Oliver Stone Speaks To NJ's Barnes About 'W' ...
Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone tells National Journal's Jim Barnes about the making of 'W' and the reasons he took creative license with history.
A snippet:
Q: I'm interested in the device you used in which you used Bush quotes, for want of a better phrase, out of context -- things he actually said, but you transposed them and used them at events other than where they actually happened. What was the purpose there?
Stone: Well, the purpose is dramatization. As you know, these quotes are strung over years, speeches are strung over years, meetings -- there's numerous meetings. As a dramatist, we have to simplify and condense. And I don't think we crossed the line, the spirit of what happened in that administration. The Bush administration speaks for itself. They've said these things, their policies are clear. By way of example, I'm just looking at an article in the Dallas Morning News written by Wayne Slater. Wayne Slater covered Bush, Bush's two campaigns for governor, his administration in Austin and both runs for the presidency, and he co-authored two books on Karl Rove. Anyway, Wayne -- I don't know the man at all, never met him -- he came out Friday and he said -- this is an example -- "It happened, just not exactly as the director portrays. Mr. Bush delivered the words, 'Today we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there,' during a campaign stop in early 2000, not the White House three years later." Yes, but the same sentiment prevailed in Bush's mind.
Q: So to you, that makes it fair game to use it that way, because they are the words of the president?
Stone: I'm not writing a biography. I'm not a journalist, never claimed to be. Nor am I a documentarian. We are shaping a pattern that we see repeating in this man's presidency. You could almost describe these eight years as a loop in the sense that the body language, the understanding, the dialogue remains very much the same. The stimulus is different, whether it's the economic debacle or the Iraq war, it doesn't seem to matter on the way he responds to these situations. His speeches are remarkably similar, his delivery of them. So, yes, as a dramatist, we have to make our patterns, and we're only dealing with the first three years of the presidency, as you know, and the march to Iraq. That is the climax, act three.
And this:
Q: What sort of reaction have you had from George Bush and his administration on the movie? And to those who think it's disrespectful that you made it while he's still in office, what do you have to say to that?
Stone: I just don't think the Bush family believes in looking inside themselves, especially George W., talks about psychobabble, so does the father. We've heard Jeb say that it was all hooey. But, you know, you're talking about a family that doesn't have any sense of introspection. I mean, neither Freud nor Darwin seem to apply. So I'm not surprised. But listen, if they would like to screen the film with me, or one of them would, I would be most glad and gracious to do it. I'd go; I'd travel somewhere to show it to them. But it's very hard, I know, to see a movie about yourself.
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