Oliver Stone

7.4 Salvador (1986)
7.0 Platoon (1986)
6.9 Wall Street (1987)
6.5 Talk Radio (1988)
6.5 Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
4.5 The Doors (1991)
5.0 JFK (1991)
5.0 Heaven & Earth (1993)
7.8 Natural Born Killers (1994)
6.0 Nixon (1995)
5.0 U Turn (1997)
6.8 Any Given Sunday (1999),
6.0 Alexander (2004)
6.0 World Trade Center (2006)
6.0 W (2008)
6.0 Money Never Sleeps (2010)
6.5 Savages (2012)
6.3 Snowden (2016)

Links:

Oliver Stone (USA, 1946), who had scripted Alan Parker's Midnight Express, Brian De Palma's Scarface and Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon, debuted with Salvador (1986), a powerful political drama that conveys at the same time the celebratory overtones of Sergej Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, a fresco of the inhumanity of war a` la Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and the deranged nihilism of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. The protagonist is a loser who loses all the way to the end, unable to make a difference in the world just like he cannot control his life. In San Francisco a photojournalist, Richard, down on his luck, wakes up when his wife, Italian immigrant Claudia, gets into a loud argument with a family member. The TV is talking about the civil war in Salvador. He calls to get a new press card and a new assignment: he wants to cover the civil war in Salvador. Denied, he drives away angry and is stopped for speeding by a cop. The cop arrests him because he is driving with a revoked driver license and has accumulated dozens of unpaid violations. His best friend Doctor Rock bails him out. The friend is homeless after being dumped by his girlfriend. Worse: Doctor Rock finds out that the kennel killed his dog because he abandoned it for too long. Back home Richard finds that Claudia has left him, taking their baby with her. Richard decides to drive to Salvador and Doctor Rock, homeless, just does along. After a long drive they enter Salvador and are immediately stopped by soldiers at a point where a terrorist attack was carried out. They witness atrocities committed by the soldiers. Richard had interviewed a colonel, Julio, a while back and the arresting officer escorts him to his office, where Julio is parting with four prostitutes. Released, Richard looks for his former girlfriend Maria from whom he had a child. Maria thought that he was dead. She knows that he has another wife in the USA, but is happy that he is back. She just had another baby from another man who has disappeared. Richard owes Doc a lot of money and he would like Richard to pay him back so he can fly back home, but Richard avoids the conversation. Richard takes Doc to a meeting with fellow journalist John. Doc explodes when he realizes that Richard is broke and therefore he is stuck in Salvador. Richard tells John that he has been fired and asks for help finding a job, and John takes him to a dump used by death squads where they photograph dozens of decomposing bodies. Richard admires John's courage and style. Richard then visits an improvised camp where his old friends Ramon and Carmen help women identify the men found in mass graves. Richard asks for help to meet the guerrillas in the mountains and Carmen agrees to arrange for his trip. Richard also meets aid worker Cathy, another old friend, who is helping crippled children. John invites him to a party of US officials who watch the results of the presidential elections broadcast live (Reagan vs Carter). Richard meets officials who know him from the days of his reporting in Vietnam and fellow journalist Pauline whom he insults for not being professional enough. Later a right-wing politician of Salvador celebrates Reagan's election, knowing that Reagan would support his party against the leftist guerrillas. He demands the head of archbishop Romero and promises to kill foreign journalists too. Richard is still broke and keeps asking friends to lend him money.
Meanwhile Doc is beginning to enjoy his stay in Salvador, but he gets in trouble with both gangsters and police and Richard has to bribe them with alcohol. Maria's little brother Carlos, who has insulted some thugs, gets arrested and Cathy helps Richard to meet with ambassador Tom and asks him for help. The ambassador is obviously uninterested in the problem of a Salvadoran peasant. Richard is also worried that Maria doesn't have an id and can be arrested and killed at any time. His solution is to marry her, although she is reluctant because she's a devout Catholic and Richard is not even a Catholic and a bad Christian anyway. Richard, an inveterate drinker, takes confession in the cathedral and admits to the priest that he loves Maria so much that he's ready to change. Richard, Doc and Maria attend mass during which the archbishop attacks the right-wing government. Maria and Richard take communion together from the hands of the archbishop. Next to them a man pulls out a gun and kills the archbishop. The soldiers assembled outside then shoot on the people leaving the cathedral. The soldiers then arrest Ramon, who is totally innocent, in a chaotic scene. John, who has photographed the scene, is arrested too. The right-wing politician tells a crowd at a rally that the archbishop deserved to die. Richard shouts that he is the leader of the death squads and the right-wing politician simply reads his name on his press card and walks away smiling.
Maria's little brother Carlos is assassinated. Maria is furious with Richard because there's been trouble since he came back. Richard, Doc and John gets drunk. Richard tells Cathy that he wants to marry Maria. Cathy tries in vain to talk sense into Richard: he is a failed journalist, broke, and twice the age of Maria. The fascist captain wants to teach Richard a lesson and John saves his ass. That night paramilitaries stop Cathy and other female aid workers who are driving out of town, gang-rape them and then kill them. John and Richard witness the moment that the bodies are found. The ambassador recommends to cut off all aid to the government but there are people in the embassy supporting the right-wing militias.
A fellow journalist, Peter, finds Richard a job to replace him while he travels to Venezuela. Richard and John are escorted to the mountains to meet with the guerrillas. John and Richard interview commander Marti. Richard meets with officials at the embassy and accuses them of lying to the US public about the rebels, who are just peasants fighting for justice against a fascist dictatorship. They reply that the alternative to the right-wing government would be much worse and they advise him to leave the country. When the rebels attack a town, John and Richard rush to photograph the battle and witness the rebels riding horses into town. The US ambassador, informed that the town is about to fall to the "communists", is pressured by his right-wing advisors to support the government. Soon, government troops enter the battle with tanks, helicopters and bombers provided by the USA and massacre the rebels. John and Richard photograph everything heroically until John is killed and Richard wounded. Before dying, John gives Richard the films of his photographs. During the battle Richard witnesses atrocities also committed by the rebels, and accuses them of becoming just like their oppressors.
Back in the capital, Richard is taken to a hospital and the bullets are removed. Doc tells Richard that the soldiers are looking for him and convinces him to leave the country. Richard, John and Maria drive to the border. Richard and Maria are detained because Maria's id is fake. They search Richard and find the film that he hid in his boots. Richard screams when they destroy the film. The border police are thugs who are ready to kill him but Doc manages to call the ambassador and at the last minute, when the gun is already pointed at Richard's head, the order arrives to release them. Finally, Richard and Maria reach the border of the USA. They take a bus to San Francisco but along the way they are stopped by immigration officers. They single out Maria and deport her. Richard protests in vain and is arrested. The titles inform us that Maria survived, John's photos were published, and Richard is still looking for Maria.

Platoon (1986) is a war movie that mainly explores the psychology of fear. The movie has intensity and passion, but is too long and stereotyped.

Taylor is a soldier in the American army, one of the many in the Vietnamese invasion. He is stressed, disappointed, disgusted. The long and exhausting treks in the jungle, the continuous sights of death, the suspense that reigns over their every move, the arguments between soldiers, are taking a toll on his psyche.
The platoon is run by a rude but effective sergeant with a scar, Barnes, who often does not even consult with the commander. The only one who doesn't take orders from him is Elias, an experience and much more humane soldier. Barnes takes a few of the soldier with him for a mission in the jungle. Taylor is inexperienced and not very motivated. When the Vietnamese attack the camp, he is petrified and almost lets them surprise everybody. He gets a little scratch and almost faints.
Back to the barracks, he is assigned to humble chores, is initiated to drugs by Elias. Again in the jungle, they find one of them tortured by the vietnamese. Elias behaves like a native of the jungle. Later they stumble into a village. The Americans terrorize the peasants. Even Taylor loses his temper and terrorizes a young man who was hiding. The kid is half blind. Taylor breaks down. Another soldier smashes the skull of the kid and then jokes about it. The evil Barnes is interrogating a man when the wife intervenes and starts shouting. Barnes shoots her. The daughter of the dead woman starts screaming. Barnes grabs the child and threatens to shoot her too if the man does not talk. Elias arrives just in time and jumps on Barnes. The two fight like animals until the commander stops them and commands them to burn the village. The Americans leave the smoking ruins of the village. Back to the barracks, Elias wants Barnes courtmartialed, but the matter is postponed by the superiors. The groups splits in two: the animals who side with Barnes, and the humans who side with Elias.
The platoon falls in an ambush. The casualties are heavy and it rains. Taylor gets carried away. Elias is leading the charge. Barnes orders Taylor and the others to withdraw and promises to alert Elias. Elias is alone fighting the enemy like a lion, and Barnes is following him. Barnes shoots Elias who is smiling at him. Taylor, who sensed trouble, arrives too late: Barnes tells him that Elias is dead and that they have to leave. Everybody leaves on the helicopters, but as they are taking off they see one of their man running, chased by the vietnamese: it's Elias, still alive, who would have escaped if they had not taken off. Taylor tells the other soldiers what happened, that Barnes is responsible for Elias' death.
Then the real battle erupts. The vietcong overrun the Americans and massacre almost all of them. Even in the middle of the battle, Barnes proves to be an animal and almost kills Taylor. The Americans bomb the area to stop the advance of the vietcongs, and this saves Taylor's life. When he comes to life again, he is surrounded by corpses. He wanders through the mass of corpses until he finds Barnes, wounded but still alive. Taylor executes Barnes in cold blood. Taylor is one of the few survivors, is rescued by a patrol and is transported to a military hospital.
The villagers are petrified. Taylor witnessed senseless acts of cruelty against unarmed peasants, but, more telling, the indifference of the soldiers.
The two sergeants represent two different views of war. One is a crusader, an idealist who knows what the war is all about; the other is "reality", as he puts it: war's real face is an animal fight for survival and domination.
The vietcongs, whom would be the true enemies, remain anonymous, reduced to natural catastrophe, like the rains and the snakes. The true enemies, the ones with a face and a name, are within the platoon itself. It is within the platoon that the real war is fought, between a meaning of life and another.

Wall Street (USA 1987) e` ambientato nel mondo della borsa ed e` un atto d'accusa nei confronti del materialismo esasperato.

Un giovane e ambizioso stockbroker lotta quotidianamente per farsi largo nella giungla di Wall Street. Suo padre e` tutto l'opposto, operaio sindacalista di un'aviolinea, uomo di vecchio stampo, tutto principi e moralita`. Il suo problema maggiore e` un potente miliardario. Questi e` un cinico che usa ogni mezzo, legale e non, per arricchirsi. Il ragazzo si lascia sedurre e accetta di diventare il suo braccio destro, coinvolto in tutte le sue amorali imprese. Nel frattempo si invaghisce di una splendida bionda e con lei sogna di un futuro libero dalla schiavitu` del suo lavoro. Lei non gli dice di essere stata l'amante del miliardario. Il ragazzo convince il padre a presenziare un meeting in cui il miliardario propone di salvare l'aviolinea a modo suo. Tutti sembrano entusiasti, meno il padre del ragazzo, che si mette a ridere e se ne va sbattendo la porta. Il ragazzo inveisce contro la sua testardaggine, ma suo padre ha a cuore il futuro degli impiegati di quella aviolinea e non i piani di espansione del miliardario. Il giorno dopo il ragazzo si rende conto della verita`: il miliardario vuole liquidare l'aviolinea e ovviamente non gli importa nulla delle persone che ci lavorano. Il ragazzo e` colto finalmente da una crisi esistenziale e manda al diavolo anche la bionda, che e` piu` fedele al miliardario che a lui. Intanto la polizia ha iniziato indagini sui loschi giri di denaro del miliardario e dei suoi collaboratori. Il padre ha un attacco cardiaco e cio` completa la trasformazione del ragazzo da avido businessman a rivoluzionario populista. Il ragazzo escogita un piano per salvare l'aviolinea facendo crollare le sue azioni e poi facendole comprare da un altro finanziere. Il miliardario perde una fortuna e l'aviolinea e` salva. La polizia arresta il ragazzo e gli offre come via d'uscita di aiutarli a incastrare il miliardario. Il ragazzo va a un appuntamento con il miliardario. Il miliardario lo picchia e insulta, gli rinfaccia di averlo creato dal nulla. Il ragazzo lascia fare: ha addosso un registratore che mandera` in galera il miliardario.

Then came Talk Radio (1988), an adaptation of Eric Bogosian's play, the Vietnam War movie Born on the Fourth of July (1989), the biopic The Doors (1991), the historical reconstruction JFK (1991), and the third Vietnam War movie, Heaven & Earth (1993).

The hyper-violent Natural Born Killers (1994), scripted by Quentin Tarantino, a story of a psychopathic couple on the run, feels like a cross between Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and a zombie movie. The camera and the montage move hysterically, perfectly replicating the state of mind of a psychopath. The camera shoots from all sorts of angles. The montage even throws in some cartoons Black-and-white and color alternate for no particular reason other than to disorient the viewer. Plenty of visual effects evoke demons, drugs and shamanic visions. This was by far Stone's most creative use of the medium. The film is poem of human insanity but also a grotesque satire of the media and of its audience. And it's really two films in one: the first hour is a road movie, about the murder rampage by the couple, and it's brutal enough, but pales in comparison with the second hour, the prison movie, which is even more brutal. The second one is the one that unleashes a farcical venom on the media and the authorities, pivoting around the caricatural characters of the warden, the detective and the TV reporter.

A young couple is dining at a diner in the desert. She starts dancing in front of the juke box. Two rednecks walk in and one of them starts flirting with her. She lets him dance with her but then suddenly starts beating him sadistically and doesn't stop until he is dead. His buddy is killed by her boyfriend before he can do anything. Then the couple goes on a rampage, killing everybody except one person, left alive with the job to tell everybody that the killing was done by Mickey and Mallory. A flashback shows Mallory's story, but it is shown as an episode titled "I Love Mallory" in some kind of twisted and deranged TV comedy, with the audience laughing and clapping. Mallory was sexually abused by her father in front of her mother, and even gave birth to her brother. One day Mickey showed up to deliver beef, wearing a bloodied suit, and she immediately fell in love with him. We even see the rolling titles as the episode concludes and a Coca Cola commercial. Then another episode begins in which Mallory asks Mickey to take her away and Mickey, who had escaped from a penitentiary taking advantage of a tornado, shows up to kill her father and then they burn her mother. Driving out of town, they stop on a bridge and celebrate their marriage. Then we are introduced to Wayne, a TV reporter who runs a show about serial killers. He tells his viewers the story of Mickey and Mallory, starting with then they killed for no reason a kind cop and then a bicyclist. Mickey and Mallory have become celebrities: we see images on television of fans from all over the world. Mickey and Mallory take a motel room. While they hug and kiss and then have sex in the bed the window behaves like a large-scren TV-set and shows images of evil through the ages, including Hitler and Stalin. Then suddenly the camera turns and shows us a young woman, bound and gagged on the floor of the room. Realizing that Mickey is staring at her, Mallory gets angry, walks out, gets in the car and drives around town, while in the motel room Mickey rapes the kidnapped girl. Mallory stops at a gas station and seduces the attendant. When they are just starting to have sex on the hood of a car, she kills him, with visions of her abusive father. Next, we are introduced to Jack, the detective who the following morning investigates the murder, determined to find the two famous killers. Meanwhile, Mickey and Mallory get stuck in the desert with no gasoline. They walk to a farm, arguing all the way. They meet a Navajo man who doesn't speak English and keeps a rattlesnake as a pet and lives with his grandson. They don't understand what he tells them but the subtitles tell us that he knows they are evil. He tells his grandson and tells him that there is nothing he can do. We see words on Mickey's and Mallory's shirts describing their psychotic condition, correctly guessed by the Navajo. The navajo throws out the rattlesnake and tells the grandson to leave. He feeds Mickey and Mallory, but maybe he feeds them drugs because they fall asleep and start having hallucinations. He once dreamed of the demon who would come and kill him, and knows that Mickey is that demon. Mickey has a nightmare of when he was a child, a traumatic memory, grabs his gun and shoots the Navajo. Mallory is furious at him for killing the man who helped them, but Mickey swears it was an accident. As they walk outside, they are attacked by many rattlesnakes. Now they are drugged and poisoned. They get on the old man's car and drive towards town. Meanwhile, we see that Jack is not any better than them: he hires a prostitute in a motel room (whose roof and window become large-screen TV-sets showing images of fires, hurricanes, trains, and so on) and then strangles her. Mickey and Mallory walk into a pharmacy, barely able to stand up, just when the cashier is watching Wayne's program on TV about them. The cashier recognizes them and presses the alarm button. Mickey asks for the antivenom medicine but then realizes that the cashier has recognized them and so he kills him and steals the medicines. The cops, led by Jack, have already arrested Mallory and now besiege the pharmacy. Jack threatens to torture Mallory if Mickey doesn't surrender. Mickey initially refuses and shoots at the cops. A Japanese reporter is broadcasing live in Japanese. Mickey pretends to surrender only to attack the cops with his knife. Finally captured, he is brutally beaten by the cops.
One year later Jack, who has become a celebrity as the man who captured the two most famous killers in the world, visits the prison where they are detained, escorted by warden Dwight, another man who looks as psychotic as the killers. During their walk into the prison we see a fresco of hell, with prisoners tortured and locked in cage-like cells. Dwight and his cops are full of hate and disgust for their prisoners. Jack tells Dwight how he became a cop after his mother was killed in front of him when he was a child. Jack is charged with transporting the duo to a mental hospital and Dwight wants him to kill them with the excuse that they tried to escape. Swight shows Jack that Mallory has gone completely mad. Meanwhile, Wayne the TV reporter is meeting with Mickey, trying very hard to convince him to give a live interview. Mickey finally accepts. Jack and Dwight are watching and listening outside the cell. Dwight explains that he has no choice but to consent. Then Wayne interviews a psychologist, Emil, who tells him his diagnosis of Mickey and Mallory, not crazy but psychos. Wayne is in trouble with his wife who found out his love affair with a woman called Ming. Finally the live interview begins. Mickey gets furious when Wayne insinuates that he killed his own father as a child (but we see in a flashback that is really did). Then Mickey explains his delirious philosophy of murder, claiming that everybody has a demon inside, and only love can kill the demon. The whole prison is watching the live broadcast, the prisoners are hypnotized by Mickey's eloquence. Families at home are also watching. During the break we see another Coca Cola commercial. Meanwhile, Jack is visiting Mallory alone. The guards warn him in vain that she's a killer animal. He is attracted to her and she easily seduces him. The prisoners, galvanized by Mickey's words, start a riot. Dwight the warden orders that the live broadcasting stops but Mickey grabs a gun from one of the cops and shoots his way out, followed by Wayne and the surviving crew (indifferent to the fact that two of his cameramen have been killed in the shootout). Wayne keeps following Mickey and filming as Mickey goes on a murdering rampage as he heads towards Mallory's cell and hell erupts in the prison because of the rioting prisoners. Meanwhile, Mallory has attacked Jack like a wild animal. The guards save him but then Mickey arrives, kills the guards and Mallory kills Jack. Wayne keeps broadcasting live from the prison to the nation, now following Mickey and Mallory as they walk out shooting cops right and left. Meanwhile, Dwight is trying in vain to restore order in the prison, where informers and cops are being hanged and thrown into ovens by the rioting prisoners. Wayne, whose entire crew is now dead, not only follows Mickey and Mallory personally filming them live, but even grabs a gun and starts shooting cops himself. A prisoner called Owen helps them to the exit. Mickey and Mallory use a cop and Wayne himself as shields. Wayne is so excited by his new life as a criminal that he calls his wife to dump her; but then he is dumped by his lover Ming. The trio finally walks out of the prison (through a gate on which a cop has been crucified) while the prisoners capture the warden and decapitate him. After reaching the woods, Mallory films Wayne (now covered in blood) telling his live audience how he joined the killers. He then films Mickey and Mallory kissing and celebrating their freedom. But then Mickey informs him that they have to kill him. Wayne object that they always leave one witness behind to document their crimes. Mickey replies that the camera is still rolling: the whole nation is the witness to the execution of Wayne. Wayne then stops begging for his life and accepts to be killed live on TV. The film ends with Mickey and Mallory now parents of three children traveling in a trailer through the country.

It was followed by the biopic Nixon (1995), the road movie U Turn (1997), Any Given Sunday (1999), the historical Alexander (2004), revised as a 3-hour 37-minute epic Alexander Revisited, World Trade Center (2006) about the September 11 terrorist attacks, the biopic W (2008), the sequel Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps (2010), Savages (2012), an adaptation of Don Winslow's novel, the biopic Snowden (2016), etc.