Oliver Stone Interview Snowden film and More

This will be of interest especially to budding filmmakers - the interview goes into detail about all of his movies, as well as Stone's early life. Lots of links to other interviews and videos including Snowden and the new movie's actors. Snowden opened nationwide yesterday.

An excerpt about the recreation of the Zapruder film for 'JFK' -

GALLOWAY OK. I just think it's extraordinary filmmaking, and I've watched that many times. It's dazzling. How do you go about conceiving of a sequence like that that has so much going on in terms of narrative, sound, color, slow motion, music? I don't know if that was the original Zapruder film. If so, how'd you get the rights to it, or if it was all the re-creation? Walk us through how you created it.

STONE Well, a lot of the source of this is anger. There's obviously, you feel anger, your passion. Because I think the American public was blind. I mean, they accepted this bull#, this Warren Commission. Anyway, aside from that, this was deep into the movie, so we had already developed this technique. It gets stronger and stronger as it goes. Remember, it's context. So we start somewhere and this is the climax area. And by this time, we're rolling on all cylinders, right? The staging was complicated. Yes. We had cameras all over the place. And we had to do it so many times. I have to tell you, that was hard for me, because we must have done it 20 times in downtown Dallas, with the full motorcade. So you could hear the shots

— GALLOWAY So you re-created, actually at Dealey Plaza?

STONE The karma involved. But I only would do that if I felt we were doing the right thing. If I felt this was a false narrative, I would not have done it. It's just very difficult. Believe me. Those people in Dallas that year will always remember this movie company. And you know, we had to be very tricky, in the sense that we did get permission to shoot from the seventh floor.

GALLOWAY Wow.
STONE Not the sixth. Seventh floor. So our perspectives had to be realigned a bit —

GALLOWAY So Lee Harvey Oswald was actually on the sixth floor, and you shot from the seventh?

STONE Lee Harvey Oswald was not on the sixth floor. He was downstairs on the second floor at the Coke machine actually when this happened. And this is the great narrative that keeps getting spilled, that Oswald was there. But he wasn't, because somebody saw him 90 seconds later at the Coke machine, and he could not have run down from those stairs and done what he did, stashed the rifle, did all this stuff. And you have to go into the Warren Commission to realize how phony it is. But it's so upsetting. It still upsets me when I see it today. Yes. [Jim] Garrison brought out the Zapruder film at the trial. It was one of his great services. And of course, the trial, the people were found not guilty, but you know, there was so much evidence presented that's outside the narrow confines of those people who worked for the government. It's a much bigger story.

Hollywood Reporter - Oliver Stone

Hmmm -

GALLOWAY Did you have to show it to the CIA or did you have to run it past any —

STONE (Laughs.)
GALLOWAY No. (Laughter.)
STONE You know, I went there years ago with Platoon. I went to the Pentagon. I got their notes and it was hilarious. You should see it.
GALLOWAY Wow.
STONE Every use of an expletive was — it's an idealized form of behavior. Unfortunately, it's taken hold in the movie business. What you're seeing is bull#. And a lot of the war pictures you see, you don't get, you know, you get it after the Pentagon has sanitized it. And they lie. They lie. As long as it is pro-American, that's all that matters. I mean, whatever. The Taliban. I mean, Lone Survivor, you can kill 20, 30 Taliban for every American who gets it. It's overdone. American Sniper is another one. . So the Pentagon has taken over. CIA has taken over Hollywood in that sense. 24. Homeland. It's all CIA. It's just bull#. I mean, honestly. We're, we, America is fed bull# and we buy it. No other alternative.