I want to thank the Jerusalem Film Festival for standing by its decision to invite Oliver Stone to Israel and having the fortitude to host one of the sharpest political thinkers of our generation.
Stone has made remarks deemed antisemitic and anti-Israel. In 2010 he told The Sunday Times that Jewish control of the media was preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust and that an upcoming film of his would put Hitler and Stalin in context. To Stone, Israel had “f***ed up American foreign policy” for years.
Stone apologized for his “clumsy association” about the Holocaust but told The New York Times that “I had to apologize because I should not have used the word ‘Jewish.’ That was the only thing that’s frankly wrong in that statement. I was upset at the time about Israel and their control, their seeming control over American foreign policy.”
“It’s clear that Jews do not dominate the media … but certainly AIPAC has an undue influence,” he clarified. “They were very much militating for the war in Iraq. They got it.”
Oliver Stone, being supportive of Russia and Vladimir Putin
He’s also been labeled pro-Putin. Yet, how many people had the foresight that Russia would not invade Ukraine?
In December 2021, Stone told political podcast hosts Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper that the leaders of Ukraine were so corrupt that to get re-elected, “they’ll do just about anything. Lie, steal, cheat, and say that Russia is going to invade Ukraine.” And Stone then understood that if Russia “invaded Ukraine, it could take what it wanted in a day or two. I mean it’s not an issue for them.”
After Russia did invade Ukraine, Stone knew exactly why: COVID-19. He told podcaster Lex Fridman that “some people would argue that the isolation from normal activity… it was very hard – perhaps he [Russian President Vladmir Putin] lost touch with, contact with, people.”
And how many other people realized that the United States was preparing a “false-flag” operation? Just Oliver Stone. He told Fridman that it would involve “a low-yield nuclear explosion of unknown origin, somewhere in the Donbas region, killing thousands of people… It would be a dramatic solution to sealing this war off as a major victory for the United States.”
And the lucky people of Jerusalem will finally be able to learn the truth about what is going on in Ukraine.
If you ask Oliver Stone the right questions, he could tell you why Putin is a “rational, calm, thoughtful man.” In fact, Stone recently said that Putin is “a very refined individual who speaks quietly, reasonably.”
Now that’s speaking truth to power!
Oliver Stone on JFK, conspiracy theories, and "the most homophobic movie ever"
And Jerusalemites had the chance to ask Mr. Stone all about his film JFK, which portrays a crusading prosecutor, Jim Garrison, who was trying to take on the CIA, the military-industrial complex, and the national security infrastructure. Unfortunately, the documentary drama doesn’t tell you that for a while, Garrison was convinced that JFK was killed by a homosexual conspiracy, until a few JFK researchers convinced him that the CIA was a better target.
Garrison prosecuted an innocent gay man, Clay Shaw, and ruined his life. Shaw had retired to write plays and restore properties in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The case took two years to come to trial, and Shaw was acquitted in less than 50 minutes. The acquittal would have been quicker, but the jurors had to pee. On the next business day, Garrison indicted Shaw for perjury, and that case took two years to be quashed.
Stone didn’t have to victimize Clay Shaw a second time by making him a villain. That was a choice he made.
IN 1991, gay groups were horrified about reports which were in JFK’s script. Stone told them to watch the film and then decide. They did, and they weren’t impressed. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation said JFK was “as homophobic as films get.” David Ehrenstein, writing in The Advocate, a popular gay magazine, called JFK “the most homophobic movie ever to come out of Hollywood.”
An opinion piece in The New York Times added: “Shaw’s homosexuality is meant to signify nothing except the fact that he’s sinister and capable of murder. The inclusion of an orgy scene is gratuitous. Mr. Stone might as well have shown Jack Ruby bargaining with other Jews in the back row at temple.”
New Orleans reporter Jed Horne said that local people “think Oliver Stone is a sucker. Garrison is considered a kook, a local joke. That Stone would come in and seek to beautify this guy is just one more instance of the gullibility of the national media and their complete inability to fathom a place like New Orleans.”
Speaking truth to power?
I am quite surprised that the Jerusalem Film Festival is not showing one of Stone’s latest films, QAZAC: History of the Golden Man, a hagiographic documentary about Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former dictator of Kazakhstan. Perhaps the eight-hour version would have been a nice diversion for Jerusalemites.
Someone might want to ask Stone how the film was financed. It turns out that a charitable foundation controlled by Nazarbayev paid at least $5 million for the production.
Now that’s speaking truth to power. ■
The writer is a Canadian author whose most recent book is Oliver Stone’s Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza.