La Jerga managed to snag an exclusive interview with often controversial, frequently provocative, and always entertaining Academy-Award-winning film director Oliver Stone.

La Jerga: How do you think the U.S. government will react if Mexico elects a leftist populist candidate like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to the Presidency?
Oliver Stone: The U.S. has no business interfering. I presume there could be an attempt to financially combat the followers of Lopez Obrador. But should they attack him, an interesting turn of events would be the nexus between him and (President Hugo) Chavez in Venezuela, (President Lula da Silva) in Brazil—you know the Latin base. It’s the eternal question...The U.S. seems invested in the idea of controlling the economies of these countries and promising progress their way. But it doesn’t quite seem to work out. Perhaps it works in some ways but it doesn’t work in a lot of ways. It seems to me always that the Central American and Latin bases should work it out themselves, they seem quite able to. Although, you know, that’s not quite true either. You see the indigenous problem with the landowners. When I saw Chiapas—we discussed Marcos earlier—those events go on and on and on. There’s a timelessness to this battle and I think Mexico is well entrenched in it.

LJ: Do you think this battle is something that has been instilled since the Conquest?
OS: What do you mean by the Conquest? Cortés? You’re implying that you’re the Indian, but you are as much Spanish aren’t you?

LJ: I am as much American as I am Mexican.
OS: I mean you’re as much Spanish as you are Indian, no?

LJ: Correct.
OS: You’re both conqueror and conquered. Which is an interesting genetic result. It gives you both sides. Whereas a lot of people who have a Western gene have never been “conquered”. You see so they’re “conquerors of the Indians”. I think a lot of Americans have been conquered. I think the Indian gene is not just belonging only to the American Indian. I think it’s a gene that goes back to Mongols and Asiatics. So a lot of American people who are coming from the European side, the Russian side, they in fact have already been carrying that Asiatic/Indian gene. And I think there’s a lot of people like that. A lot. I’m going back to the history of the race. Crossing land bridges 30 - 40,000 years ago. Heavy stuff for a Sunday morning.

LJ: Could you make a film like Salvador in today’s political and economic climate?
OS: That was 1985. Twenty years ago. My God. Before I answer that I would investigate the modern conditions with somebody who could help me, like a Richard Boyle. Salvador was sparked by his sense of humor and roguish attitude which we applied to two bozos that came down here...I was learning as I went. About the power of the death squads, the fear of the people, the fear of eradication, which is a big issue there. I don’t know about in Mexico, but if you’re poor in most of these countries, your life is quite potentially in jeopardy...One of the images that keeps flashing back to me, years later, is of all the labor leaders who were killed in El Salvador and tortured so brutally. Many good guys in the late 70’s and early 80’s were brutally murdered—their balls cut to their noses—horrendous behavior. It set off a war. Whatever they say about Communism—the brutality of the death squads, of the right wing, is unmatched. This is historically correct. The insurrections always sound worse, but the repression of the army or the police is far worse...The American press is always talking about the rampant insurrection [in Columbia], and how cruel and barbaric the leftists were, and they have been at times. But now you’re reading all about the problems that the [Columbian] government is having breaking up these right wing concentrations of paramilitaries. And they’re far more dangerous and kill far more people. So it’s all true: The right wing reaction; from El Salvador, to Columbia, to Brazil, to Argentina, to Chile is the most dangerous thing you guys face. It’s a mentality that doesn’t go away, doesn’t die.

LJ: What do you think will happen to Cuba after el Comandante passes on?
OS: As I said before, I think that people are deluding themselves if they think that with Castro gone, it’s a personality cult, and that the country will fold back into capitalism. These people are very serious. There is a system in place. It’s very organized. And I think they are going to stay true to their beliefs. I think there will be negotiations. But it will have to be on their terms. I don’t think that they’re going to allow McDonald’s back in so easily. Because once it gets in its a tentacle in the octopus.



LJ: Is it possible that LBJ could have been involved in the assassination of JFK?
OS: As I said in the movie, I don’t believe so. I think he was, if anything, unwittingly involved in a cover-up. Because I think a lot of people got sucked into the cover-up. There was an easier way out of this mess.

LJ: Which is better, a just war or an unjust peace?
OS: A just war.

LJ: What is the current state of democracy in the United States of America?
OS: Weak and failing.

LJ: Do you think it’s the military industrial complex or the world-banking cartel that runs this puppet show? Or a playful mixture of both?
OS: Pretty much combinations of corporations, banking, insurance and military industrial. It’s not a pre-arranged conspiracy, it’s an easy overlap.



LJ: Do you think they will be making a cycle of post-war movies about Iraq like you and others did for Vietnam?
OS: I think they’ll make the same kinds of movies. I hope that some of them will be critical. Right now nobody has the guts to take on the unjustness of it.

LJ: What are you reading right now?
OS: Oh, I read several books at once. I’m reading a book about Bush. I’m reading a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Viktor E. Frankl wrote it, a concentration camp survivor. I’m reading this silly book, which I’m enjoying, about Onasis and Jackie Kennedy and the Kennedy’s. Scripts, screenplays.

LJ: Do you feel you take as many risks as you used to when you were a younger filmmaker?
OS: Probably less so. Because as a younger filmmaker I didn’t know what the risks were. (laughs) I was swinging for fences, you know? Now I suppose having been burned several times—sometimes you don’t go for the homerun, you have to hit the single. You tend to be a wilier player, a cagier player. If you’re going to go for a risk, you think about it, you try to really prepare for it. Its not to say when I’m shooting on a daily basis, I don’t try crazy stuff...When you become successful, or when you become known, you’re pigeonholed. Everyone is—not just me—anyone. The boxes of the mind are so self-defeating to the human race, it’s just a shame. But if you can overcome that in your heart and be greater than that, that is the hardest thing of all. If people all say that you’re no good, this/that, you start to believe that if you allow them to get to you. It’s not easy to resist the struggle with your own self-image.