"I also share your view of Mr.Stone and mine comes from a little bit of personal experience?"
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 18:00:22 -0700
From: cradley@earthlink.net
To: Richard Geib (cybrgbl@deltanet.com)
Subject: "Oliver Stone"At 06:00 PM 9/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
Dear Richard;
I also share your view of Mr.Stone and mine comes from a little bit of personal experience. I had the good fortune to work on a number of his films as they were shot in part or in whole in Dallas, Tx where I sometimes work. Although I would like to remain anonymus because I am still working in the industry and reprocusions could be severe as he is very beloved among the Film Community. What I'm about to tell you is easily verifiable. Starting with "Born on the Fourth of July", It was well known around the set that certain facts were were being deleted and events that never took place were being added. First there was not an "Anti-war rally" at Syracuse University (It was actually filmed at SMU) with a police riot that Mr. Kovic was in the middle of. It was inserted because Mr. Stone wanted a reference to the "Kent State Incident" and to have Mr. Kovic as a part of it, would help show the transition between war hero and anti-war activist. Otherwise it would have looked as if his sudden epiphany was because of love of the of his life talked him into it and what would that have to do with the the "Evil Government Establishment"! As for his much beloved "JFK" (I was only able to work on the "Dealey Plaza Scene") there constantly references to "A bright flash of light" and "A cloud of smoke" coming from behind a fence on "The Grassy Knoll", but every time they fired a rifle from that location there was no "Cloud of smoke" coming from the barrels end. Every time they would increase the load in the Blanks they were using they would get pretty much the same results. They finally resorted to Fog machine with a 4k HMI light to highlight it! And the crem de la crem, "The flash of light" was not easily photographed either as you had to be within a few feet of the rifle to be able to see it! the long shots I believe were inserted with digital work in Los Angeles. All the while no rifle was to be fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in the presence of anyone other than the most necessary crew and absolutly no "extras"! Because there were echos coming from all sorts of directions. It might lead people in a direction other than where he wished to take them.
He is also famous for his "Let's get around the Unions" attiude "So lets shoot in Texas" because Texas is a "Right to Work State". Sounds like a good liberal to me. He is very abusive to his crew although I must admit he was not to me.
I could go on forever on the film "Talk Radio" alone and how it managed to finish under it's 3 million dollar budget and took a few creative liberties itself, but thats for another time.
sincerly,
The Stone Loather
P.S. I apologize for my poor writing skills. Incidently Gerald Posner writes about the infamous invisible "Cloud of smoke" in his book "CASE CLOSED" and the rest is easily verifiable and I suggest everyone do their own research and make up their own minds. My experience formed my opinion.
Dear Stone Loather,
I found your comments interesting as I know less than nothing about the film industry. May I post them as a link to my page about Oliver Stone as long as I change all the names and info.? I suspect you would want to have a vehicle for letting your opinion be known on the Web.
Let me know.
Very Truly Yours,
Richard Geib
