Oliver Stone's USA
Film, History, and Controversy
Edited by Robert Brent Toplin
With Commentary by Oliver Stone
New in paperback: March 2003
vi, 336 pages, 30 photographs, 6 x 9
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-1257-4, $19.95 (t)
 Challenging audiences and leaving
critics in disarray, the films of Oliver Stone have compelled
viewers to reexamine many of their most revered beliefs about
America's past. Like no other filmmaker, Stone has left an indelible
mark on public opinion and political life, even as he has generated
enormous controversy and debate among those who take issue with
his dramatic use of history.
This book brings Stone face-to-face with some of his most
thoughtful critics and supporters and allows Stone himself ample
room to respond to their views. Featuring such luminaries as
David Halberstam, Stephen Ambrose, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Walter
LaFeber, and Robert Rosenstone, these writers critique Stone's
most contested films to show how they may distort, amplify, or
transcend the historical realities they appear to depict.
These essays--on Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street,
Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, JFK, Heaven and Earth,
Natural Born Killers, and Nixon--enlarge our understanding
of Stone's films, while also giving us a fuller appreciation
of the filmmaker as artist and intellectual. They reveal how
Stone's experience in Vietnam colors his views of American government
and corporate culture and suggest new ways of looking at the
complex tensions between art and history that shape Stone's films.
In response, Stone offers an articulate and passionate defense
of his artistic vision. Disavowing once and for all the mantle
of "cinematic historian," Stone declares himself first
and foremost a storyteller, a dramatist and mythmaker who deliberately
refashions historical facts in pursuit of higher truths. The
undeniable centerpiece of this artistic manifesto is Stone's
fascinating commentary on the making and meanings of JFK,
the film that reopened a case that many thought finally closed.
A provocative and timely reexamination of a great American
artist, Oliver Stone's USA will also reignite public debate
over the relationship between history and art as well as the
artist's responsibility to his audience.
“It is gratifying that an American film artist has done
work that needs such spirited discussion.”--Stanley Kauffmann
in The New Republic
"This is an essential addition to film, history, and American
culture collections."--Library Journal
"Affords a deeper inquiry into how political ideas and
'history' are constructed and conveyed to mass audiences."--Publishers
Weekly
"In our media age, movies are the mirrors in which we see
ourselves reflected and Oliver Stone is the most influential director
of our time--rivaled only by Ken Burns as a visual interpreter
of American culture. Nothing less than an understanding of the
meaning of America is at stake in this vibrant and challenging
volume, a stimulating work of film/history studies appropriate
for all concerned with the ways in which visual media interpret
American life and values."--Peter C. Rollins, editor
of Film & History
"Oliver Stone's USA is a sterling collection of thoughtful
essays about and by America's most controversial filmmaker. If
Stone's artistic objective has been to compel us to rethink landmark
events such as JFK's assassination and the Vietnam War, then this
volume offers concrete testimony to his creative success."--Douglas
Brinkley, author of The American Heritage History of the
United States and director of the Eisenhower Center at the
University of New Orleans
"I believe there are larger truths than the supposedly
factual accounts of events given in orthodox histories. . . .
The role of art is to make up for the overwhelming power of the
Establishment by using emotion to intensify and magnify suppressed
truths. Oliver Stone has done that in his films."--Howard
Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
ROBERT BRENT TOPLIN is professor of history at the University
of North Carolina at Wilmington and film review editor for the Journal
of American History. Among his ten books are Reel
History: In Defense of Hollywood, History by Hollywood: The
Use and Abuse of the American Past, and Ken Burns’s
The Civil War: Historians Respond.
CONTRIBUTORS: Stephen E. Ambrose, David T. Courtwright,
Jack E. Davis, James R. Farr, Martin S. Fridson, David Halberstam,
Le Ly Hayslip, Michael L. Kurtz, Walter LaFeber, George S. McGovern,
Randy Roberts, Robert A. Rosenstone, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
Oliver Stone, Robert Brent Toplin, David Welky
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