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Photo by Audrey Ichinose |
Oliver Stone Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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Photo by Audrey Ichinose |
Page 4 of 9
Does a filmmaker's ability to tap into our feelings enable them to address a national experience?
Oh, I think so. I think that it happened in the Depression with the films of Frank Capra. At that time, of course, there was no television and people really looked to movies. Maybe with David Wark Griffith earlier on, Chaplin and the stars they found, I guess, a longing was answered. But perhaps a lot of people wanted to believe. It's interesting that when economic times were the hardest, that's when many people embraced liberalism. But then Capra dealt very strongly with the fear of the ruling classes of losing control to this liberalism.
Was he as controversial as you at the time?
I'm not qualified to speak. I know a little bit about him and I think that he was probably always criticized for his point of view but I think he was beloved, in a way, until after the war. I think he kind of lost touch with his America, or America may have lost touch with itself after World War II, with the rise of Nixon and McCarthy. So there was no place for Capras. And it's interesting that the picture he did make, which was almost the great film of the '40s, It's a Wonderful Life, is really almost like a '30s movie, when you look at it. It's a harkening back to an optimism at a time when people cared about each other, and so forth. They don't in It's a Wonderful Life. The banks get bigger and bigger and practically ruin the man's life.
His critique of the economic elites was more acceptable during the Depression because there were limits to how much they could protest when things were not going well.
There's a great history and I don't think anyone in American film has ever done it. To a certain degree there was a betrayal in World War II, an absolute betrayal, by Roosevelt too. You know, Roosevelt was a great leader and I admire him, and he was certainly controversial, but there was something strange.
Now which years are you talking about?
The last four or five years of Roosevelt's life. You know, the whole
thing about not nominating Wallace in 1944, going along with so many bizarre choices, the
Jewish problem in Europe, so many strange things happening. There was almost a 
sellout of what the Capra era meant, and Capra was one of the first victims of it.
Well, those years of Roosevelt that you're talking about were the transition to the national security state.
That's what I'm trying to get at. Nobody's dealt with that in movies. I tried to do it in JFK later on down the line, but if you really go back it's a great era to do. But I don't think I could get the financing to do it.
Explain what you mean? A history about the era?
A dramatic film. Using Henry Wallace as the main character would be a great idea because he's a very interesting man, a neglected person. As is Eugene Debs. A lot of the interesting Americans of that earlier century are gone. And they were great people, and there's no accommodation to them in the media. It's a very interesting thing. The media has turned against those types of people.
Or I.F. Stone, for example.
Yes, but he's a writer. I'm talking about historical figures. Debs was a giant, LaFollette; there was a whole series of progressives in this country.
Also Mrs. Roosevelt in some sort of way, because she was cut out at that time too.
Next page: Dramatizing History
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