Stone himself serves as guide to this no-holds-barred
retrospective--an extremely candid and comprehensive monograph of the
renowned and controversial writer, director, and cinematic historian in
interview form.
Over the course of five years, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver
Stone (Midnight Express, Scarface, Platoon, JFK, Natural Born
Killers, Snowden) and New York Times bestselling author Matt
Zoller Seitz (The Wes Anderson Collection) discussed, debated, and
deconstructed the arc of Stone's outspoken, controversial life and
career with extraordinary candor. This book collects those
conversations for the first time, including anecdotes about Stone's
childhood, Vietnam, his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder,
and his continual struggle to reinvent himself as an artist. Their
dialogue is illustrated by hundreds of never-before-seen photographs
and documents from Stone's personal archive, dating back to Stone's
birth: personal snapshots, private correspondence, annotated script
pages and storyboards, behind-the-scenes photography, and production
files from all of his films to date--through 2016's Snowden, and
including Stone's epic Showtime mini-series Untold HIstory of the
United States. Critical commentary from Seitz on each of Stone's films
is joined by original essays from filmmaker Ramin Bahrani; writer,
editor, and educator Kiese Laymon; writer and actor Jim Beaver; and film
critics Walter Chaw, Michael Guarnieri, Kim Morgan, and Alissa
Wilkinson.
At once a complex analysis of a master director's vision and a painfully
honest critical biography in widescreen technicolor, The Oliver Stone
Experience is as daring, intense, and provocative as Stone's
films--it's an Oliver Stone movie about Oliver Stone, in the form of a
book.
Both this book and Stone's highly anticipated film, Snowden, will be
released in September 2016 to coincide with Stone's seventieth
birthday (September 15, 1946).
Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: Mad Men Carousel, The Wes
Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand
Budapest Hotel, and The Wes Anderson Collection.
