The SALON Interview 
NIXON GETS STONED
Illustrations by Zach Trenholm
Whatever else one thinks of Oliver Stone, no one can accuse him of being detached. This is a man who throws himself, sometimes overboard, at the great issues of our time: yuppie greed ("Wall Street"), bloodthirsty media ("Natural Born Killers"), Vietnam ("Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July") and the Kennedy assassination ("JFK").
His latest broadside, "Nixon," is a typically grandiose portrait of a man who left a permanent shadow on America's collective psyche. Whether audiences will sit still for a 3-hour movie about a dead president remains to be seen -- although they did the same for "JFK."
Clearly, the drive to complete "Nixon" and publicize the movie has taken its toll on Stone. During a recent interview in his Manhattan hotel suite, the 49-year-old Academy Award-winning writer-director appeared tired. His pasty complexion, and the heavy bags under his brown eyes, bore witness to long hours in the editing booth.
You have a knack for turning your movies into ''events.'' How do you do it?
It's not deliberate. I don't stick a pin in the wall and say, ''Hey, abortion, that's a controversial subject. I'm gonna do an abortion movie.'' That's not the way I think. I'm fascinated enough by Nixon to learn more, to express something about America.
Did you become more sympathetic toward Nixon while making the movie?
Empathetic is the word. He was a man. He lived a life in the arena, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. You have to put flesh on the man. Liberals from the '60s still hate him; it's a badge of honor. They won't lose their anger. Maybe they feel their suit of armor will fall off, or they'll lose their identity. It's time to move beyond that ideology and look at what he was and what he did, especially now with the legislation coming from the Republicans. A lot of them are Nixon clones.
He was practically canonized at the funeral. What was your gut reaction?
If you had never known about him, and you saw the funeral on TV, you would have thought he was a great national hero like Winston Churchill or something. What happened at the funeral is typical of television. Nixon dies and suddenly he's a great patriarch and statesman.
Next page: Bashing the Establishment priesthood
