The Oliver Stone movie he believes will live forever: “Even if I ceased to exist”
Timelessness is something that can’t be manufactured, with history the one and only barometer that decides which movies will be remembered forever. Oliver Stone disagrees, though, planting a flag and declaring that one of his features is eternal.
Sure, it’s self-aggrandising to a certain extent, but the filmmaker has been involved in his fair share of pictures that have endured for generations. Whether they’ll continue to hold that position a century from now remains entirely up for debate, but several of them are closing in on the halfway point.
Based entirely on its iconography and the revenue streams it continues to generate, Brian De Palma’s Stone-scripted crime saga Scarface has it sewn up. Tony Montana is one of modern cinema’s most instantly recognisable figures, and those t-shirts and posters continue to sell in huge numbers more than 40 years removed.
Platoon is one of Hollywood’s greatest-ever war stories and arguably the definitive big screen assessment of the Vietnam War from a human level, while spiritual companion piece Born on the Fourth of July is powered by an underlying message that’s never going to be anything less than timely and prescient, regardless of which conflicts are currently raging around the globe.
He wasn’t talking about any of those aforementioned movies, though, even if it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which one of Stone’s features he’s adamant will outlive him and continue to be a talking point for generations to come. Surprise, surprise, it’s the one about his all-time favourite subject; the assassination of John F Kennedy and its associated conspiracy theories.
“This movie, I don’t think it’s going to be forgotten,” he told iNews. “Even if I ceased to exist tomorrow. I think it’s out there. And people will always refer to it. I don’t think it’s dead.” Stone’s interest in what happened to JFK has long since tipped over into full-blown obsession, so realistically, it was always going to be the one he picked from the 54 movies and documentaries he’s been involved with as either a writer, director, or producer.
It’s definitely his most successful, with JFK the highest-grossing release of Stone’s career and the only one of his films to break the $200 million barrier at the box office, while it earned eight nominations at the Academy Awards including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, and took home two prizes for ‘Best Cinematography’ and ‘Best Editing’.
JFK additionally drew much ire from scholars and historians for the way Stone peddled his unproven theories as factually accurate events, almost single-handedly obfuscating pop culture’s recollection of how the assassination went down in the minds of the people who weren’t around at the time. More than 30 years in, and folks still talk about it, but will it be timeless? Who knows; nobody’s going to live long enough to find out.
