Oliver Stone Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Photo by Audrey Ichinose

Page 9 of 9

Conclusion

What should be the role of a filmmaker in society, given all we've said about film and so on, and its capacity for dealing with historical materials?

I don't see that there is a defined role because that suggests obligation and I don't think that the type of people who take this up would be in service or be "class president." People who are dramatists, at least I can speak for myself, tend to be rebellious, tend to go against the grain. Sometimes it can be the role, like in Indian tribes, of the guy who walks backwards. There's a special name in shamanistic terminology, the "heyoka," the man or woman who is certainly interested in liberation for himself or herself first, but then that person perhaps can help others to be liberated. The raising of consciousness. Attacking authority with a big "A"; not just being an attacker and a contrarian, but creating a body of work unto itself which is positive in itself. It's creative.

My dad always used to say to me, "They don't need all these schools. They should just live their life, get there and open their school under a tree and if anyone wants to go and listen to them, they go and they listen to them. They'll find their own way." My father always wanted to do that. He would have been a great teacher but he couldn't get the license to teach, I guess.

What is the role of the movies in preparing us for the future?

I think we've sort of answered it through this whole session. Movies can really be a creative machinery. They can evoke a spiritual life, a higher ideal, models that are both negative and positive, or a paradigm for society to function by. That is, not just a comic book, but a mirror. I always think that life is more complicated than any movie. Life is chaos.

I'm waiting for the dramatist who will really capture the complexity of life. As great as they are, movies are all limited. It's a shortcoming. Be aware of it and try to deal with it.

I think Nixon is probably as complex a film as has been made on American political history, I really do. [The character of] "Nixon" is a contradictory man. But at the same time, Nixon is even far more complicated than that character. There's always a contradiction within a contradiction in real life. Our lives are long, long -- years and years. A work of drama is inherently confined.

Mr. Stone, thank you very much for taking this time to be with us today.

Thank you.

And thank YOU very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.

© Copyright 1997, Regents of the University of California

To the Conversations page.

See the Globetrotter Research Gallery Movies and the Imagination, which includes links to other filmmakers.

See also Oliver Stone's Keynote Address to the UC Berkeley graduating class of 1994.