Some highlights form today’s must read article on Oliver Stone’s new Showtime project from the Hollywood Reporter’s Live Feed:
Director Oliver Stone’s upcoming Showtime documentary miniseries “Secret History of America” promises to put mass murderers such as Stalin and Hitler “in context.”
“Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena.
“Stalin has a complete other story,” Stone said. “Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’ Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He’s the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect … People in America don’t know the connection between WWI and WWII … I’ve been able to walk in Stalin’s shoes and Hitler’s shoes to understand their point of view. We’re going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated.”
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“You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person you may hate,” Stone said during the show’s trailer, which promised to put historical villains “in context.”
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Stone also warned that the same military industrial complex forces that he’s explored in movies such as “JFK” and in “Secret History,” are now corrupting Barack Obama.
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“My father was a voracious New York Times reader,” he said. “We consider that in The Middle. Sarah Palin would disagree.”
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Much more here.
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