Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone’s movies arrive colored with his passion for truth. He won Academy Awards as Best Director for Platoon (1985) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) as well as for the Adapted Screenplay of Midnight Express (1978). He also earned Oscar nominations for JFK, Salvador and Nixon. Plus, he’s garnered many Golden Globe, Emmy, Festival, Guild, and Critics’ awards throughout his career as a producer, director, and screenwriter. Although respected in Hollywood and by the movie public, Stone is sometimes labeled as controversial and outspoken about politics.

A number of Stone’s films are still talked about today, including Wall Street, Savages, Any Given Sunday, Natural Born Killers, The Doors, Heaven & Earth and many more.  A Vietnam veteran, Stone was awarded a Bronze Star for Gallantry and a Purple Heart.

Stone took a break from major filmmaking to create -- along with Historian Peter Kuznick and other writers -- a documentary miniseries for Showtime titled Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, which includes 12 chapters and became a five-year project.

In his customary manner, Stone was happy to talk about this recently released Blu-Ray DVD as well as to share some of his thoughts about what was and what might be. 

QUESTION: How did you attempt to make this long project vibrant?

STONE: When you look at long hours of archive film you can really fall asleep. I love history but I know the moment people see black & white (images) they tune out. I wanted it to be exciting. I worked intensely on the music with Craig Armstrong who did World Trade Center, Great Gatsby, and Romero and Juliet. We went to Adam Peters who I worked on with Savages. He’s an English composer and we blended the music always looking for ways to stimulate or when going into another era changing the music.

QUESTION: You reference several movies in the DVD. Where did that idea come from?

STONE: The movie idea in the project came about because we’re talking about culture and specific things throughout this series; so why not use movies. I would have used more but with 58 minutes and 30 seconds in every chapter, along with fair use, you can only use maybe a minute so we were always towing that line. I think it relieves the tameness of the narrative, the voice, and we have no interviews. I would have put more films in as examples but people said that’s too much.

QUESTION: Can you mention some of those films that didn’t make it in?

STONE: Stallone – you have to put him in, he’s such a force. In the 80s it controlled public perception that Afghanistan was an evil Soviet empire. In Vietnam we had to go back and get the POWS. It’s so important that film reaches out and hits so many people in the guts, and it becomes emotional in America. Don’t forget the importance of George Bush with Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan. It all had a huge impact on the culture in the 90s as we didn’t have that enemy of the Soviet Union. So these films filled the need.

QUESTION: Were their certain films that you personally thought would add impact to the series?

STONE: JFK came out in the 90s but the Vietnam movies had receded and the last one, Heaven & Earth in 1994, was ill received in this country and did not do well commercially in the country. That was heart breaking to me, and after that we started that surge back to the WWII generation with George Bush, the father and a fighter pilot hero, and they sold the greatest generation. Yet Black Hawk Down was a wonderfully made film but with such a horrible message that US technology is gee-whiz thunder and shock and awe. That’s what Bush quoted and he loved that concept, “we’ll blow them away with our technology.” That’s what I objected to. That’s another reason I made this series to get these movies in.

 QUESTION: What is the difference in documenting history as you did in the series and dramatizing history as you do in many of your films?

STONE: A huge difference. In my films, you have actors, sets, and a script. This (the series) is all raw. All we have is the archive footage. Peter is an historian, and I’m a dramatist, and trying to take this book, which is about 25 hours of film and simplify it down to a formula that could work. Some say there’s too much going on in here, that’s okay. I’d rather not go faster because I’ve covered so much, but I’d rather you look at it a second time because some kids might do that.

QUESTION: The series covers immense material, but you had several fact checkers, correct?

STONE: I often look at a documentary a second time – and fact check. We had recent grad students; researchers; Peter, who has been at this for 35 years; our own fact checker, as well as Showtime’s fact checker, and CBS who owns ShowTime.

QUESTION: Being a dramatist there’s the interesting balance of the responsibility to tell a great story versus the subject matter of the event. Have you ever found that those two could clash?

STONE: That’s why this was the hardest thing I ever worked on. There were times I was in complete despair having to rewrite again, but we found out things as we went. We started in 2008 but sometimes two years later you’d find out something that would blow your theory. I would question Peter, and he questioned me. It was very difficult.

QUESTION: You were a teacher in Vietnam and obviously seek truth in your films. Do you see a trend to re-teach history in the way you see things?

STONE:  I wouldn't say I have the history of Vietnam in my films, but the atmospheres of the three stories were some of my own experiences along with Ron Kovic's. For history, I would suggest chapter 7 to get a sense of Vietnam historically, and that’s not complete; it’s just part of the story. But it was a devastating setback for the United States, what I would recall as a reversal of fortune. There was no end to that war and as Martin Luther King pointed out, Lyndon Johnson was committed to ending it, but it always comes back to American credibility. And we’re hearing that today with the congress. Credibility – it’s a false argument based on so many tragic mistakes.

QUESTION: With a move into documentaries, what do you feel you were not able to do in your dramatic films?

STONE: In 2008 I had done 17 films at that time. I said we’ve been through eight years of George Bush – which for me was a nightmare, especially a personal one as a veteran of the Vietnam War. I felt we were not seen and I had to do something more for my children. If I make another feature film it might be a big hit, but will not give me the satisfaction this has.

I’ve lived from 1946 to now and I don’t understand why our country, which I love so such, and seemed a great country when I was young, is now the monster vampire on the face of humanity. And if you live a certain amount of time you have to ask that question otherwise you’re not being honest to that time

I had the ability to do it and if I could get the financing and backing and trust from enough people to get it done than why not? I also got it on the air, which is a miracle in this country. Because it would never be on commercial TV because it’s so limited in what they can show in a controversial aspect – that won’t sell the product.

QUESTION: When you left Vietnam and decided not to go back to university and become a filmmaker, did your Vietnam experience prompt that?

STONE: I went to Vietnam twice as a teacher and merchant marine soldier then to Yale and dropped out. I went back to Yale after Vietnam, then to NYU on the GI bill. It took me a few months to get out of the mindset and NYU helped my mind and saved my life. I was nowhere – just lost. Not that I was against it or for it – just lost in America. They didn’t care about the war. To a degree it’s the same problem we have today with Iraq and Afghanistan. They don’t get what happens domestically, but maybe they do now.

QUESTION: What’s next for you?

STONE: I’m working on a new feature film but can’t reveal the title as yet.

(Interview also posted at www.reviewexpress.com.)