Oliver Stone Can Dish It Out, But He Bristles At Tough Questions About His New 'South Of The Border' Documentary
People like Oliver Stone give the left a bad name. Their with-me-or-against me attitude makes public discourse a sideline to their much-more important marching orders. That much seemed to be on display when the director met up with KPCC (89.9 FM) host Larry Mantle, a man one would hardly describe as member of the right-wing radio brigade.
Oliver Stone and Hugo Chavez.
Mantle blogs this week that Stone bristled when asked challenging questions about his just-released, fawning documentary about some of the dictatorial leftists of South of the Border such as Hugo Chavez (the man who once called George W. Bush the devil, which was an accurate description, but not one that should come from the mouth of a head of state). Chavez personifies the term, "that's just crazy talkin.'"
As Weekly film critic Karina Longworth put it, "South of the Border's subjects are masters at cooking bullshit, and Stone just eats it up."
Let the bullshit eater cast the first Stone: The director asked Mantle if had actually seen the movie, "as though that should have been sufficient to make any viewer accept Stone's depictions," Mantle writes.
Then Stone apparently accused KPCC of being a government-funded operation. Because, you know, that would mean it's just a tool of the man, man:
At the close, a clearly frustrated Stone muttered that we're NPR and get government funding. Therefore we must be blindly supporting the U. S. government's line on Chavez. As he walked out I tried to explain that our support comes almost completely from listeners, not the feds. I don't think he was too interested -- either in that information or in having someone ask challenging questions.
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