Oliver Stone

An intimate memoir by the controversial and outspoken Oscar-winning director and screenwriter about his complicated New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface. Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the high and low moments: We see meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino; the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express. Chasing the Light is a true insider's look at Hollywood's years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s.

Ranging from 1981 to 1997, the 15 conversations featured in this collection reveal a man frustrated by what he sees as the hypocrisies of American politics, of conservatism, and of the Hollywood film industry. Though the subjects of "Nixon, JFK, Born on the 4th of July, The Doors", and "Heaven and Earth" are rooted in the turbulent 1960s, Stone as interviewee and filmmaker is firmly entrenched in the present. Film stills.

Stone himself serves as guide to this no-holds-barred retrospective—an extremely candid and comprehensive monograph of the renowned and controversial writer, director, and cinematic historian in interview form. Over the course of five years, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (Midnight Express, Scarface, Platoon, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Snowden) and New York Times bestselling author Matt Zoller Seitz (The Wes Anderson Collection) discussed, debated, and deconstructed the arc of Stone's outspoken, controversial life and career with extraordinary candor. This book collects those conversations for the first time, including anecdotes about Stone's childhood, Vietnam, his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, and his continual struggle to reinvent himself as an artist. Their dialogue is illustrated by hundreds of never-before-seen photographs and documents from Stone's personal archive, dating back to Stone's birth: personal snapshots, private correspondence, annotated script pages and storyboards, behind-the-scenes photography, and production files from all of his films to date—through 2016's Snowden, and including Stone's epic Showtime mini-series Untold HIstory of the United States. Critical commentary from Seitz on each of Stone's films is joined by original essays from filmmaker Ramin Bahrani; writer, editor, and educator Kiese Laymon; writer and actor Jim Beaver; and film critics Walter Chaw, Michael Guarnieri, Kim Morgan, and Alissa Wilkinson. At once a complex analysis of a master director’s vision and a painfully honest critical biography in widescreen technicolor, The Oliver Stone Experience is as daring, intense, and provocative as Stone’s films—it's an Oliver Stone movie about Oliver Stone, in the form of a book. Both this book and Stone’s highly anticipated film, Snowden, will be released in September 2016 to coincide with Stone’s seventieth birthday (September 15, 1946). Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: Mad Men Carousel, The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Wes Anderson Collection.

The first biography of the highly acclaimed, often controversial director, based on material from his family, filmmaking colleagues, and Stone himself, reveals the sensational story of the filmmaker and his professional achievements. Reprint.

This is the companion book to the Hollywood film, "Nixon". It includes the annotated screenplay, an interview with Oliver Stone, essays by prominent figures associated with Nixon and Watergate, previously classified memos and documents from the Nixon White House, and transcripts of Nixon's taped conversations in the Oval Office. Oliver Stone is the director, producer and co-author of "Nixon".

What is patriotism in our volatile age? This incendiary work by Danny Sjursen is a personal cry from the heart by a once model U.S. Army officer and West Point graduate who became a military dissenter while still on active duty. Set against the backdrop of the terror wars of the last two decades, Sjursen asks whether there is a proper space for patriotism that renounces entitled exceptionalism and narcissistic jingoism. Once a burgeoning believer and budding conservative, who performed an intellectual and spiritual about face, Sjursen calls for a critical exploration of our allegiances, and suggests a path to a new, more complex notion of patriotism. Equal parts somber and idealistic, this is a story about what it means to be an American in the midst of perpetual war, and what the future of patriotism might look like.

A shockingly candid, hilarious account of how two young producers broke into the Hollywood studio system--and survived the shark-eat-shark insanity to become Hollywood players. Thousands of people dream about making it big in Hollywood, but almost all of them end up being eaten alive. When aspiring producer Jane Hamsher and her madman partner Don Murphy set up shop in Jane's dining room after graduating from film school, they were too naive to know that people like themselves--far removed from the Porsche-driving studio elite--should never succeed in the movie business. Then Jane and Don stumbled upon a script for a film written by a geeky filmmaker-wannabe named Quentin Tarantino; it was called "Natural Born Killers, and they liked it so much they optioned it for the bargain price of $10,000. But, suddenly, after "Reservoir Dogs turned Tarantino into an overnight sensation, he and every major studio in town decided they wanted control of the script, pitting Jane and Don up against some of the meanest, toughest players in Hollywood. This was only the beginning of their two-year roller-coaster ride through the ruthless world of studio pitbulls, idiotic film crew leeches, and unprecedented butt-kissing and back-stabbing. When Oliver Stone became hot to direct "NBK, Jane and Don could hardly believe their luck --but before they knew it, they found themselves enrolled in the "Oliver Stone School of Filmmaking," a maddening and mind-altering experience, even before the drugs, money, and fame. Throw Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, and a whole cast of outrageous characters into the picture and you've got not only the makings of a hit movie but a Hollywoodjoyride unlike any other. From the script meetings to the movie set to the marketing and distribution process, "Killer Instinct takes you behind the scenes and provides an insider's look at the "New Hollywood"--told by one who learned how to survive it the hard way. It exposes how deals are really struck and stars are picked, and how the balance of power in Hollywood now favors the Quentin Tarantinos of the world who can add the "indie" cachet to big-budget monsters. Fresh, witty, and irreverent, "Killer Instinct provides an unprecedented look inside this wild and irresistible industry.

American anti-hero Oliver Stone joins the literary canon with this bold tale of an alienated youth who takes to the road on an odyssey to hell.