|
 rom
the moral-idiocy department, we bring you Oliver Stone's comments
at an HBO-sponsored panel discussion on "Making Movies That
Matter," as reported in The New Yorker's "Talk
of the Town."
"There's
been conglomeration under six principal princes," Stone ranted,
when asked to address the state of the film industry. "They're
kings, they're barons! — and these six companies have control
of the world ... Michael Eisner decides, 'I can't make a movie about
Martin Luther King, Jr. — they'll be rioting at the gates of
Disneyland!' That's bullsh**t! But that's what the new world order
is ... They control culture, they control ideas. And I think the
revolt of September 11th was about 'F*** you! F*** your order —'"
At this point,
according to The New Yorker, fellow panelist Christopher
Hitchens interrupted to ask how Stone could use the term "revolt"
to describe acts that boiled down to "mass murder, using civilians
as missiles." But the great director was undeterred. "The
studios bought television stations," he forged on. "Why?
Why did the telecommunications bill get passed at midnight, a hidden
bill at midnight? The Arabs have a point! They're going to be joined
by the people who objected in Seattle, and the usual ten percent
who are against everything, and it's going to be, like, 25 percent
of this country that's against the new world order. We need a trustbuster
like Teddy Roosevelt to take the television stations away from the
film companies and give them back to the people!"
And then, perhaps
to ensure that no one would be able to top him in the paranoia department,
Stone asked rhetorically, "Does anybody make a connection between
the 2000 election and the events of September 11th?" Perhaps
no one did, because he added this cryptic bit of advice: "Look
for the thirteenth month!" And the gunman on the grassy knoll,
presumably.
Later, outside
the gathering, he offered a few more quotable remarks. "The
new world order," Stone declared, "is about order and
control.... This attack was pure chaos, and chaos is energy. All
great changes have come from people or events that were initially
misunderstood, and seemed frightening, like madmen. Einstein, Nikola
Tesla, Gates. I think, I think . . . I think many things."
Thinking is,
of course, Oliver Stone's right, if not his strong suit. But when
the "many things" he thinks include the possibility of
moral equivalence between Albert Einstein and Osama bin Laden, perhaps
he should consider keeping some of those thoughts to himself. Perhaps.
Or as Christopher
Hitchens memorably put it, after enduring an afternoon with Stone:
"The man has completely lost it."
|
