Before Oliver Stone’s new film “W.” opened, I had an opportunity to spend “An evening with Oliver Stone” at the New Yorker Festival discussing his new movie.  It was moderated by New Yorker film critic David Denby ala James Lipton-style.  A few questions were taken from the audience after 3 clips of the new film were shown.  A clip from his film Nixon was shown first.

Here were some highlights that struck me as interesting…
1. Stone said that this film was “too risky for any American companies” and that “over 55% of the financing came from Chinese investors who “wanted this film out before the election.”

2. Stone acknowledged in his remarks that there was no basis for many of the scenes or notes of any kind… so this is just the way he imagined it went down.

3. Stone compared George W. Bush to John Wayne; called him a “cowboy” and said “maybe his wife knows who he is, but we don’t…” (an apparent no-so-veiled slight, although personally, I kind of liked John Wayne!)

4. Stone made the case (and the reason we saw a Nixon clip first) that while Nixon knew what he was doing in Vietnam was for political reasons, but still went forward with a heavy conscience, President Bush on the other hand, is in denial about everything and feels no guilt about his actions.

So from what I saw in the three scenes (particularly the last one which is a depiction of the decision being made to go to war with Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, etc,) Stone seems to lampoon President Bush so far beyond an even plausible level of belief that not only is this likely to bomb in the theaters, but he may also be at risk of no longer being a legitimate filmmaker.  He does little more than prove that he is among the most severely affected Americans suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome.

So I went up to him after the program and simply asked him if he really “hates Bush?” (he said in an interview with the Times of London that he ‘had to step above his hate’ to make the film) and Stone refuses to answer my “pointed” question.

Take a look…

done