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April 03, 2006

Interview in Gwinnett Daily Post Article on Hollywood and 9/11

It's always weird being quoted in a newspaper article - you ramble on the phone for half an hour on a whole range of topics, then they take one or two random sound bites you may not even remember saying.

But I think this piece by reporter Shelley Mann came out pretty well. I was trying to drive home the argumnt that the claim that "it takes time to develop historical perspective on an event" can become a copout against taking a stand on political issues while they're still controversial and relevant. For all its clumsy didacticism, it took guts for Michael Moore to make and release Fahrenheit 911 in 2004, so soon into the Iraq War. We need to celebrate and reward those artists (Moore, George Clooney, Sean Penn) who have the courage to take stands on the most important issues of our day. They're the ones creating what will become tomorrow's conventional wisdom.

That said, I hadn't seen or read anything about the upcoming Oliver Stone 9/11 movie when the Gwinnett Post reporter called me up, so I hope I'm not completely off base. I'll be really disappointed if it turns out to be as dumb as, well, just about every movie Stone's made since Natural Born Killers. Nixon was just awful, and Any Given Sunday smothered Jamie Foxx's sizzling performance underneath Al Pacino's relentless yelling. Then came that feature-length documentary on Fidel Castro that soft-pedaled Cuba's human rights record. I couldn't bring myself to see Alexander, although I guess it might be worth a rental for camp value. I'd write Stone off, but Platoon, JFK, and especially Salvador remain three of the greatest political films ever made, matching a gonzo filmmaking sensibility to real moral seriousness. In fact, anybody who wants to know how the Bush junta cut their teeth should definitely rent Salvador.

Posted by tedf at April 3, 2006 12:47 AM

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