I think there is a whole older generation that will go to movies still. People like me; people over 45.
OLIVER STONEI think there is a whole older generation that will go to movies still. People like me; people over 45.
OLIVER STONEMany films are forgotten and deserve to be, but others glom onto the DNA and they keep a share of the collective consciousness. It’s a profound question: What are we here for? What is the purpose, the sum effect of our work?
OLIVER STONEGreed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works.
OLIVER STONENever underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that.
OLIVER STONEThe past assumes the nature of the present.
OLIVER STONEFrom ’45, the moment Franklin Roosevelt dies, we’re running ratlines with the Germans, helping Nazis escape.
OLIVER STONEObama took a bad situation and, in certain ways, made it worse. … I find Obama scary in a way that I had not done in 2008.
OLIVER STONE[Nixon] reduced the meaning of his life to nothing but power. In the film, we gave this sad figure consciousness of what he was. We weren’t right to do that – I don’t think he did have that consciousness. But we did it for movie reasons – to create empathy.
OLIVER STONEWe all know what we know. We experience with our minds and breath.
OLIVER STONEThe worst nightmare I ever had about Vietnam was that I had to go back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror.
OLIVER STONEAs a dramatist, I don’t have politics.
OLIVER STONEI will come out with my interpretation. If I’m wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of history, part of the give and take.
OLIVER STONETelevision has usurped everybody from film. And so have commercials, by the way.
OLIVER STONEI went to Vietnam, and I was there for a long time. [Using marijuana] made the difference between staying human or, as Michael Douglas said, becoming a beast.
OLIVER STONEWell first of all you have to make the character strong so that people can follow that. And then hopefully that character can integrate with the background of the social situation that people can recognize.
OLIVER STONEI’d rather get past the tyranny of now, where you get judged for something based on what’s happening at the moment.
OLIVER STONE