Joe Rogan Experience #1511 — Oliver Stone Transcript

Transcript

0:00 All right, here we go. I mean, that's one of my favorite things that you've ever done It was 1968, November. It was awful. ultimately, I was supposed to get out of there when DEROS leave the country. I was due out. I had volunteered How much did your time serving impact your directing? And that was very important when we did Platoon. But I think overall it's way overdone.

3:04 Yeah. Was that the name of the film Lone Survivor yeah and they manage about Marcus Luttrell's with everything And they got their shit kicked out of them. And that's one of the things that I really loved about Platoon. Well, I called him Sergeant Barnes, but I wouldn't use his real name. I was dealing in the jungle. I combined them into one unit, one platoon for this movie purposes.

5:16 He'd been in before. Right. So it's quite a mess. It's chaotic. The radio, people screaming, shouting, noise, confusion, where artillery 20 miles away, 40 miles away has to hit the spot. Well, I got a great combat advisor. It wasn't made. and Deer Hunter. Yeah. I go on in the book and talk about the lies that were spread by the military, the propaganda that we're winning the whole time.

9:19 They were like ants. But America went to extremes to win that war Shell shocked? It fell apart again, and it's a heartbreaking story. It almost came to be again in 1983. It fell apart again, they don't want to know about Vietnam I had Scarface. I had other things in mind. But Michael Cimino, who had directed The Deer Hunter, But the fact that he made it certainly gave us some impetus to make.

12:52 we got used to the difficulties of making low budget films in between the time you wrote it You remember him? Now, sometimes they tell you that without checking, but in this case, I don't know. upset as hell about the fragging. 68. That was a big moment. the morale is so low that it's beginning to resemble the French mutinies in 1917 in the World War I.

15:22 It's interesting when you look back. It was like a bomb went off. We were draftees, many of us. So there was a lot going on in the country. Well, we got the details right. I mean, when you see a dead body and you see it being lifted into a helicopter, that really looks like a dead man. We send the little guys into the jungle. Imagine when you finish your final cut of that movie,

19:21 I didn't expect anything. where I went down there to research Salvador. And it was a huge scandal that led to the Iran-Contra unraveling with Reagan. as in Platoon, your experiences showing what the Vietnam War was really like. Put it this way. You split your duty with foxholes, three guys. No, no. People from the South. But at least it was a start.

23:54 There was a SAG, the SAG unions, and you have to have 12-hour turnarounds. and after the movie went peeled back to 86 uh emilio gotten older, and I went with Charlie, who came of age about that time, was my age when I was over there. Did that validate this idea that you had? This is news for me because all my life I'm fighting to make a movie against somebody's wishes.

25:55 And in the editing, right away, you could feel that people were reacting to it in a different way. First day in New York, there was a line of veterans, young veterans who looked young. and some of them wouldn't get up out of their seats. Quite a few of them were sitting there still in their seats, you know. So you don't figure on these things, you know.

27:52 Well, it's one of the highlights of my life. nothing's going on you say it was for him a traumatic divorce between the mother his mother and father Didn't work out. I'm too full of myself. I wanted to see what this country was about. I mean, he was a strong Republican. all his life I grew up in that ethic. I think it's a futile thing because the whole idea of the Cold War, he began to question

31:42 And I was too. We didn't know what the fuck they were about. I was, I wanted to get out of New York. But I don't identify with those people because maybe they didn't have that sense of service at all. Scarface there's there's a message in these films that's based on real live scenarios that took place that a lot of people are unaware of. I can slap it on that chair right there.

34:37 There's something to them that resonates with people. It's not of interest to a publisher. So therefore, I'm going to go into this army, Yes. 30 or more helicopter missions. I'd seen quite a fair share of combat, which I describe in the book. I gave him LSD one time. do that? Were you slipping it in his coffee? So, yeah, he was a tough guy. But over the years, he knew I kind of, after a while, he figured it out, I guess.

37:20 Oh, wow. What are we going to do with all these men? By 1950, 51, we were back in Korea where we were building up again. and he believed firmly that Russia was really invading our country, threatening it. And the restaurant owner would kick me out because he thought it was disrespectful. Yeah. What was it like coming back and seeing the protest, though,

40:39 I mean, I think there was discomfort. It was the 60s, man. Why did you waste your time? like you have something you have to tell people. because you took some liberties there to try to move the plot along. weirder ones yeah sure that is one of the weirdest arguments and when when I And also, I think you know it was a hell of a shot. people and finding its way on the connelly's gurney magically with very little distortion in the bullet at all is straight up horseshit.

44:10 It's almost finished. but they found a lot of little detail that we put into this documentary, Everybody saw a huge gaping wound in the rear right of Mr. Kennedy's head. I could see your enthusiasm on this. I mean, it can be done. But hard shots can be made. And depending upon how much training he did between his time in the service Well, if that guy was training that entire time, well, he couldn't have done it. He's a terrible shot. Look, three years ago, he was a terrible shot. Well, if that guy was training that entire time,

46:39 I can't wait. Somebody gave it to me, a friend of mine, a musician friend of mine, when I was on the road. doing around the world in Asia, in Cuba, obviously, South America, what his plans were. People don't Well, there was also the northwoods document take a jetliner, fly it it and blow it up in the sky Wow. record of an assassination of a president.

50:03 Dulles was fired by Kennedy. uh, There's a couple things that are a joke. Way too serious. It was really a nonprofit kind of enterprise, but I really had to do it. Yes. Yeah. You were asking me about why I get attracted to these kinds of subjects. And it was a surprise. And I kind of put that into this conflict But they had a different kind of music than the okie music.

54:02 Not necessarily they were cooperating, but sometimes they were forced to. that was not my thing and I just It's in the book, too. That's it? I'm in trouble. He said, why haven't you called me? Where have you been? We knew you got out two And I saw that side of America coming out. That's a big part of what they were trying to do. Yeah. Yeah, they never got him yet on a fascinating character he was. Yeah.

56:38 Yeah. whole cold war scare and the red scare it's like communism being a motivating factor for any group and I got it through the system, He wrote two books. in the book. But as a patriot, he firmly believed that Well, he was the basis of that. Not enough of it, but there's more now. So Garrison's not there. He comes into the movie at the halfway point and he gives Garrison

1:00:39 bigger story, which sends He was the focal officer between the CIA and the Pentagon. He was a keen observer of the differences that were going on. He had Garrison, too. than you can imagine with combat troops. It's about the CIA and Manson in the 60s. What's his name? cell no it comes off my arm don't worry about it i'm listening uh but he was a central character in uh the cia's use of lsd during the whole operation midnight climax in san francisco and

1:03:56 He was quite a he was mobbed up completely didn't want to do it. He was forced into doing it Right. But what he said in the corridor outside, it's very interesting. And everybody's like, what? in the 60s. You mentioned doctors and the MLK. Cancer, too. There was a huge, huge experiment. They're building up through these mice a cancer that was so powerful that it could kill.

1:06:39 When is this coming out? And he would tell me stories. That was 1930 Chicago. Well, my friend saw it because he was in the ER. It was the Colombian element. That's right. So I located through a defense lawyer some guys in Bimini. She was my cover. But in the past, he'd been a prosecutor because prosecutors often flip to defense attorneys to make more money.

1:09:59 Because they hated that prosecutor They owned the island. remember? I wrote it. he's a free man that's where people liked it. didn't do as well as they'd hoped because it money for the movie. Well it's become this iconic So I could do some research. The system, the bureaucracy that pressed down on – by the way, I mean, let's be honest. I noticed this in Vietnam.

1:14:12 There was a lot of shit going on, crime stuff. sees it's all bullshit. And he calls it out. And I think a lot of people just picked up on it. see the footage where Geraldo was in Afghanistan to give us information about the taliban Yeah. The poppy fields being guarded by U.S. troops. They got us going on that. Hekmatyar, who was There was a whole, Yeah.

1:17:37 All that shit that happened with Barry Seals. They got a piece of it. The Contras were one of the most brutal, brutal groups, terrorist groups in Nicaragua. Well, yeah, I've done a lot of films about subjects around it. And I made that film with just five years it took. But I think people could watch it two times and learn each chapter is revealing stuff

1:19:59 that we're somehow motivated in a different way than other countries. When you're making a series like that, It stands up there with JFK for me and Platoon. each film, each film for me is important. You have to look at who you are. And those two, I think I'm double-minded, I say in the book, and I think It's called marketing. That's for sure. Snowden.

1:23:48 It's a crazy story for our times that that that this man is persecuted, this guy who I think is a hero. He's exposed things that are unconstitutional, things that no one signed off on. He exposed that there's this widespread Pardon Snowden. They had to delete that. You know, I mean, it seems to be every president since Jack Kennedy. When you see a story like the Jeffrey Epstein story.

1:26:06 another blackmail them or or they film they film them apparently according to glaine maxwell there's For Epstein? Look at the position in which he was choked like which which part of the neck Well, I'm staying away from that, frankly. it doesn't, you know, I mean, it's, I don't know what it's about. I mean, if, if it's really what And that scares me.

1:29:17 Kennedy. In other words, the office is not as important as you make it out to be. He said, I leave my successor a legacy of ashes. But anyway, Eisenhower knew – I think he felt bad about what he'd seen happen over those eight years. He saw the lies, he was lied to a lot. I mean, when he appointed Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State, you knew it was over.

1:31:38 great stories of our time is how He saved people. We went even further and we showed how the control of information, getting rid of the Dilma, bringing in this, Libya. We're dealing with things that are happening right now. I went to Moscow several times and met with him. Have you? Really? And actually, I was there the day the Israelis, the day before the Israelis came in and knocked out the lights and everything.

1:35:27 They were young guys, and they had their masks, and I went at midnight. I don't know what they're thinking. No, I'm not sure they knew what we were doing. They saw people But that decision, was that a tough decision to make, to let them issues in the world do those two get in the way of each other sometimes? Of course. Yeah? Of course, yeah. There was people that think sometimes my outspokenness overshadows my work.

1:37:43 ultimately from France and Germany Yeah. a lot of people were saying you should really stay Yeah. I mean, he has a story and it's a of the most important historical moments of our time that we recognize that this overwhelming surveillance state has existed without us even knowing it. Yeah, sure. They don't know. And not one enemy bullet was fired, not one.

1:40:33 And as a result, the operation, they were told that there was NVA in that village. But that's not an excuse. Martin Luther King's a great story, but it's too tough a story to tell. No, I think a black filmmaker could revisit it, I think it's very good. Boy, does the world need a Martin Luther King Jr. right now. I really hope you make another I I'm good.