Putting horror stories back into history lessons
By John Carucci |
December 2, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
OLIVER Stone has never been shy about ruffling feathers with his take on real-life events.
From "JFK" and "Nixon," to "Salvador" and "W," Stone has challenged the history taught in schoolbooks. His latest project, "The Untold History of the United States," a 10-part series on the premium Showtime network in the US, explores more facts he feels were suppressed, with new takes on the atomic bombing of Japan, the Cold War and the fall of communism.
To maintain accuracy, Stone partnered with Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University in Washington DC. Both he and Stone feel history is often written with a happy ending.
Recently, Stone spoke about the issues tackled in series, and his take on the General Petraeus scandal.
Q: What drives you to cover historical events from your own perspective?
A: This is a noble tradition. It's funny that it sounds as if it's an illegitimate tradition, but it goes back - the Greeks did plays about ancient rulers. Shakespeare did a huge amount of plays about history. Some were more accurate than others, no question.
Q: You take a fair share of criticism?
A: I've never, ever by my own standard of ethics violated the trust of my audience by saying something that I knew to be false. I may have made some mistakes but never did it on purpose, ever. I've been so tired of defending myself it's become silly. ... (For this project) we've had three fact checks. There's a book. Sourcing is included, footnotes. The facts are indisputable. The interpretation is disputable, but at least the facts are there.
Q: Why do people resist changes to the history we've learned?
A: We have told a coherent narrative that begins in 1900 and we've taken the darker view of the US actions because I believe that in the US, that in textbooks kids learn from, there's a process by which things get sanitized out. The horror stories, the bad stuff, because kids love that. Instead of giving them some horror stories (textbooks) tell them everything works out well in the end. We're going back and saying, "Let the juicy stuff out." And it is good, some of the stuff that we do. It's pretty horrible.
Q: Give me an example?
A: Very few people know about how strong the English empire was going into World War II. (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt had a suspicion of the English empire and he was trying to balance the Soviet interests with American interests as well as British interests. He didn't want to be taken for a ride and save England to have England re-colonize the world, which is what they did.
Q: There's new history being written with the General Petraeus scandal. What are your thoughts?
A: The truth is that it's like a Shakespeare drama. Petraeus was never a hero. His genius in writing about counter-insurgency was to point out essentially that we use the journalists to control perception, because perception is more important than reality.
From "JFK" and "Nixon," to "Salvador" and "W," Stone has challenged the history taught in schoolbooks. His latest project, "The Untold History of the United States," a 10-part series on the premium Showtime network in the US, explores more facts he feels were suppressed, with new takes on the atomic bombing of Japan, the Cold War and the fall of communism.
To maintain accuracy, Stone partnered with Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University in Washington DC. Both he and Stone feel history is often written with a happy ending.
Recently, Stone spoke about the issues tackled in series, and his take on the General Petraeus scandal.
Q: What drives you to cover historical events from your own perspective?
A: This is a noble tradition. It's funny that it sounds as if it's an illegitimate tradition, but it goes back - the Greeks did plays about ancient rulers. Shakespeare did a huge amount of plays about history. Some were more accurate than others, no question.
Q: You take a fair share of criticism?
A: I've never, ever by my own standard of ethics violated the trust of my audience by saying something that I knew to be false. I may have made some mistakes but never did it on purpose, ever. I've been so tired of defending myself it's become silly. ... (For this project) we've had three fact checks. There's a book. Sourcing is included, footnotes. The facts are indisputable. The interpretation is disputable, but at least the facts are there.
Q: Why do people resist changes to the history we've learned?
A: We have told a coherent narrative that begins in 1900 and we've taken the darker view of the US actions because I believe that in the US, that in textbooks kids learn from, there's a process by which things get sanitized out. The horror stories, the bad stuff, because kids love that. Instead of giving them some horror stories (textbooks) tell them everything works out well in the end. We're going back and saying, "Let the juicy stuff out." And it is good, some of the stuff that we do. It's pretty horrible.
Q: Give me an example?
A: Very few people know about how strong the English empire was going into World War II. (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt had a suspicion of the English empire and he was trying to balance the Soviet interests with American interests as well as British interests. He didn't want to be taken for a ride and save England to have England re-colonize the world, which is what they did.
Q: There's new history being written with the General Petraeus scandal. What are your thoughts?
A: The truth is that it's like a Shakespeare drama. Petraeus was never a hero. His genius in writing about counter-insurgency was to point out essentially that we use the journalists to control perception, because perception is more important than reality.
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