Whatever you do, do not call Oliver Stone a conspiracy theorist.
In a phone interview from London, where he is currently on a press tour, America's most intense film director was surprisingly laid back and down-to-earth, if not entirely amiable.
He happily entertained questions from Vietnam to "Wayne's World" "I love those movies" but when the conversation turned to "JFK" and the controversy it sparked, Stone was defensive, at points offended and eventually lashed back.
There is nothing subtle about Stone. His movies hit you over the head like an educated MTV video, and the man himself is no less imposing. If he dislikes a question, he makes sure you know it.
Stone seems to be on a constant quest to set the record straight and change his image as a conspiracy nut hell-bent on putting his own, admittedly "highly subjected," slant on history. All of which he is more than willing to discuss when he arrives at the college to receive the Dartmouth Film Award on Saturday.
Stone was actually admitted to Dartmouth, class of '68, and being a big fan of Dartmouth football almost opted to attend. He ended up at Yale instead, but only lasted a year there.
"Any Ivy League school would be the same situation," he remarked, laughingly. A college campus was not going to hold Stone in the 1960s, so he headed to Vietnam first as a teacher in Saigon, then as a volunteer in the 25th Infantry Division.
He returned and attended New York University film school, but it could be argued that Stone never really left Vietnam. Most of his films seem to find their way back to it, if not in setting, in spirit.
"Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Heaven and Earth" take place there. "The Doors" rebels against it while "JFK" and "Nixon" are haunted by it.
"Many Americans haven't been discussing contemporary history," he said. "There is a huge black hole in contemporary America ... Vietnam is certainly a black hole."
But Stone does not see himself as a historian, but as a filmmaker. He does not want his time at Dartmouth to be about his politics because "it would ruin the evening."
What he really would like to talk about is filmmaking as filmmaking. A film, to Stone, "is a forward propulsion of ideas ... it can be visual or verbal."
Stone said he constructed "JFK" as a thriller, a classic murder mystery. In his elaborate use of flashbacks, documentary footage and re-creations, Stone presented the suspects and their motives. Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, was the sleuth trying to put the pieces together.
"Nixon," Stone's bio-pic of the disgraced president, is a film he is immensely proud of. After struggling for financing and casting, it was a film he made "against all odds."
He saw his abrasive style with its jolting editing, jarring close-ups and combination of color film and black and white as the only way to keep an audience interested for the three hours it took to tell the story.
"Nixon," although praised by film critics for turning the president's life into a Shakespearean tragedy, did poorly at the box office. But Stone constantly referred back to it as one of his greatest achievements.
Of his increasingly kinetic, untraditional style, which started in "JFK" and climaxed with "Natural Born Killers," Stone said, "my views of the world have changed, especially my feeling of time."
Fearing he may have been reckless with the description of his films as entertainment, Stone makes an addendum: "But in pursuit of that, I do my homework."
Many criticized Stone for his take on the Kennedy assassination in "JFK," they felt he tried to fabricate history.
"Obviously," he slowly continued, "you can't put all your facts in the movie. But I have never consciously distorted a fact in a wrong sense for dramatic purpose. Never. Ever."
When the conversation turned to his unwanted title of America's number-one conspiracy theorist, Stone was genuinely hurt and angered.
"I have made one conspiracy movie out of 11 movies, and that one was well within the limits of rational thought," he said. "I have been demonized ... people have been putting me in the same category as those 'Elvis is alive' nuts."
The subject was immediately changed.
Stone is rumored to be working with Tom Cruise on a "Mission: Impossible" sequel, but he said that he passed on that.
The same can be said for his Alexander the Great bio-pic which was also rumored to involve Cruise. Stone felt the script did not work well.
Stone's last film, "U-Turn," did poorly with both critics and the public. He was angered when students attacked him for it at the Telluride Film Festival where it premiered. "They were expecting the next 'JFK,'" he said.
"U-Turn" was Stone's first attempt since reaching fame to make a purely commercial film. But one must not forget he also helped co-write "Conan the Barbarian."
"My version was more extravagant," he said. More extravagant? Only Oliver Stone could dream up a more extravagant version of "Conan the Barbarian."
Perhaps the greatest mystery of Oliver Stone is the naked Native American in "The Doors."
"He's not an Indian," Stone answered, "he's a death figure." Stone said he was spoofing Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal." He is surprised by how many people missed that.
Maybe the man is more subtle than people think.
