Stone, Oliver (1946—)

Stone, Oliver (1946—)

Since the mid-1970s, Oliver Stone has been involved in writing, directing, and producing over 30 films in a wide range of styles and genres. Most of his work has been critically and commercially successful, but, since the 1980s, it has also been controversial. Films like Salvador and Platoon, both released in 1986, criticized United States government policy over El Salvador and Vietnam, sidestepping the prevailing confident patriotic mood to deal with the effects of war in a realistic and thoughtful way. In the 1990s, films like Natural Born Killers (1994), in which two young lovers travel around New Mexico, killing as they go, have led to further accusations of exploitation and gratuitous violence. Since Salvador, the subject matter of Stone's films has ranged from political conspiracy in JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995), to war and its cultural effects in Platoon (1986) and Born onthe Fourth of July (1989), to rock biopic in The Doors (1991). With their roots in the "New Cinema" of Hollywood at the end of the 1960s, Stone's films contain a blend of realism, social documentary, and political enquiry that has made him a difficult but important commentator on American culture in the late twentieth century.

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