NEW school Hollywood directors tend to fill interviews with talk of how fabulous it was to work with such a wonderful cast, or how they'd like to do a sequel but, hey, it's up to the audience. An encounter with Oliver Stone, a director so old school he makes Eton look like a breeze block comprehensive, delivers no such blandness. With Stone, the talk is of Bolivarian socialism, Friedmanesque economics, and Greek mythology. Oh, and red underwear. Details to follow.
The triple Oscar winner and director of Wall Street (sequel out in October), JFK, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Salvador and many another landmark in post-war American cinema, is in London to talk about his latest documentary, South of the Border.
Described by Tariq Ali, one of its writers, as a "political road movie", it finds Stone pandora glass beads interviewing seven leaders from central and south America, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez chief among them. All are part of the leftwards, power to the people movement that has emerged in the region over the last decade.
To the pro-camp, they offer a much needed redressing of the balance between America and its backyard. To the antis, including the previous Bush administration, this is a dangerous tide of radicalism that offers more in the way of threats than advantages. Chavez, who has fostered close relations with Iran, has been a particular target of criticism.
Stone describes the relationship between north America and its southern neighbours as condescending, dominating and imperial. "In the old days we'd tell them what to do, what government to have, and if it wasn't friendly to business out they went. It's an endless story of exploitation and control."
South of the Border begins with examples of how the new radicals are regarded on the rightward reaches of US television news. Stone, whose long interest in the region was shown in Salvador and his two documentaries on Castro, wanted to put some weight on the other side of the see-saw.
The critical response to the documentary in the US has been less than warm. If Stone still had his old helmet from his time as a US Army infantryman in Vietnam he'd have been well advised to don it just to read the reviews. The Los Angeles Times called it "a vanity project". The New York Times outlined the film's "mistakes, misstatements and missing details", such as getting Chavez's main opponent in the 1998 election wrong.
Stone is a first cousin to controversy. He even got it in the neck from some on the left for making Bush too likeable in W. He's prepared for more of the same when the South of the Border opens in the UK next week.
"Criticism is the nature of this game. You make a movie and you're going to be criticised for things silly and otherwise. I don't think it is an egotistical film. On the contrary my presence is very muted. I'm trying to get them to speak, I'm not trying to impose myself at all."
He had been more dismissive at the general press conference, calling the reaction "all this nit picking". But then he had been holding court in general, expounding on everything from liberation theology to the chances of making a film about Iran's president Ahmadinejad. "That's a hot potato for me." He approached them three years ago, they said no, then yes, now he doesn't think he has the time.
Best Panerai Watches Online His last big promo visit to the UK was for W, and he seemed in a defensive mood. Not today. "I like your red brassiere, it's really cool," he says to one journalist in the front row. A
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