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The Arts Hour: Director, producer and writer Oliver Stone

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Director, producer and writer Oliver Stone

25/07/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - The Arts Hour, Director, producer and writer Oliver Stone

Nikki Bedi talks to the multiple Oscar winning director, producer and writer Oliver Stone

Nikki Bedi talks to the multiple Oscar winning director, producer and writer Oliver Stone.

This week on The Arts Hour on the BBC World Service, Nikki Bedi talks to the multiple Oscar winning director, producer and writer Oliver Stone.

Famed for the challenging films he makes, he began his Hollywood career as a screenwriter writing Scarface, which starred Al Pacino, and won his first Academy Award for the 1978 movie Midnight Express. 

As a director he’s created some of the most talked about and often controversial feature films of the last fifty years as well as making political documentaries alongside them: He showed us how greed was good in Wall Street; explored politics from the very top with his presidential trilogy, JFK, Nixon and W; made a film about the ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden; and examined the portrayal of violence on US TV in Natural Born Killers. Oliver also used his experience of being a Vietnam veteran in his Vietnam trilogy of films, Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July and Heaven And Earth. 

He’s just published his memoir. Called Chasing the Light, it takes us from his early life and career through to him winning the coveted Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Platoon. 

In the programme, Oliver Stone talks to Nikki about the power and responsibility he has as a filmmaker - how he gets the best performance from actors, although that did involve shouting at Tom Cruise, and why he feels he did his best shots with fifteen minutes to go. He candidly discusses his family, his intimate relationship with French mother, how his parent’s divorce fractured him and intensified a split in his nature, why his grandmother’s death renewed his passion to succeed in the film industry and the impact of having duel heritage.

He discusses the stories behind some of his most iconic films: why making Natural Born Killers made him feel free; the problems of questioning the murder of JFK; and the shame of being in the Vietnam War. 

Oliver also responds to the criticism he has had over his interviews with political leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and addresses allegations of sexual misconduct during his career.

(Photo: Oliver Stone. Credit: Oliver Stone/Octopus Books)

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