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Oliver Stone |
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Director
/ Screenwriter / Producer |
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1946 - |
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Born September 15,
New York, New York, USA |
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Key
Production Country: USA |
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Key Genres:
Drama, Biopic, Political Drama |
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Key
Collaborators: Robert Richardson (Cinematographer), A. Kitman Ho (Producer), Bruno Rubeo (Production Designer),
Clayton Townsend (Producer), James Woods (Leading Character Player), Claire Simpson (Editor), David Brenner (Editor), John Williams (Composer), Victor Kempster (Production Designer), Charlie Sheen (Leading Player) |
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Highly Recommended: Salvador (1986) |
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Recommended: Platoon
(1986) |
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Worth
a Look: Wall
Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988) |
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Approach with Caution:
Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Natural Born Killers (1994), Nixon
(1995), Any Given Sunday (1999), Comandante (2003) |
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Duds: The Doors
(1991), JFK (1991)* |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Oliver
Stone Web Page ] [
History
and the Movies: Conversation with Oliver Stone ] [
Premiere
Feature: Oliver Stone talks with Darren Aronofsky ] [
DGA
Interview ] [
Film
Monthly Interview (2004) ] [
Boston Globe Article (2006)
] [
Guardian Article (2006)
] [
Sight & Sound Interview (2006) ] |
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Books: [
Oliver
Stone's USA: Film, History and Controversy ] [
Oliver
Stone: Interviews ] [
The
Films of Oliver Stone ] |
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"He repeatedly tackles Big Issues
- war, the corrupting influence of greed and power in the worlds
of finance and politics, the demise of 60s idealism - but a
fondness for simplistically polarised characters and attitudes,
his equation of serious, in-depth analysis with overlong
running-times, and his cynical tendency to see conspiracy,
cover-up and corruption everywhere make for turgid, unconvincing
narratives." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999) |
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"Stone has
used his power in the American film industry to expose
corruption and injustice, as well as to look at flawed
figureheads in several different walks of life. He has
also looked at the appalling side effects, both physical and
mental of war... His strong and confrontational films, at their
peak of popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, are
customarily based on his own screenplays." -
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1999) |
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"Anyone
attempting with any degree of success, both artistic and
commercial, to make overtly political movies that sustain a
left-wing position within the Hollywood cinema of the 1980s and
1990s deserves at least our respectful attention. In fact,
Oliver Stone's work dramatizes, in a particularly extreme and
urgent form, the quandary of the American left-wing intellectual." -
Robin Wood & R. Barton Palmer (The St.
James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998) |
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"I
have the right to interpretation as a dramatist. I research.
It's my responsibility to find the research. It's my
responsibility to digest it and do the best that I can with it.
But at a certain point that responsibility will become an
interpretation."
- Oliver Stone |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Seizure (1974), The Hand (1981), Heaven &
Earth (1993), U Turn (1997), Alexander (2004), World Trade Centre
(2006), W. (2008), and South of the Border (2009). |
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"Stone
carries himself in the rather breathless, tireless way of
someone who believes he contains multitudes. It is easy to
scorn him, for he can be very bad and foolish. Still, he is
an example of the confidence that believes it can turn
complex ideas and problems into crowd-pleasing movies. There
is little point in having a popular American film business
without that attempt. Of course,
Otto Preminger did it all
thirty years ago with more taste and intelligence. But
Stone's faults are part of his energy, and in Salvador
and Platoon that force achieves searing popular drama."
-
David Thomson, The New Biographical
Dictionary of Film |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
| ●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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●
501
Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest
Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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Michael Cimino |
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Francis Ford Coppola |
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Constantin Costa-Gavras |
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Emile de Antonio |
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Brian De Palma |
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John Frankenheimer |
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Paul Greengrass |
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Spike Lee |
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Alan J. Pakula |
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Alan Parker |
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Wolfgang Petersen |
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Ridley Scott |
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Oliver Stone's Favourites |
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Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
William Wyler,
Citizen Kane (1941)
Orson Welles,
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb (1964)
Stanley Kubrick,
The Godfather (1972)
Francis Ford
Coppola,
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Francis Ford
Coppola,
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
David Lean,
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Frank Lloyd,
1900 (1976)
Bernardo
Bertolucci,
On the Waterfront (1954)
Elia Kazan,
Paths of Glory (1957)
Stanley Kubrick,
Raging Bull (1980)
Martin Scorsese.
Source: Sight & Sound (1992) |
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