Special Feature on Oliver StoneFall 1996: Creative Screenwriting Magazine A brilliant read, this is probably one of the best interviews with Stone. Tell me a little about your early days as a screenwriter and your breakthrough with Midnight Express?I had written a novel when I was eighteen or nineteen years old. It was a very long, kind of James Joyceian approach—epic language. It wasn’t published and I moved on into Vietnam. I went to Vietnam as a soldier to forget about writing, to never write again. I made a couple of notes but they got so wet in the field I gave up the idea of paper and pen and went back to a certain anonymity. I think writing, [using] those kind of materials, brings a lot of attention to yourself. I felt very self-absorbed and I was trying to get away from that. Later in my tour I bought a camera and started to take more pictures. A thousand pictures of a beautiful country—yellows and greens—absolutely incredible color. Somewhere in this Vietnam experience my mind moved from the cerebral to a little more visceral place, more sensual. All five senses became involved with staying alive. I believe learning to use those senses attuned me to the visual. Sometimes you see stretches in the screenwriting that come from that period of being a budding novelist. So, I ended up trying to serve this new master—the camera—and writing specifically for the external. I wrote screenplays the moment I got back. It was sort of a healing process to recover from the war. I was so anguished that I wrote… actually the earliest version of Platoon came right out of that moment. I wrote a screenplay called Break, which was a fantasy, and is basically Platoon, but seven years before and written very surreal. Everything you see later in Platoon is there, but disguised in some weird way—long monologues, still partly novel. Was that before or after you went to film school?It was before. I actually wrote it before. I ended up in film school pursuing this 8mm dream, this combination of writing and… as soon as I went to film school in 1969 at NYU, I fell in love with the medium. I made short films, one minute, two minute, and worked my way up to a ten-minute film the first year. And then the second year I made a twenty-minute film and my last one was a twenty-six-minute film short—black and white with some color. Already I was using a lot of that black and white color effect, changing the point of view. Very influenced by the New Wave, by Godard—the deconstruction. [Martin] Scorsese was there. Haig Manoogian was there. They were wonderful teachers. You had to be there in 1968–9 to understand the excitement. We were young filmmakers, we were radical. We were into documentaries, into changing society. It was a wonderful period… very competitive. It was very much like Hollywood in the sense we all had to fight in a collective to make our films. It was like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where we were all autocritiquing each other. It was a difficult period, but I think it made us, honedus into filmmakers. Even though I went to that school I found a dearth of screenwriting going on. Most of the kids were interested in getting out on the streets and doing stuff with cameras. I was too, but I always kept writing in the back of my head. I just felt like screenwriting was the best entry point into the business based on what I’d read. And I wrote two screenplays a year for several years. My first wife was working, so she helped support me. I was not above taking the occasional money I could get from my father. I worked as a cab driver on the nightshift. I worked as a messenger boy. I worked as a PA on soft-porno films and a couple of Channel 13 specials. I got whatever I could get, but I couldn’t get anything optioned or really read. I made my own film, Seizure, in 1973 with two partners, which I wrote and directed with Ed Mann, but I did most of the writing really. —Oliver Stone, Fall 1996: Creative Screenwriting Magazine Best of Creative Screenwriting Interviews 1994–2004: Pedro Almodovar Paul Thomas Anderson Shane Black Shane Black & Jeb Stuart John Carpenter Sofia Coppola Frank Darabont Brian De Palma Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio The Farrelly Brothers Scott Frank William Goldman Peter Jackson Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens & Frances Walsh Charlie Kaufman Callie Khouri David Koepp Neil LaBute Baz Luhrmann David Lynch David Mamet Steve Martin Christopher McQuarrie John Milius Christopher Nolan Alexander Payne Robert Rodriguez David O. Russell John Sayles Paul Schrader M. Night Shyamalan Kevin Smith Terry Southern Oliver Stone Quentin Tarantino Billy Bob Thornton Robert Towne Lars von Trier Andrew Kevin Walker Tweet // Follow @LaFamiliaFilm // A brilliant read;A brilliant read;A brilliant read;A brilliant read;A brilliant read; // ]]> // ]]> // ]]> // ]]> // ]]> // ]]> // ]]> // ]]> // ]]>
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Special Feature on Oliver Stone
Fall 1996: Creative Screenwriting Magazine

A brilliant read, this is probably one of the best interviews with Stone.

Tell me a little about your early days as a screenwriter and your breakthrough with Midnight Express?
I had written a novel when I was eighteen or nineteen years old. It was a very long, kind of James Joyceian approach—epic language. It wasn’t published and I moved on into Vietnam. I went to Vietnam as a soldier to forget about writing, to never write again. I made a couple of notes but they got so wet in the field I gave up the idea of paper and pen and went back to a certain anonymity. I think writing, [using] those kind of materials, brings a lot of attention to yourself. I felt very self-absorbed and I was trying to get away from that. Later in my tour I bought a camera and started to take more pictures. A thousand pictures of a beautiful country—yellows and greens—absolutely incredible color. Somewhere in this Vietnam experience my mind moved from the cerebral to a little more visceral place, more sensual. All five senses became involved with staying alive. I believe learning to use those senses attuned me to the visual.

Sometimes you see stretches in the screenwriting that come from that period of being a budding novelist. So, I ended up trying to serve this new master—the camera—and writing specifically for the external. I wrote screenplays the moment I got back. It was sort of a healing process to recover from the war. I was so anguished that I wrote… actually the earliest version of Platoon came right out of that moment. I wrote a screenplay called Break, which was a fantasy, and is basically Platoon, but seven years before and written very surreal. Everything you see later in Platoon is there, but disguised in some weird way—long monologues, still partly novel.

Was that before or after you went to film school?
It was before. I actually wrote it before. I ended up in film school pursuing this 8mm dream, this combination of writing and… as soon as I went to film school in 1969 at NYU, I fell in love with the medium. I made short films, one minute, two minute, and worked my way up to a ten-minute film the first year. And then the second year I made a twenty-minute film and my last one was a twenty-six-minute film short—black and white with some color. Already I was using a lot of that black and white color effect, changing the point of view. Very influenced by the New Wave, by Godard—the deconstruction. [Martin] Scorsese was there. Haig Manoogian was there. They were wonderful teachers. You had to be there in 1968–9 to understand the excitement. We were young filmmakers, we were radical. We were into documentaries, into changing society. It was a wonderful period… very competitive. It was very much like Hollywood in the sense we all had to fight in a collective to make our films. It was like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where we were all autocritiquing each other. It was a difficult period, but I think it made us, honedus into filmmakers.

Even though I went to that school I found a dearth of screenwriting going on. Most of the kids were interested in getting out on the streets and doing stuff with cameras. I was too, but I always kept writing in the back of my head. I just felt like screenwriting was the best entry point into the business based on what I’d read. And I wrote two screenplays a year for several years. My first wife was working, so she helped support me. I was not above taking the occasional money I could get from my father. I worked as a cab driver on the nightshift. I worked as a messenger boy. I worked as a PA on soft-porno films and a couple of Channel 13 specials. I got whatever I could get, but I couldn’t get anything optioned or really read. I made my own film, Seizure, in 1973 with two partners, which I wrote and directed with Ed Mann, but I did most of the writing really. —Oliver Stone, Fall 1996: Creative Screenwriting Magazine

Best of Creative Screenwriting Interviews 1994–2004:

Flashback 1987: Salvador

An one hour documentary about the problems in the making of Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986), Into the Valley of Death is an powerful, brutal and honest look on not only the film, based on a true story, but also the whole brutality that took place in El Salvador in the 1980’s with dictatorships financed by U.S. government.

Featuring interviews with Stone, James Woods, James Belushi, Richard Boyle (the journalist who lived the experiences that later became the movie, he’s portrayed by Woods on screen) and the U.S. Ambassador in El Salvador at the time Robert E. White, the documentary presents a small background of what was happening in the country; the difficult process of making the movie on location there and also in Mexico; the budget problems that made Oliver Stone refuse his payment in order to assure all the horses he needed for a battle scene, among other disasters and problems. What fascinates me the most here is how candid the interviewers are, specially the actors frankly speaking about the duel of egos they had with each other, and their dislike for the real figures they were portraying in the movie, of whom they met in a disastrous party.

But the best testimony comes from the ambassador, arguing about how different his persona was portrayed in the movie (Michael Murphy’s character) and is views on how bad the Washington bureaucrats acted in El Salvador, denying or overlooking the killings and abuses committed by officials and the government. Purely informative, with very good footage from the movie’s behind the scenes and also some disturbing images of the real deal in the Central America’s country, “Into the Valley of Death” will make you look at Stone’s film in a different way, more respectfully and more thoughtfully. You’ll really need to watch it again and examine that your perception on it will be changed. This is featured as bonus material of “Salvador” DVD.

  Frank Darabont Tom Tykwer Jerry Weintraub Michael Shamberg Benh Zeitlin David Flynn John Battsek Paul Haggis Christine Vachon Alejandro González Iñárritu Jennifer Fox Milos Forman Barry Gifford Vilmos Zsigmond Sylvester Stallone Costa-Gavras Ken Loach Peter Fonda Matthew Modine Oliver Stone With thanks to @suresh305
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With thanks to @suresh305

Source: zff.com

Top 10 Charlie Rose Interviews of Film Directors. Lucky for us Charlie Rose is a huge movie buff and he conducts the best interviews with film directors. Charlie’s interviews go beyond the generic interviews that directors usually do to promote their movies, and he asks the great questions that film aficionados want to hear. A few interviews are conducted with people who knew the filmmaker closely for the great directors Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. Enjoy these interviews with some of cinema’s great artists. 1. An Hour with Filmmaker George Lucas George Lucas sits down for an hour long conversation with Charlie Rose in this interview and chronologically goes through his moviemaking career from his days at USC film school up to creating the Star Wars prequels. He talks about his financial and technological struggles to get his visions on the big screen and how he has finally attained financial independence as an artist to create the movies he wants to make without having to answer to anyone. George also passes on his wisdom about storytelling, education, artistry, and parenting. 2. A Conversation about Alfred Hitchcock As the undisputed “Master of Suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock left behind a large body of work that continually explored the darker depths of the human heart. Here, Charlie Rose talks with the director’s daughter Patricia along with noted film director/historian Peter Bogdanovich on the centennial of his Hitchcock’s birth. Topics include Hitchcock’s dogged attention to detail, his writing methods, which films of his own he preferred best, and where he ranks with the great masters of cinema history. 3. An Hour with Filmmaker James Cameron Known as “Iron Jim” to friends and critics alike, James Cameron rose from humble beginnings as a truck driver to become the “King of the World” with his mega-blockbuster Titanic. Here Charlie Rose talks with the director at length about what went into making the most expensive film ever made, and how he managed to balance historical fact with romantic fiction. Cameron’s talent for managing complex productions that still strike a chord with a broad audience has made him one of the most successful filmmakers in the modern era; a feat no less incredible when you consider how much his ambition grows from picture to picture. 4. A Discussion with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter Capturing a key moment in history, this interview with Steve Jobs and John Lassetter catches both visionaries at the birth of what would become the most successful animation studio in recent history. After purchasing Pixar in 1986, shortly after his initial ouster from Apple, Jobs helped shepherd Lassetter and his team towards the first digitally animated movie, Toy Story, a box-office success that was followed by a string of hits that has not let up to date. Watch for an interesting moment near the end where Jobs tactfully dodges Charlie Rose’s question about a possible return to Apple; and even that actually did come to pass later that same year! 5. An Interview with Quentin Tarantino Coming off the wild success of his independent film breakout hit Pulp Fiction, super cool film director Quentin Tarantino sits down with Charlie Rose and talks about his craft and where his career is going to go from here. Tarantino talks about his childhood watching movies and his days as a video store clerk. He discusses his unorthodox way of storytelling, his method of writing, and his love of following the careers of film directors of which he mentions his favorites. Finally he talks about his first two films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Watch film geek Tarantino enthusiastically riff on his love of movies. 6. An Hour about the Life and Work of Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick With a photographer’s eye, a philosopher’s curiosity, and a searing intellect, Stanley Kubrick’s films have cut a distinctive path through cinematic history with a scope that is still hard to estimate. Here Charlie Rose talks with the late director’s widow Christiane, his lifelong friend Jan Harland, and adds modern master Martin Scorsese into the mix to round out the table. Christiane Kubrick provides heartwarming insight on their marriage, while Harland and Scorsese weigh in on why Kubrick’s films such as 2001, The Shining, and Dr. Strangelove continue to provoke, compel, and stimulate new generations of filmgoers. 7. A Conversation with Roman Polanski In this interview, filmmaker Roman Polanski speaks about filmmaking, personal tragedy, and the legal trouble that has kept him from returning to the United States. Charlie Rose does not shy away from confronting the director of such classics as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown on why he hasn’t faced the legal ramifications of a rape charge that made him flee for Europe in 1977. Polanski also reflects on the loss of his mother at Auschwitz, his lonely childhood in war-torn Poland, losing his wife in the Manson family murders, and his current life as a French citizen. 8. An Interview with Oliver Stone Director Oliver Stone is known for his political and historical films and in this interview with Charlie Rose, Stone talks about his film Nixon. Stone gives us his interpretation of the man Nixon and covers some of the more controversial aspects of his film. He also gives us his philosophy on drama and its ability to convey the shadow side of history which is often not the version put into the history books. Get a history lesson from Oliver Stone with this hour long talk about Nixon. 9. A Talk with Director Tim Burton Director Tim Burton talks with Charlie Rose about his recent film and art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. In the first 10 minutes MOMA’s exhibit curators talk about putting on the exhibition. Then Burton discusses some of his sketches and talks about how he went from being a weird and quiet teenager to a filmmaker extraordinaire. Burton talks about his love of masks and how they bring out new aspects in his performers such as with Jack Nicholson made up as the Joker in his film Batman or Johnny Depp in the wide variety of outfits he has suited up for in many Burton films. Burton feels that all kids are artists and doodlers up to about age 12, but then for various reason these creative instincts are suppressed as people get older, and both Tim and Charlie find this unfortunate. 10. A Conversation with German Director Werner Herzog German film director Werner Herzog sits down with Charlie Rose in this 23 minute interview and discusses his prolific filmmaking career. Herzog gives some insight into the making of his film Fitzcarraldo about which he recently published his personal diaries in a book called Conquest of the Useless. He talks about his philosophy of filmmaking and his search for the “ecstatic truth” when it comes to the many documentaries that he has shot over the years. Herzog also addresses his talent for bringing out the best in actors such as his unique gift for harnessing the talent of German actor Klaus Kinski.
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Top 10 Charlie Rose Interviews of Film Directors.

Lucky for us Charlie Rose is a huge movie buff and he conducts the best interviews with film directors. Charlie’s interviews go beyond the generic interviews that directors usually do to promote their movies, and he asks the great questions that film aficionados want to hear. A few interviews are conducted with people who knew the filmmaker closely for the great directors Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. Enjoy these interviews with some of cinema’s great artists.

1. An Hour with Filmmaker George Lucas

George Lucas sits down for an hour long conversation with Charlie Rose in this interview and chronologically goes through his moviemaking career from his days at USC film school up to creating the Star Wars prequels. He talks about his financial and technological struggles to get his visions on the big screen and how he has finally attained financial independence as an artist to create the movies he wants to make without having to answer to anyone. George also passes on his wisdom about storytelling, education, artistry, and parenting.

2. A Conversation about Alfred Hitchcock

As the undisputed “Master of Suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock left behind a large body of work that continually explored the darker depths of the human heart. Here, Charlie Rose talks with the director’s daughter Patricia along with noted film director/historian Peter Bogdanovich on the centennial of his Hitchcock’s birth. Topics include Hitchcock’s dogged attention to detail, his writing methods, which films of his own he preferred best, and where he ranks with the great masters of cinema history.

3. An Hour with Filmmaker James Cameron

Known as “Iron Jim” to friends and critics alike, James Cameron rose from humble beginnings as a truck driver to become the “King of the World” with his mega-blockbuster Titanic. Here Charlie Rose talks with the director at length about what went into making the most expensive film ever made, and how he managed to balance historical fact with romantic fiction. Cameron’s talent for managing complex productions that still strike a chord with a broad audience has made him one of the most successful filmmakers in the modern era; a feat no less incredible when you consider how much his ambition grows from picture to picture.

4. A Discussion with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter

Capturing a key moment in history, this interview with Steve Jobs and John Lassetter catches both visionaries at the birth of what would become the most successful animation studio in recent history. After purchasing Pixar in 1986, shortly after his initial ouster from Apple, Jobs helped shepherd Lassetter and his team towards the first digitally animated movie, Toy Story, a box-office success that was followed by a string of hits that has not let up to date. Watch for an interesting moment near the end where Jobs tactfully dodges Charlie Rose’s question about a possible return to Apple; and even that actually did come to pass later that same year!

5. An Interview with Quentin Tarantino

Coming off the wild success of his independent film breakout hit Pulp Fiction, super cool film director Quentin Tarantino sits down with Charlie Rose and talks about his craft and where his career is going to go from here. Tarantino talks about his childhood watching movies and his days as a video store clerk. He discusses his unorthodox way of storytelling, his method of writing, and his love of following the careers of film directors of which he mentions his favorites. Finally he talks about his first two films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Watch film geek Tarantino enthusiastically riff on his love of movies.

6. An Hour about the Life and Work of Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick

With a photographer’s eye, a philosopher’s curiosity, and a searing intellect, Stanley Kubrick’s films have cut a distinctive path through cinematic history with a scope that is still hard to estimate. Here Charlie Rose talks with the late director’s widow Christiane, his lifelong friend Jan Harland, and adds modern master Martin Scorsese into the mix to round out the table. Christiane Kubrick provides heartwarming insight on their marriage, while Harland and Scorsese weigh in on why Kubrick’s films such as 2001, The Shining, and Dr. Strangelove continue to provoke, compel, and stimulate new generations of filmgoers.

7. A Conversation with Roman Polanski

In this interview, filmmaker Roman Polanski speaks about filmmaking, personal tragedy, and the legal trouble that has kept him from returning to the United States. Charlie Rose does not shy away from confronting the director of such classics as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown on why he hasn’t faced the legal ramifications of a rape charge that made him flee for Europe in 1977. Polanski also reflects on the loss of his mother at Auschwitz, his lonely childhood in war-torn Poland, losing his wife in the Manson family murders, and his current life as a French citizen.

8. An Interview with Oliver Stone

Director Oliver Stone is known for his political and historical films and in this interview with Charlie Rose, Stone talks about his film Nixon. Stone gives us his interpretation of the man Nixon and covers some of the more controversial aspects of his film. He also gives us his philosophy on drama and its ability to convey the shadow side of history which is often not the version put into the history books. Get a history lesson from Oliver Stone with this hour long talk about Nixon.

9. A Talk with Director Tim Burton

Director Tim Burton talks with Charlie Rose about his recent film and art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. In the first 10 minutes MOMA’s exhibit curators talk about putting on the exhibition. Then Burton discusses some of his sketches and talks about how he went from being a weird and quiet teenager to a filmmaker extraordinaire. Burton talks about his love of masks and how they bring out new aspects in his performers such as with Jack Nicholson made up as the Joker in his film Batman or Johnny Depp in the wide variety of outfits he has suited up for in many Burton films. Burton feels that all kids are artists and doodlers up to about age 12, but then for various reason these creative instincts are suppressed as people get older, and both Tim and Charlie find this unfortunate.

10. A Conversation with German Director Werner Herzog

German film director Werner Herzog sits down with Charlie Rose in this 23 minute interview and discusses his prolific filmmaking career. Herzog gives some insight into the making of his film Fitzcarraldo about which he recently published his personal diaries in a book called Conquest of the Useless. He talks about his philosophy of filmmaking and his search for the “ecstatic truth” when it comes to the many documentaries that he has shot over the years. Herzog also addresses his talent for bringing out the best in actors such as his unique gift for harnessing the talent of German actor Klaus Kinski.

Source: learnoutloud.com

I consider my films first and foremost to be dramas about individuals in personal struggles and I consider myself to be a dramatist before I am a political filmmaker. I’m interested in alternative points of view. I think ultimately the problems of the planet are universal and that nationalism is a very destructive force. I also like anarchy in films. My heroes were Buñuel and Godard. Breathless was one of the first pictures I really remember being marked by, because of the speed and energy. They say I’m unsubtle. But we need above all, a theatre that wakes us up: nerves and heart.

I love intelligent films that come at you fast. I don’t have attention deficit disorder, my mind moves fast. There’s a lot to deal with in my films. We had so many facts to go through, so the governing style was flash, cut, flash, repeat.

I wasn’t prophetic. It was there all around us. Money was the sex of the 1980s.

Oliver Stone has written, directed, and produced some of the most powerful films of the last thirty years. His films are always controversial, dark, and unforgettable. Known for writing such classics as Scarface, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers, and Evita, Stone is a true Hollywood legend. (NOTE: Screenplays for educational purposes only)

It’s truly an honor to be followed by the great @TheOliverStone, one of my favorite screenwriters/directors.

Previously on Cinephilia & Beyond:

image

In 1976 I optioned “Platoon” to a producer, but it was not made. The production manager asked me to entrust him with many of my prints and negatives from Vietnam. He thoughtlessly sent it all in a package from New York to Los Angeles, but it never arrived. I’m sure they’re somewhere in this world—anyone know (reward offered)? So recently when we were setting up our website, I went hunting thru storage for various materials that are now on the site—or will be. In the back of a home closet was an old shoebox marked ‘classic snaps, 1950s.’ There were many family pictures, but at the very bottom were 7 envelopes of worn-looking negatives in 35mm and the vanished 126 format. They looked vaguely like Vietnam. It is an amazing moment when something lost reappears after more than 40 years.

I developed 100+ of these pictures at a shop in Los Angeles that could actually handle the 126 format. Not everything came out by any means, but there were certainly some colorful, well-preserved images of the war—of which I enclose a few shots for those who might be interested, or who’ve seen “Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” or “Heaven & Earth.”

I enclose some descriptions:

With some of the ‘brothers.’ These guys were fun to be with back in base camp in the rear, and made some of the dreariest hours pass with laughter, grass, and music—mostly a lot of soul from The Temptations, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Spyder Turner, the Chamber Brothers, etc. These were taken in the last part of my tour in late ’68 with the 1st Cavalry in the Quảng Trị area—as well as some shots from the central province where our divisional headquarters was located at An Khe. You’ll see some of ‘Sin City’ and some of the girls who worked in the bars—just surviving this war. And that beautiful police dog who was killed, as so many were. —Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone’s Vietnam Photos

image

Source: la-screenwriter.com

Flashback 1987: Salvador

An one hour documentary about the problems in the making of Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986), Into the Valley of Death is an powerful, brutal and honest look on not only the film, based on a true story, but also the whole brutality that took place in El Salvador in the 1980’s with dictatorships financed by U.S. government.

Featuring interviews with Stone, James Woods, James Belushi, Richard Boyle (the journalist who lived the experiences that later became the movie, he’s portrayed by Woods on screen) and the U.S. Ambassador in El Salvador at the time Robert E. White, the documentary presents a small background of what was happening in the country; the difficult process of making the movie on location there and also in Mexico; the budget problems that made Oliver Stone refuse his payment in order to assure all the horses he needed for a battle scene, among other disasters and problems. What fascinates me the most here is how candid the interviewers are, specially the actors frankly speaking about the duel of egos they had with each other, and their dislike for the real figures they were portraying in the movie, of whom they met in a disastrous party.

But the best testimony comes from the ambassador, arguing about how different his persona was portrayed in the movie (Michael Murphy’s character) and is views on how bad the Washington bureaucrats acted in El Salvador, denying or overlooking the killings and abuses committed by officials and the government. Purely informative, with very good footage from the movie’s behind the scenes and also some disturbing images of the real deal in the Central America’s country, “Into the Valley of Death” will make you look at Stone’s film in a different way, more respectfully and more thoughtfully. You’ll really need to watch it again and examine that your perception on it will be changed. This is featured as bonus material of “Salvador” DVD.

Conan the Barbarian (aka Conan), August 1, 1978 First Draft by Oliver Stone (NOTE: For educational purposes only) The first draft of the script, by Oliver Stone, was set in the post-apocalyptic future. Producers Edward R. Pressman and Edward Summer had started planning a film based on Robert E. Howard’s character in 1975, although it took them two years to sew up the rights. A name screenwriter was needed, so they brought on Oliver Stone, who was causing buzz with his script for Turkish prison drama “Midnight Express.” Stone was hitting coke and pain-killers pretty hard at the time, and turned in a four-hour script, described by eventual director John Milius as “a total drug fever dream,” which moved the character to a post-apocalptic future to battle against an army of 10,000 mutants. Still, the producers liked what they had, and Stone was considered to direct the project, along with “Jaws” production designer Joe Alves, who would go on to direct “Jaws 3-D” (later in the process, Ridley Scott was offered the gig after the heat from “Alien,” but turned it down). Ultimately, Stone’s vision, budgeted at $40 million, proved too expensive: Pressman sold the project to Dino De Laurentiis, and Milius, who was under contract to the producer, was brought on to rework the script to a more manageable level, as well as direct the film. Stone does retain credit on the finished film: several sequences, including Conan’s crucifixion and the climbing of the Tower of Serpents, come from his draft. 5 Things You Might Not Know About John Milius’ ‘Conan The Barbarian’ by Oliver Lyttelton “It took me four months to write CONAN. I had been hired to write the first draft. Paramount and Edward R. Pressman had told me to go ahead without restraining myself. I was expecting they would ask for a more digest, second draft. But I never had the chance to write it: Paramount cancelled the project. [To write the script,] I read each book, each comic book. Robert E. Howard was a strange bird from Texas. He wrote all these great stories, originally in pulp magazines. He had a great gift for this perverted mythos of darkness and death, raging and mad Wagnerian mentality. Howard came here and we discussed. I was working in the evening here, and he came to discuss with me. He said to me to deal just with what he was doing then, not to waste my time with what he had made before. It is however what many screenwriters have a tendency to do… [John Milius said that my script was a “feverish dream under acid”] but it is exactly what the film should have been! It is what arises from the work of Howard. He was a very strange man. He died very young. What Edgar Rice Burroughs had made a success of with Tarzan, Howard renewed with Conan, who is a kind of post-modern Tarzan, less noble but more mischievous. He knew moreover to confer a science-fictional quality on his stories, whereas they are held in the past. In the novels of Howard, there is no more barrier between the past and the future, and it is for that that, in my script, I made the same kind of outward journeys and returns, suggesting thus that all that the spectator saw could occur very well in the future. Conan is the kind of character that I can write. He became myself. I identified myself with Conan, the same way I identified myself with Jon Lansdale in THE HAND or with Billy Hayes in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. Because of the degree of suffering in each one of them. Because of the things they drew from themselves during serious circumstances. In THE HAND, the main character is also an anti-hero, since he ends up becoming a killer. But as a former artist of Marvel Comics, you find him sympathetic. Conan applies well to this idea. All his reactions are perfectly natural. He cannot lie. But he can steal on the other hand. For that, he is terrible! He is this man, large, naked, who wanders in the city. He takes what he wants when he wants it. [He is the man which one would like to be in certain situations.] One would like to be able to botch his enemies, to destroy them. Conan does it. Howard really created a completely coherent mythology. One could easily draw ten films from it. If Dino De Laurentiis had not been so scanty, he could certainly have made a great series of it, but he impoverished the scripts. The first draft I wrote, I always undertook it as one of twelve. I always thought there would be twelve movies! But, unfortunately, I feel the producers of the movie misunderstood the real gold and they sold it short. Arnold [Schwarzenegger] should have come back every year or two years like James Bond, and done one. Conan is the classical story by excellence. I much liked the idea that he had been a slave, had suffered and managed to rise. What is great in the Howard’s novels is that Conan passes from the stage of peasant to that of a king. A young peasant gains his royalty through a series of tests and marry with one of the most beautiful society women. In my script, which concentrates several stories of Howard, Conan saves the life of one princess to whom one stole his kingdom. At the end of the film, after having reconquered her throne thanks to his assistance, she offers her hand in marriage to him so that he becomes king. But Conan refuses this honor. He indeed considers not to have still traversed sufficient way to reach such a load. He tells her: “I can’t be a king this way, as your husband. I can’t inherit the throne. I will earn my throne.” So, he leaves her, like Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood at the end of their westerns, with the sunset in the background. And he goes riding off to the second adventure, which was supposed to be the follow-up sequel. If they’d done it my way, they would have had a Bond-type series, 12-13 pictures, which is what I had wanted to do. It really was a formidable story, very mythical, the one of a young foreigner who makes the Good and who gets to the top of the pyramid. I could not have made CONAN: it was a too big, much debated and very politicized project. At the time, the average budget of a movie in Hollywood was $8 million and I was more confortable with working on lower budgets. I do not like the studios policy. They try to say to you what you must do, they do not pay attention to what you want to make. My problem is that I write ambitious scripts that require big budgets to be filmed. And, for CONAN, I had let myself be carried away. My original draft was a $40 million movie. It dealt with the takeover of the planet and the forces of life being threatened by the forces of darkness. The mutant armies were taking over, and Conan was the lonely pagan - as opposed to Christian - hero; he was Roland at the pass, he was Tarzan, he was a mythic figure. I had put lots of mutants, lots of beasts-men. At the time, I already was interested in the cloning, in DNA, this kind of things… It made sense. I had lots of images in my head, armies of 400 or 500 mutants charging at each other! But I never could carry out this vision in the form of a film. I wrote these scenes [in which all these demonic creatures appear, as well as Thulsa Doom] by attentively looking at the Jerome Bosch paintings. It should be said that at the time I wanted to direct the film and that, if the reins had been given to me, I would have really switched it on a concept mixing mutant and animals, heaven and hell. I was very influenced at this time by a whole imagery resulting from Catholicism. By William Blake’s poetry too. I would have shot the film in a luxuriant forest of Germany and I would have shown creatures eating human flesh. This is what this film should have been. As for Thulsa Doom, he had absolutely nothing to do with the character played by James Earl Jones in the Milius version. [Ridley Scott withdrew from the project at the last minute.] I thought that he had made this decision with enormous detachment. Scott is a man of difficult access. It is almost impossible to know what he thinks. He speaks little. Taking into consideration conversations which we had together, an obviousness was however essential: he perfectly understood the CONAN THE BARBARIAN universe… Perhaps then was he frightened by the script? It is true also that he was offered BLADE RUNNER at the same time, and that had certainly an influence on his decision. Finally, it was the less successful collaborations of all the ones I ever knew. John [Milius] and I are now friends, but it is true that at the time the situation between us was very very tense.“ —Oliver Stone Adapted from : Mediascene Prevue #43 (November/December 1980), Film Comment (January 1987), “Le petit livre de Oliver Stone”, by Gilles Boulenger (1997, Le Cinephage) and CONAN UNCHAINED (2000), by Laurent Bouzereau. Source: conancompletist
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Conan the Barbarian (aka Conan), August 1, 1978 First Draft by Oliver Stone (NOTE: For educational purposes only)

The first draft of the script, by Oliver Stone, was set in the post-apocalyptic future. Producers Edward R. Pressman and Edward Summer had started planning a film based on Robert E. Howard’s character in 1975, although it took them two years to sew up the rights. A name screenwriter was needed, so they brought on Oliver Stone, who was causing buzz with his script for Turkish prison drama “Midnight Express.” Stone was hitting coke and pain-killers pretty hard at the time, and turned in a four-hour script, described by eventual director John Milius as “a total drug fever dream,” which moved the character to a post-apocalptic future to battle against an army of 10,000 mutants. Still, the producers liked what they had, and Stone was considered to direct the project, along with “Jaws” production designer Joe Alves, who would go on to direct “Jaws 3-D” (later in the process, Ridley Scott was offered the gig after the heat from “Alien,” but turned it down). Ultimately, Stone’s vision, budgeted at $40 million, proved too expensive: Pressman sold the project to Dino De Laurentiis, and Milius, who was under contract to the producer, was brought on to rework the script to a more manageable level, as well as direct the film. Stone does retain credit on the finished film: several sequences, including Conan’s crucifixion and the climbing of the Tower of Serpents, come from his draft.

5 Things You Might Not Know About John Milius’ ‘Conan The Barbarian’ by Oliver Lyttelton

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“It took me four months to write CONAN. I had been hired to write the first draft. Paramount and Edward R. Pressman had told me to go ahead without restraining myself. I was expecting they would ask for a more digest, second draft. But I never had the chance to write it: Paramount cancelled the project.

[To write the script,] I read each book, each comic book. Robert E. Howard was a strange bird from Texas. He wrote all these great stories, originally in pulp magazines. He had a great gift for this perverted mythos of darkness and death, raging and mad Wagnerian mentality.

Howard came here and we discussed. I was working in the evening here, and he came to discuss with me. He said to me to deal just with what he was doing then, not to waste my time with what he had made before. It is however what many screenwriters have a tendency to do…

[John Milius said that my script was a “feverish dream under acid”] but it is exactly what the film should have been! It is what arises from the work of Howard. He was a very strange man. He died very young. What Edgar Rice Burroughs had made a success of with Tarzan, Howard renewed with Conan, who is a kind of post-modern Tarzan, less noble but more mischievous. He knew moreover to confer a science-fictional quality on his stories, whereas they are held in the past. In the novels of Howard, there is no more barrier between the past and the future, and it is for that that, in my script, I made the same kind of outward journeys and returns, suggesting thus that all that the spectator saw could occur very well in the future.

Conan is the kind of character that I can write. He became myself. I identified myself with Conan, the same way I identified myself with Jon Lansdale in THE HAND or with Billy Hayes in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. Because of the degree of suffering in each one of them. Because of the things they drew from themselves during serious circumstances.

In THE HAND, the main character is also an anti-hero, since he ends up becoming a killer. But as a former artist of Marvel Comics, you find him sympathetic. Conan applies well to this idea. All his reactions are perfectly natural. He cannot lie. But he can steal on the other hand. For that, he is terrible! He is this man, large, naked, who wanders in the city. He takes what he wants when he wants it. [He is the man which one would like to be in certain situations.] One would like to be able to botch his enemies, to destroy them. Conan does it.

Howard really created a completely coherent mythology. One could easily draw ten films from it. If Dino De Laurentiis had not been so scanty, he could certainly have made a great series of it, but he impoverished the scripts.

The first draft I wrote, I always undertook it as one of twelve. I always thought there would be twelve movies! But, unfortunately, I feel the producers of the movie misunderstood the real gold and they sold it short. Arnold [Schwarzenegger] should have come back every year or two years like James Bond, and done one.

Conan is the classical story by excellence. I much liked the idea that he had been a slave, had suffered and managed to rise. What is great in the Howard’s novels is that Conan passes from the stage of peasant to that of a king. A young peasant gains his royalty through a series of tests and marry with one of the most beautiful society women. In my script, which concentrates several stories of Howard, Conan saves the life of one princess to whom one stole his kingdom. At the end of the film, after having reconquered her throne thanks to his assistance, she offers her hand in marriage to him so that he becomes king. But Conan refuses this honor. He indeed considers not to have still traversed sufficient way to reach such a load. He tells her: “I can’t be a king this way, as your husband. I can’t inherit the throne. I will earn my throne.” So, he leaves her, like Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood at the end of their westerns, with the sunset in the background. And he goes riding off to the second adventure, which was supposed to be the follow-up sequel. If they’d done it my way, they would have had a Bond-type series, 12-13 pictures, which is what I had wanted to do. It really was a formidable story, very mythical, the one of a young foreigner who makes the Good and who gets to the top of the pyramid.

I could not have made CONAN: it was a too big, much debated and very politicized project. At the time, the average budget of a movie in Hollywood was $8 million and I was more confortable with working on lower budgets.

I do not like the studios policy. They try to say to you what you must do, they do not pay attention to what you want to make. My problem is that I write ambitious scripts that require big budgets to be filmed. And, for CONAN, I had let myself be carried away.

My original draft was a $40 million movie. It dealt with the takeover of the planet and the forces of life being threatened by the forces of darkness. The mutant armies were taking over, and Conan was the lonely pagan - as opposed to Christian - hero; he was Roland at the pass, he was Tarzan, he was a mythic figure.

I had put lots of mutants, lots of beasts-men. At the time, I already was interested in the cloning, in DNA, this kind of things… It made sense. I had lots of images in my head, armies of 400 or 500 mutants charging at each other! But I never could carry out this vision in the form of a film. I wrote these scenes [in which all these demonic creatures appear, as well as Thulsa Doom] by attentively looking at the Jerome Bosch paintings. It should be said that at the time I wanted to direct the film and that, if the reins had been given to me, I would have really switched it on a concept mixing mutant and animals, heaven and hell. I was very influenced at this time by a whole imagery resulting from Catholicism. By William Blake’s poetry too. I would have shot the film in a luxuriant forest of Germany and I would have shown creatures eating human flesh. This is what this film should have been. As for Thulsa Doom, he had absolutely nothing to do with the character played by James Earl Jones in the Milius version.

[Ridley Scott withdrew from the project at the last minute.] I thought that he had made this decision with enormous detachment. Scott is a man of difficult access. It is almost impossible to know what he thinks. He speaks little. Taking into consideration conversations which we had together, an obviousness was however essential: he perfectly understood the CONAN THE BARBARIAN universe… Perhaps then was he frightened by the script? It is true also that he was offered BLADE RUNNER at the same time, and that had certainly an influence on his decision.

Finally, it was the less successful collaborations of all the ones I ever knew. John [Milius] and I are now friends, but it is true that at the time the situation between us was very very tense.“ —Oliver Stone

Adapted from : Mediascene Prevue #43 (November/December 1980), Film Comment (January 1987), “Le petit livre de Oliver Stone”, by Gilles Boulenger (1997, Le Cinephage) and CONAN UNCHAINED (2000), by Laurent Bouzereau.

Source: conancompletist

A Very Humble Thank You, Don Winslow

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Keith Rawson interviews novelist Don Winslow at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ about his latest novel, The Kings of Cool, and Oliver Stone’s film adaptation of Savages.

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“Not to be preachy about it, but discipline is everything for a working writer, at least for this one. I can’t just wander around fields of flowers or sit brooding in coffee houses waiting for the muse to land on my shoulder and whisper in my ear. That would nice, but it ain’t gonna happen. I treat writing like a factory job – the whistle blows and I’m at work. This thing always comes down to someone sitting down with some kind of writing instrument and getting it done.” —Don Winslow

OLIVER STONE talks about writing SCARFACE.

Ridley Scott and Alan Parker turned down to direct “Conan The Barbarian”, co-written by Oliver Stone. First written draft by Stone was meant to be the first of a series of 12 Conan movies.

Oliver Stone’s Vietnam Photos

In 1976 I optioned “Platoon” to a producer, but it was not made. The production manager asked me to entrust him with many of my prints and negatives from Vietnam. He thoughtlessly sent it all in a package from New York to Los Angeles, but it never arrived. I’m sure they’re somewhere in this world—anyone know (reward offered)? So recently when we were setting up our website, I went hunting thru storage for various materials that are now on the site—or will be. In the back of a home closet was an old shoebox marked ‘classic snaps, 1950s.’ There were many family pictures, but at the very bottom were 7 envelopes of worn-looking negatives in 35mm and the vanished 126 format. They looked vaguely like Vietnam. It is an amazing moment when something lost reappears after more than 40 years.

I developed 100+ of these pictures at a shop in Los Angeles that could actually handle the 126 format. Not everything came out by any means, but there were certainly some colorful, well-preserved images of the war—of which I enclose a few shots for those who might be interested, or who’ve seen “Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” or “Heaven & Earth.”

I enclose some descriptions:

With some of the ‘brothers.’ These guys were fun to be with back in base camp in the rear, and made some of the dreariest hours pass with laughter, grass, and music—mostly a lot of soul from The Temptations, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Spyder Turner, the Chamber Brothers, etc. These were taken in the last part of my tour in late ’68 with the 1st Cavalry in the Quảng Trị area—as well as some shots from the central province where our divisional headquarters was located at An Khe. You’ll see some of ‘Sin City’ and some of the girls who worked in the bars—just surviving this war. And that beautiful police dog who was killed, as so many were. —Oliver Stone

In this 2009 video clip from Bill Moyers Journal, filmmaker Oliver Stone describes his personal experiences as a soldier in Vietnam and explains how they inform many of his films, particularly Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, which deal explicitly with war. The mass killing and suffering of civilians in Vietnam reminds him of today’s war in Afghanistan, Stone says, and he recalls the desensitization to killing with which he had to come to grips when he returned home.

Platoon original screenplay by Oliver Stone [pdf]. (NOTE: For educational purposes only)

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Source: oliverstone.com

Platoon (Screenplay)