What scares me most about the media is that so many of them don't realize that by presenting and highlighting certain issues, opinions, and perspectives over others, they can manipulate and control people's beliefs in subtle ways. Oliver Stone More Quotes by Oliver Stone More Quotes From Oliver Stone I think our life is a series of adventures. Oliver Stone life-is adventure thinking I'm a dramatist. Dramatists have a right to look at history and interpret it the way they see it. Oliver Stone looks way I 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 Stone marijuana weed differences Forget the grand plan. Forget the master scheme. Forget control. That is the bleak but true basis of independent cinema. Inch by motherfuking inch we must, because we have no other choice. Oliver Stone independent cinema choices JFK was leading the world, leading the United States into a new position with the Soviet Union. He was calling for the end of the Cold War. He would have been reelected in 1964 because he was vastly popular. Oliver Stone united-states calling war The worst nightmare I ever had about Vietnam was that I had to go back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror. Oliver Stone worst-nightmares vietnam sweat We all know what we know. We experience with our minds and breath. Oliver Stone breaths mind knows I might as well be myself. Everyone else is taken. Oliver Stone taken positive might I can't tell you how many times at the breakfast table my dad would curse out Franklin Roosevelt. I love my father. He was an intelligent man, but he really didn't like regulations of the Roosevelt style, or the taxes. He was an Dwight Eisenhower man. And that's what Eisenhower did, committed to breaking down the program. Oliver Stone dad intelligent father In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity - and it was an atrocity. Oliver Stone regret hard-work sorry But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt, and this is where I fault Stephen Ambrose and a lot of these guys who attack me - not all of life is a result of conspiracy by any means! Accident occurs alongside conspiracy. Oliver Stone guy mean thinking Bernie Sanders is a disappointment on foreign policy, totally doesn't think about it. But he has the possibility to be more isolationist, which would be good for us actually. We manage to kill several million people on this planet without taking any credit for it or blame. It's a heavy karma we have. Oliver Stone karma disappointment thinking After World War II the Republicans - the Wall Street crowd - were very worried about a depression coming back. They hated Franklin Roosevelt in that crowd, my father among them. And there was a great fear in '46 that we'd fall back into the pits. And they always wanted to break up the Roosevelt legislation. Oliver Stone wall war father The beauty of history is that historians have the ability to find patterns, the big picture. When you make a movie, you try to find that. I'm doing in the cinema what historians try to do in their own media. Oliver Stone big-picture ability trying I make my films like you're going to die if you miss the next minute. You better not go get popcorn. Oliver Stone popcorn next missing You can never judge how the film will be taken; you can only make your best effort, and put out what you feel. How it's read, you never can tell. Or remembered for that matter. Oliver Stone best-effort taken judging Well, George W.Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. It's an ideological thing. Oliver Stone ideological security I may have disparaged the idea that people are looking at films on smaller and smaller screens... it's a shame that people have to watch DVDs with the lights on in a television-type situation where people are wandering in and out of the room. Movies are different from television, and you cannot watch movies like television. It distorts it. Oliver Stone dvds light ideas I think you can maintain two tracks. I think you have to. That's what this kind of filmmaking is about. If you're not aware of the limitations of what you're up against... it's like a general: you have to know your artillery and you have to know your infantry. You have to know what you have. You have to marshal your forces and use them well. It comes down to the personal and the intimate, but at the same time you have to have the big picture. Oliver Stone track two thinking I've changed my style constantly, so I'm not sure I have one defined style, except perhaps style of subject matter. Oliver Stone not-sure style changed
