Oliver Stone Is Back

The New York Times looks at the return of Oliver Stone:

While Mr. Stone’s youth was steeped in the ways of finance, thanks to his father’s profession, he did not inherit a facility for such matters. He did poorly in economics at Yale, and turned to filmmaking. He has spent the last several months researching the financial collapse by reading and by meeting with executives and academics.
Earlier in the summer he brought Mr. LaBeouf to a cocktail party organized by Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economics professor and chairman of a consulting firm, and held in rented space at the Maritime Hotel in Chelsea. There Mr. Stone and Mr. LaBeouf discussed the financial collapse with hedge fund managers who are clients of Mr. Roubini’s firm.
“In this financial crisis it was the traditional banks and the investment banks that had a larger role in doing stupid and silly things than the hedge funds,” said Mr. Roubini, who earned acclaim for being early in predicting the financial crisis. (Mr. Stone offered Mr. Roubini a small role in the film as a hedge fund manager.)

I’m not surprised to hear that Stone did poorly in economics. It doesn’t sound like he’s gotten much better. The late Pauline Kael said she despised his movies. I’m not sure why anyone takes Stone seriously:

“They control culture, they control ideas. And I think the revolt of September 11th was about ‘Fuck you! Fuck your order—’ ”
“Excuse me,” a fellow-panelist, Christopher Hitchens, said. ” ‘Revolt’?”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Stone said.
“It was state-supported mass murder, using civilians as missiles,” said Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and The Nation.

Posted by on September 8th, 2009 at 8:28 am


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.