How does one keep artistic appreciation separate from political consonance?
This is the question I find myself asking after reading the LA Times' take on Oliver Stone's forthcoming "South of the Border", which apparently features the director "warmly embracing Hugo Chávez, nibbling coca leaves with Evo Morales and gently teasing Cristina Elizabeth Fernández de Kirchner about how many pairs of shoes she owns."
I've actually always been a fan of Oliver Stone movies. The opening scene of Any Given Sunday, the debate between James Woods' character and the American diplomatic attaché in Salvador and of course the masterpiece that is Gordon Gekko have earned Stone a spot in the pantheon, to my opinion. And yet, one of the things that simultaneously makes it so easy to separate appreciating his art from taking him seriously as a person are statements such as the following on meeting the Venezuelan president, also from the LA Times piece:
"I think he's an extremely dynamic and charismatic figure. He's open and warmhearted and big, and a fascinating character. But when I go back to the States I keep hearing these horror stories about 'dictator,' 'bad guy,' 'menace to American society.' I think the project started as something about the American media demonizing Latin leaders. It became more than that as we got more involved."
The counterpoint to this is so obvious it hardly needs spelling out but I will do so anyway: Mr. Stone, he's only open and warmhearted because you agree with his political views.
"We had not set out in the spirit of, like, making this a contentious debate," says Stone, who first met the Venezuelan president in 2007. "When you try to get into every single rightist argument against Chávez, you're never going to win. You're going to bore the audience."
And then there's also this gem:
"I'm rooting for this Bolivarian movement," he says. "I'm rooting for their independence because I think that America has a new role to play in this world, and that's not of an oppressor, but that of a cooperative and, let's call it equal, partner."
Thank God he's only a film director.
In any event, as you may or may not recall, Stone's last foray into Latin-oriented documentaries was in 2003 with Comandante, by many accounts a sycophantic profile of Fidel Castro, premiered at Sundance, followed by Berlin, acquired by HBO, scheduled to be shown on the air...until Castro jailed 75 political dissidents for 28 year sentences and then executed three men who had hijacked a passenger ferry with 50 people aboard and tried to sail to the United States. The entire premise of Stone's follow-up, Looking for Fidel, was to include interviews with the political opposition. I've often wondered how the die-hard left can justify such a blatant repudiation of the nobility of the cause - what did Stone think about being asked to go back and interview the dissidents? Unfortunately, these are two Stone movies I have not seen.
Some old reuters links to the Castro crackdowns during Comandante's release are still up here and here as well as a still-live New York Times link to an oped discussing the incident at the time of the crackdown.
An open question remains: Will Hugo respond in kind with some sweeping motion to accompany the premiere of South of the Border?
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