I've not much time for Oliver Stone at all. His movies have a record of being inaccurate while purporting to be factual and that doesn't sit well at all.
i don't really know much of oliver stones stuff, only comandante ( which i thought was good ) and the people vs larry flynt, but i'm looking forward to watching this
Oliver Stone's Hugo Chavez Film Makes Venice Premiere
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a movie star welcome Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where he walked the red carpet with director Oliver Stone for the premiere of the documentary "South of the Border."
Hundreds of admirers, some chanting "president, president," gathered outside of the Casino for the leader's arrival. A few held up Venezuelan flags and a banner in Spanish that read "Welcome, president."
Chavez threw a flower into the crowd and touched his heart, and at one point took a photographer's camera to snap a picture himself. Security outside the Casino was tightened in advance of his arrival with military police checking bags.
Chavez praised Stone's work for depicting what he said were improvements made across Latin America.
"Rebirth is happening in Latin America, and Stone went to look for it and he found it," Chavez told reporters. "With his cameras and his genius, he's captured a good part of that rebirth."
Stone says "South of the Border" is meant to illustrate "the sweeping changes" in South America in recent years as a direct counterpoint to what some say is Chavez's depiction as a dictator by U.S. and European media.
Stone spent extensive time with Chavez for the 75-minute documentary, which is premiering at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, and also interviewed the leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and Paraguay, whom Stone said "are on the same page" as Chavez.
"He's a guy you should meet and get to know. ... He's the star of the movie," Stone said in an interview before the premiere.
Stone said he wanted to illustrate changes that put leaders in many South American countries in power who represent the majority of their populations, a movement started with Chavez. He cited Bolivian President Evo Morales, the first Indian to be elected president, and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a well-known trade unionist.
"If you look now, there are seven presidents, eight countries with Chile, that are really moving away from the Washington consensus control," Stone said. "But in America, they don't get that story."
Stone was invited to Venezuela to meet Chavez for the first time during the Venezuelan leader's aborted rescue mission of Colombian hostages held by FARC rebels. The mission was aborted, but Stone said the Chavez he met was different than some U.S. media depictions.
He returned in January to interview Chavez, and continued on to four other countries to interview Chavez's allies, with Cuban and Ecuadorean leaders joining him in Paraguay.
Stone is best known for his dramas, but he also has made four documentaries, including "Comandante," the 2003 documentary based on a meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which the director says in many ways led him to Chavez.
"I used the real man," Stone said. "I hope you realize how dynamic he is in the movie. What I like about the film is you see how sincere he is on camera. You don't see a guy who is a phony. He's not a dictator."
Stone had said he spent "several hours here and there" with Chavez. The movie shows him at Chavez's enormous desk and visiting the president's childhood home, where he rides into the frame on a child's bicycle, which breaks under his weight. He immediately offers to pay for it. Footage also shows Chavez driving his own vehicle and stopping to greet supporters.
Stone said he didn't see it necessary to present the opposition's case in his film.
"A dark side? There's a dark side to everything. Why do you seek out the dark side when the guy is doing good things?" Stone asked. "He is a democrat and there is opposition to him, and he's not perfect. But he is doing tremendous things for Venezuela and the region."
Chavez's critics accuse him of growing increasingly authoritarian while sidelining key opponents and trying to clamp down on the private media.
Opponents also say Chavez's international crusade against U.S. influence is misguided, and accuse him of ignoring problems at home ranging from rampant crime to corruption.
Stone concedes that Chavez "says things unnecessary to provoke. I think he doesn't have to do that." But he said his opinion of Chavez only improved during the making of the documentary.
"People forget that he cut the poverty rate by one half," Stone said. "People in Venezuela are getting an education, they are getting health care and welfare. He actually delivered on what he said he would."
The movie's screenwriter is Tariq Ali, the British-Pakistani historian who most recently wrote "Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope" and it was produced by Fernando Sulichin. Stone also was advised by economist Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
"South of the Border" is showing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, which ends Saturday with the awarding of the Golden Lion.
Kirchner: Bush angrily said War would Grow US Economy
Néstor Kirchner, former president of Argentina, revealed in an interview with Oliver Stone for the director’s documentary “South of the Border” that former US president George W. Bush was convinced that war was the way to grow the US economy. Here is the video:
And here is the transcript of Kirchner’s account of the conversation at a summit in Monterrey, Mexico, in January, 2004:
‘ Kirchner: I said that a solution to the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. And he grew angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war. And that the United States has grown stronger with war.
Stone: War, he said that?
Kirchner: He said that. Those were his exact words.
Stone: Is he suggesting that South America go to war?
Kirchner: Well, he was talking about the United States: ‘The Democrats had been wrong. All of the economic growth of the United States has been encouraged by wars.’ He said it very clearly. ‘
You wonder who else among the Republican elite fell for Bush’s typical piece of stupidity re: war= growth. It all depends on lots of other factors. If you borrow the money to fight the war and pay interest on it and you get no booty to speak of, then the war could ruin you, as happened to many European regimes in the early modern and modern period.
But even more outrageous is the Aztec-like willigness to rip the beating heart out of a sacrificial victim for the sake of an chimerical prosperity! Here is what was happening in Iraq around the time that Bush was boasting to Kirchner, according to Informed Comment:
‘ Posted on January 18, 2004 by Juan
23 Killed (2 Americans), 130 Injured (including 6 Americans) in Baghdad Car Bombing
AFP has raised the casualty count to as many as 23-25 killed and 130 wounded in the Baghdad car bombing of the US headquarters there.
‘ “The huge explosion turned the busy central Baghdad street outside into a battlefield inferno but the headquarters buildings inside the heavily-fortified area known as the Green Zone were unaffected. The blast came the day before Iraqi and US officials, including US civilian administrator Paul Bremer, are to meet with a wary UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York to discuss a future UN role in Iraq. “At least 20 people have lost their lives and almost 60 were injured,” US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters. “It would appear from all the indicators this was a suicide bomb. We have confirmation some of those killed were US citizens, US contractors. We believe the current number is two. We are waiting for final confirmation,” Kimmitt said. Another five people were reported dead and 71 wounded at Baghdad hospitals. Witnesses claimed US soldiers opened fire in panic on Iraqis moments after the blast, but a military spokesman denied this.“ ‘
Earlier AP had reported,
‘ Officials said more than 60 people, including six Americans, were injured in the blast on a mist-shrouded morning near the north entrance — known as the “Assassin’s Gate” — to Saddam’s former Republican Palace complex, now used by the U.S.-led occupation authority for headquarters. ‘
I’d say there is increasing evidence that the US is not in control in Iraq, and that the place may well be headed toward being a failed state for the near term. When, 9 or 10 months after an army conquers a place, its HQ is not safe from attack, this is always a bad sign. For those who keep making Germany and Japan analogies, I ask you if MacArthur’s HQ was getting blown up in Tokyo in April of 1946.’
Academy Award-Winning Filmmaker Oliver Stone Tackles Latin America’s Political Upheaval in "South of the Border", US Financial Crisis in Sequel to Iconic "Wall Street"
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone has taken on three American presidents in JFK, Nixon and W. and the most controversial aspects of the war in Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. He looked at the greed of the financial industry in the Hollywood hit Wall Street and its forthcoming sequel. In South of the Border, his latest documentary out this week in the United States, Stone takes a road trip across South America, meeting with seven presidents about the revolution sweeping the continent. The leftist transformation in the region might be ignored or misrepresented as nothing but "anti-Americanism" in the corporate media, but this film seeks to tell a different story. Stone joins us along with the film’s co-writer, the Pakistani British author and activist Tariq Ali.
There's a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn't know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raul Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region. Written by Cinema Libre Studio
Am I alone in thinking Hugo was off his game in the Russia Today interview? The questions were softball-ish, but his responses seemed to ramble. Perhaps he was suffering from jetlag...
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