses such as that of the Argentine Peso (which lead to the successive
resignation of two Argentinian presidents in 2001), combined with the Latin suspicions
of drug eradication efforts (by America, of course) and resentment over the
selling off of natural resources through multinational companies have contributed
to the rise of socialist and socialist democratic leaders. He spends the film
talking to, among others Evo Morales of Bolivia (who not long after his
election became more of a strong man who attempted to abolish term limits,
Rafael Correa of Ecuador (whose policies eventually led to a recession and was
forced into exile after he refused to face charges surrounding the kidnapping
of his major political opponent) Fernando Lugo of Paraguay (who would be
impeached) Lula Da Silva of Brazil (we’ll get to him) and Fidel Castro.
According to the AP Stone felt it unnecessary to present the case of the
opposition in his film, much like Michael Moore didn’t bother with objectivity
in Fahrenheit 9/11.
The reviews were decidedly mixed
with Time pointing out the issues he chose not to raise with Chavez in
Amnesty International “Attacks on journalist were widespread. Human-rights defenders
continued to suffer harassment. Prison conditions provoked hunger strikes in
facilities across the country.” It made it very clear that the film gave kid
glove treatment to Chavez and his allies as opposed to the tenets of predatory
capitalism. Magazines said that Stone essentially asked softball questions of
South American leaders saying, “Stone
seems content to take virtually everything he sees at face value.”
Stone’s only reaction would be to
argue that the criticisms were not founded in fact and to criticize various
papers for attacking the Chavez government. He said his film celebrated ‘the
triumphs of electoral democracy in South America in the last decade. The
filmmakers made it clear that they blatantly supported the other side and it
was to have “a sympathetic view of these governments. The film was writing by
Tariq Ali, a proud Marxist who had already apologized for the Bosnian Genocide
and would later be sympathetic to Brexit on left-wing grounds – while simultaneously
criticizing the right wing for supporting it. Mark Weisbrot was the
intellectual architect of the Bank of The South, a joint project by the major
countries whose leaders are given such kid glove treatment in his film in 2009.
It has never gotten off the ground.
For Stone this was the first in
what would be called his “My friend the Marxist dictator series”. Having
already made two short films about Castro he gave a film interview called Castro
In Winter. Stone had several conversations with him in which he talks with
the man after his filmmaking. The film was made for HBO but never aired because
Stone says it was pulled due to pressure. It’s clear from the film Stone
admires him. Stone makes no effort in any of his conversations as to explain
why Castro essentially turned Cuba into a dictatorship. The most he seems to
really care about is whether there was conspiracy in Kennedy’s assassination,
which as we all know, is the only thing in Stone entire life that he cares
about proving. That he has yet to uncover any evidence of in nearly thirty
years of looking has done nothing to change that mindset.
Then after Chavez’s death, he
made another documentary: Mi Amigo Hugo. Basically it’s all about how
Chavez says nice things about Stone and he says nice things about Chavez. You’d
think that after everything that was already known about Chavez by then Stone might
have wondered if it was insensitive to write was a love letter to him. Yet that
is basically what he chose to do.
By this point it should be
obvious why Putin agreed to sit down with Stone. He knew Stone even if he was
going to ask difficult questions, they would be few and far between. And indeed
a review of Newsday makes it clear:
“Putin has a lot to say. Stone
lets him say it. While the many points he makes are impossible to summarize,
his motives are not. He emerges as an intelligent, sane, reasonable leader caught
in the vortex of an occasionally feckless, often contradictory superpower
called the United States.”
Stone makes no effort to challenge
him on multiple subjects including the anti-LGBT laws of Russia or his treatment
of his political opponents.” Stone’s interviewing is described as ‘embarrassingly
generous”, idle chit-chat’ and that Stone not only failed to challenge Putin
but essentially cedes him the floor.” Anyone who had seen Stone’s relationship
with Chavez makes it very clear that’s kind of his approach towards dictators.
Considering how much controversy would come from Trump’s obsequiousness towards
Putin during the time this interview was airing, it’s maddening that Stone, a
fierce Anti-trump critic, never saw the parallels. He might as well have shown
footage of that first meeting and one could no doubt have seen little
difference.”
But this is keeping with a man
who in his The Untold History of the United States by telling the story
of the Cold War era and basically choosing to omit the Soviet Union from that
equation. America is always the aggressor; capitalism is always evil and the
government is always working to take away power from the people. This is
essentially the talking point of the left, but it’s shocking to see Stone
basically be invited to governments where the exact same thing is happening on
a socialist and communist level and chooses to look the other way. He
essentially turns a microscope on America and putting blinders on for South
America and Russia. He either doesn’t ask or assumes that the cost of a socialist
utopia is “you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”
Stone’s work in what are propaganda
for dictator enrages me on many levels. But as a film critic I find it incredibly
depressing. This isn’t anybody making these movies; its Oliver Stone a man who
was nearly a decade was one of the greatest directors when it came not just
making cinematic masterpieces but movies with message that were box office
draws. This is the screenwriter of Midnight Express, the man who had
James Woods give a hysterical confession in Salvador, whose Platoon ranks
as one of the great war films of all time. This is the man who gave us not just
Wall Street but Talk Radio, who showed us levels to Jim Morrison
in The Doors, who first realized the true potential of Tom Cruise as an
actor in Born on The Fourth of July rather than a film star. His Vietnam
trilogy was incredible; whose Natural Born Killers was only slightly ahead
of the curve, and his Nixon showed a humanity to a man he had every
reason to hate. And for all my issues with JFK as history – its pure
propaganda – as cinema is a masterpiece.
And now that genius is gone
forever, buried in the idea of showing the full weight of the leftist agenda.
It was true even in many of the fictional movies he’s made this century; W lost
the nuance Nixon had; Money Never Sleeps made blunt what was
subtle in Wall Street and films that should have been character studies
like World Trace Center and Snowden were essentially polemics against
the American’s dynamic. All of his energy seems to be alternating between the
lie of the American dream in his fictional films and documentaries and
essentially propaganda for the worse strongmen in our society but who Stone
seems willing to forgive their atrocities in exchange for access. For someone
who admired his work even when I disagreed with some of the politics in it, it’s
like watching one of your best friends start claiming the government is using
mind control in the television – which sadly, seems to have been just below the
surface of Stone all the time.
And just as the last decade has
done nothing to convince so many on the far right to back away from their
positions involving MAGA we see a similar parallel with Stone in his most
recent film. Lula looks at the story of Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva. Lula
was covered in South of The Border. When he ran for office on 2003, his
platform plank argued that Brazil should not pay its foreign debt unless linked
the payment to the audit – which worried so many that even a partial default
would have a ripple through the economy. Many of the reforms he advocated for have
been applauded by the left, including free school meals and public funds in
education did little to improve its quality. His project to eradicate hunger
was quickly cut after several months and fell far short of education. His
housing aid programs ended up failing to relocate people in locations prone to
floods and mudslides. By the time of Stone’s film Brazil was the eighth largest
economy in the world but as the Wall Street Journal noted, the public sector
was bloated and riddle with corruption, crime was rampant . And deforestation
efforts were worst during his first four years than in any period since 1988.
He was also a major supporter of Communist nations like Cuba and China and was
a public supporter of Iran’s fundamentalism. He also stomped down on freedom of
the press to the level since it had been under its military junta days and was
involved in constant corruption scandals. Perhaps what may have drawn Stone and
his like to him was his saying before a G-20 summit “the economic crisis was
caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes” something which
would make him catnip to people like Stone.
Eventually he was found guilty of
charges of bribery and corruption and was sentenced to 9 and a half years in
jail in 2017. He went to prison in July of 2017. He was released from jail in
November of 2019 and his sentence was annulled in 2021. He ran for a third term
against his incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and was elected President on October 2022.
Since he resumed his tenure, he has doubled down on relationships with China
and has increasingly made overtures to Putin. Furthermore he restored ties with
Venezuela and Chavez’s former vice president Nicolas Maduro.
Stone’s most recent film about
him deals with, according to imdb.com, “his extraordinary path to regaining
Brazil’s presidency in 2022 after a 19 month imprisonment. It also
refers to ‘the cautionary tale of the increasing danger lawfare poses to
democracies around the world and an examination of one of the great political
comeback stories of our time.” You would
think Stone would have been concerned about the optics of making a documentary
about a disgraced former president with ties to Russia who had been sentenced
to prison and then releasing it during the lead-up to the 2024 election. None
of this matters to Stone, who essentially does the same thing he does with
every single leftist strongman he ‘interviews’. As one reviewer puts it Stone’s
film argues the same basic trajectory of so much of his point of view: “left
good, right bad, U.S. the worst”
This same review made it very
clear where Stone’s principles were. When the film was screened at Cannes Lulu
had fired the head of the state oil company’s CEO, causing further economic
uncertainty for Brazil. Stone only seems to be interesting film. According to
one reviewer “it’s beyond simply being biased – its about how uninteresting
such biased portrayals can be. It’s another in Stone’s increasing line of empty
films on subjects worthy of deeper levels of examination squandered in favor of
yet again centering upon the filmmakers own predilections and prejudices.”
Stone has essentially become the
kind of man who does puff pieces for strongmen and whataboutism. He doesn’t
even care about whatever good these figures might have done only to argue the
bad things they’ve done are justified by the evil American overlords.
At this point it would not surprise
me if Stone decides to devote his final years to his epic film Uncle Joe,
telling the story of how a former seminarian from Georgia rose to power in
Russia to become one of the most beloved leaders of all time. This film will be
set mostly in America and feature how the brave men like Henry Wallace and
Harry Hopkins who saw the brilliance in his vision were overcome by the warlike
imperialists such as Winston Churchill and the illegitimate Harry Truman who
denied Stalin’s perfectly reasonable requests and led him to liberate Eastern
Europe against the evil west who wanted to put up a red, white and blue curtain
around places like Germany and the Balkans. For those who might consider this as
ridiculous this is essentially the message of his Untold History of the
United States which basically considers Stalin a man of his word.
I grant the absurdity of this premise
but I would much rather have any film like this as opposed to these endless propaganda
of the so called democratic socialists that have, for all intents and purposes,
left South America in worse shape then they were when the pink tide began. All
of the countries in South of the Border have essentially become ‘failed
experiments’ and yet another long line in arguments of the failures of extreme
left-wing governments on the national scale. All of them became Latin American
versions of the Eastern bloc with wreckage left in their wake. Yet if Stone is
any indication, there seems to be no admission that this is a sign that extreme
left-wing governments only end in dictatorship and oppression.
No one denies the very real
threats to democracy in America and the world. But unless one’s only exposure
to South America in this century was the films of Oliver Stone, the logical
conclusion is the far-left is just as much one to the far right. There’s no
sign that Stone seems willing to back away from that. I truly hope other people
don’t go through this particular looking glass. Sometimes night is night and
black is black.
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