WCBE 90.5 FM: Oliver Stone Sampler - "Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July," "JFK," "Nixon"

WCBE 90.5 FM: OLIVER STONE SAMPLER (EVERGREEN FINAL):
“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “JFK,” “Nixon”
It's Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers:John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, Friday, June 23, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand at: http://www.wcbe.orgThe Script

Clay

The release of  “World Trade Center” mandates a second look at some of the earlier reality-based films of Oliver Stone . . .

John

“Platoon” marches to a unique drum . . .

Clay

“Born on the Fourth of July” is full of anger red, white, and blue  . . .

John

“JFK” assassinates the lone-assassin theory . . .

Clay

And “Nixon” was, indeed, the one . . .

HIT THEME MUSIC (STAR WARS), THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.''

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

And I’m Clay Lowe (102 words)

Folks, Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center is a fact-based story about what happened to two of the Twin Tower survivors on 9/11.  That the movie has a hidden political agenda, Stone could convincingly deny.  [But those familiar with his impassioned style of filmmaking might find that hard to believe.]

So, John, why on earth would a filmmaker NOT want to make a film that expresses his feelings?  Part of the power of Stone’s film “Platoon” comes from the fact that he was a Viet Nam Vet and that he had experienced, first hand, the outrages we saw depicted in that film.

HIT CD: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (CUT 9: "PROLOGUE," WRITTEN BY JOHN WILLIAMS,) THEN UNDER FOR

John (“Platoon” 130 words) (1986)

Although I’ve often thought of Oliver Stone as “his highness of histrionics,” I must admit there is less of his egocentric grandstanding in that 1986 Platoon than almost any of his other films. And it won Oscars for Best Director, Best Editing, Best Sound, and Best Picture.

This discursive and uncompromising version of hell stars an effective Charlie Sheen as an upper-middle class soldier who changes from the first minute he meets combat. Besides realism that some may say borders on Stone’s typical hyperbole, there are sequences that hark back to My-Lai and forward to the current investigation into US soldiers vengefully murdering innocent civilians in Iraq.

Apocalypse Now and Deer Hunter are worthy contemporaries of Platoon, but they are not close to its infamous horror.

MUSIC UP AND CROSS FADE TO CD: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (CUT: 3 “BROWN EYED GIRL,”) THEN UNDER FOR

Clay (“Born on the Fourth of July” - 129 words)

Oh, the horror, the horror of it all, indeed, John.  But unlike the other
famous Viet Nam films, Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” focused in on one of the war’s strongest supporters.   A gung ho U.S. marine by the name of Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise) who volunteered for a second tour of duty in Viet Nam because he so loved his country.

That his view changed when he caught a bullet in the spine is not what disillusioned him; it was the way he was treated, or not treated when he found himself confined for life to a wheel chair.  His angry turn about eventually made him a leader of the U.S. Anti-War movement and, even today, fuels his opposition to the war in Iraq.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO CD: “BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY” (CUT: 14 “BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY,” JOHN WILLIAMS), THEN UNDER FOR

John (“JFK” 1991) (122 words)

Let’s go, then, to POLITICAL combat.

Stone’s 1991 JFK tells us nothing about the glamorous president but everything about his assassination in 1963--except who conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald. Although Kevin Costner’s believable Big Easy prosecutor Jim Garrison makes a convincing case against businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), Shaw is exonerated not without a subsequent claim by the CIA’s Richard Helms that Shaw perjured himself.

So Stone has an axe to grind against Shaw but can’t make the final statement. What he does do, however, is  advise the world that a conspiracy must have existed, the Warren Report notwithstanding.

For conspiracy theorists JFK is history at its best; for cinephiles it is
Stone working at his best looking at history through his very personal lens.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AGAIN FOR:

Clay (“Nixon” - 133 words)

Aye, John, and that’s the rub that angers Oliver Stone’s critics.  Should
filmmakers hedge on how they see the truth simply because the people are so easily “taken in” by a filmmaker’s manipulations?

There is no doubt that Olive Stone’s vision of Richard Nixon is as dark  as  Orson Welles’ vision of Charles Foster Kane.  And there’s little doubt that parallels exist between Stone’s life and that of Nixon.  [Just as parallels existed between the lives of Welles and Kane.]
Though not as brilliant as Citizen Kane, Stone does borrow many of its
devices.  The camera moving through the gates of the White House, the
newsreels advancing the story, and the shots of the estranged husband and a wife at the opposite ends of the dinner table.

Two tragic men, two tragic women, and two tragic films.

MUSIC UP, THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John (47 words)

Oliver Stone is a certifiable auteur: His stamp is on every film he makes.

Although he may bend history for his own agenda, few can deny he provokes debate and creates lasting images.

Stone the artist teaches and delights, accomplishments any other director should envy.

John (Continues)

Clay, Oliver Stone exhausts me. I’m going to talk myself to sleep about wars and presidents with my Russian interpreter.

I'm outta here.

Clay

Well, John, if you’ll tape that sleep-talk, I’ll see that it gets archived,
with no missing gaps, on WCBE.org.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CD: “BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY,” (CUT 6: “SOLDIER BOY,”) THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning "It's Movie Time" is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando
and Clay for WCBE 90.5. FM

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright 2006 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe