Producers of the cable TV channel Showtime were pleased with the documentary film "Putin's Interview" by the American director. According to Vinnie Malhotra, head of the documentary department of the TV channel, the reaction to the film reflects reality.
“You can't make a four-hour film about one of the most proactive politicians in the world without being criticized,” said the producer.
He started working on a film about Vladimir Putin back in June 2015. During this time, he came to Moscow several times and filmed more than 20 hours of interviews with the Russian president.
Variety critic Sonia Saraya considers it a good thing that Stone managed to show Putin close enough, but notes that at key points the American director was inclined to agree with the Russian leader's assessments. We are talking about Putin's position in relation to the ex-candidate for the US presidency from the Democrats, ex-employee, as well as on the issue of Washington's interference in political processes around the world.
“At times Stone has been skeptical about, but for a leader who has been harshly criticized for violations of civil rights [in Russia], it hardly seems that Stone is really skeptical [of Putin],” Saraya writes.
Although Stone has a reputation as a liberal in the United States, he was heavily criticized by the liberal press. The Daily Beast described his work as a "wildly irresponsible love letter" to the Russian president. “Flattery, but little skepticism,” she notes.
It is worth noting that Stone has already been criticized after his call for the president to reveal the whole truth about the events in Ukraine in 2014. “If I were President Trump, I would declassify all information about Ukraine, and about Syria too, but primarily about Ukraine, because this is where the new Cold War begins,” Stone said in an interview with Channel One in February.
On June 12, Oliver Stone's documentary "Interview with Putin" aired. The threat of NATO, relations with the United States, the "betrayal" of Edward Snowden, attempts to assassinate, the desire to become a tsar - this and many other things were told by the President of Russia in conversations with the American director.
The four-part documentary will air on US cable TV Showtime June 12-15. Russian Channel One will broadcast "Interview with Putin" from June 19 to June 22 at 21:30 Moscow time.
Interview with Putin director Oliver Stone talks about his love for dictators
Moscow. June 13. INTERFAX.RU - The United States and Russia can become great partners, says American filmmaker Oliver Stone, who has shot the four-part documentary The Putin Interviews.
“I like the world. I would like to see harmony in the world. I believe the US and Russia could be great partners ... Why did things get so bad? ”He told the Los Angeles Times.
According to Stone, he was not forbidden to ask any questions during conversations with the President of the Russian Federation. “No questions were prohibited, there was no need to look in advance. Everything was completely under our control, ”he said.
Stone, commenting on one of the opinions of him that he “adjusts to dictators,” “said with a sarcastic smile:“ I just love dictators. Really".
The American director's film, which includes Putin's interview, will air in several parts on Showtime cable channel June 12-15.
The premiere of Oliver Stone's film "Interview with Putin" will take place in the USA
NEW YORK, June 12. / Corr. TASS Igor Borisenko /. The new documentary by renowned American director Oliver Stone, The Putin Interviews, will be seen for the first time in the US on Monday. It will air on Cable Showtime at 9:00 pm ET (04:00 GMT June 13).
As the press service of Showtime reported on the eve of the premiere, Oliver Stone conducted more than a dozen interviews with the President of Russia, most recently in February of this year, and none of the topics were taboo. During these conversations, the Russian President outlined his assessment of the current state of Russian-American relations, raised the issue of accusations against Russia of meddling in the US election campaign, assessed NATO's actions in Europe and the deployment of an American missile defense system, dwelled on the situation in Syria and Ukraine, spoke about relations with Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, expressed his opinion on the case of a former employee of the US National Security Agency Edward Snowden, who asked for asylum in Russia. In addition, he answered questions about domestic politics, in particular, about his path to the presidency of Russia and the length of his tenure, while not shying away from sensitive issues.
Common Threats
Before the film's release, Showtime circulated several excerpts from interviews on US-Russia relations. “We supported the United States’s struggle for independence,” Vladimir Putin recalled in one of these fragments. - We were allies in the First World War, in the Second World War. Now we have common threats associated with international terrorism, with poverty throughout the world, with environmental degradation, which really threatens all of humanity. "
One of the most serious threats Putin sees is the colossal arsenals of nuclear weapons. “It would not hurt us to think about it a little. We have something to work on, ”he noted, pointing out that no one would have survived a large-scale armed conflict between Russia and the United States. “I think that no one would have survived,” the Russian leader said, answering the question of whether the United States would have succeeded in gaining the upper hand if the confrontation between Moscow and Washington went into a “hot” phase.
“Today, a missile shield would not protect United States territory,” he added.
Putin figuratively answered Stone's question about whether the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States offers hope for a better Russian-American relationship. “There is always hope. Until we are carried in white slippers to the cemetery, ”he said.
At the same time, he pointed out that US policy remains largely unchanged, no matter who is in power in Washington: "Here's what's interesting: presidents in your country change, but politics do not."
Film as a call for peace
The director himself, evaluating the new work on Facebook, called the film a call for peace at the height of the Second Cold War. “Interview with Putin” is a four-hour vivid culmination of my strange life as an American filmmaker, ”he said, while noting that the film is being released“ amid fears that the United States is slipping into a situation where the reaction from the side of Russia is becoming more and more likely. "
“This is exactly what so many angry American neoconservatives and pro-Hillary (Clinton) Democrats want,” the director said. - Why? Is this anger worth pushing the world to the brink of a nuclear abyss? Do they hate Trump, or do they really hate the Russians? And why did they combine these two themes? "
Referring to the opinion of American analysts, the director stressed that the cause of the current tension was Barack Obama's "most dangerous and erroneous policy": his decision in 2009 to begin the process of modernizing the American nuclear arsenal, designed to deliver a first strike on Russia in order to destroy Russian silo launchers. installation of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“In our documentary, Putin makes it clear to viewers exactly what we are trying to achieve with our missile defense systems in Eastern Europe,” stressed Oliver Stone. "It broke the long-standing sense of parity." “Look at the maps shown in the film and at the noose that the United States has thrown at Russia with the help of our nuclear arsenal, and you will begin to understand how you would feel if you were in Russia's place,” he stressed.
“Russia is hardly a threat to us. It is we who pose a threat to Russia, "Stone said.
Frank and tough questions
On the eve of the premiere, Oliver Stone shared with American journalists his personal impressions of his conversations with the Russian leader. In an interview with The New York Times, he stated that he was able to formulate frank and tough questions. “I think that in the third and fourth parts of the film, when we got to know each other better, I was tougher,” Stone said, admitting that he was closely watching the interlocutor's reaction.
“I think I challenged him. You may think that I was gentle, but no. I challenged him, which becomes bolder and bolder when questions about the future and about plans for elections, about money and corruption are raised, ”explained Stone.
Speaking in an interview with the New York Post about why Putin agreed to speak with him, Stone said: "He did the interview because he wants to be heard." “I admire his self-discipline, his stamina, the way he works,” he admitted. "As far as I know, no American president works that many hours."
According to the American director, Putin "thinks like a chess player" and is in excellent physical shape. Stone lamented that he "would be ashamed" if he participated in a joint training session with Putin.
Didn't venture into a feature film
When asked if he intends to make a feature film about Putin, Stone replied: "I don't think I would have dared." “I'm not sure I can express anything else,” he explained.
Stone's filmography includes such films as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), The Twin Towers (World Trade Center, 2006), John F. Kennedy: Shots in Dallas (JFK, 1991), Platoon (1986). He received prizes at the Berlin and Venice Film Festivals and received three Academy Awards.
American filmmaker Oliver Stone said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald that he is working on a film about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 2016, Stone acted as a producer and took an active part in the film Ukraine on Fire, where he interviewed Putin and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
“Mr Putin is one of the most important world leaders and since the US has declared him an enemy - a great enemy - I think it is very important that we hear what he has to say,” Stone told the newspaper. He added that this is not so much a documentary as a question-and-answer conversation.
The production of the tape has not yet been officially announced. As the newspaper notes, the film will show Putin's attitude to events in the world from the moment he first took over as president of the country in 2000.
“It opens up a whole point of view that we Americans have never heard of,” Stone said. According to him, the film crew met with the president four times in two years. According to the director, they "paid tribute" to Putin by presenting, against the background of the West's statements of facts, his comments that can explain Moscow's point of view, in the hope of preventing misunderstanding and a dangerous situation on the brink of war.
As Stone explained, he "originally discussed the [former US intelligence agent Edward] Snowden case with Putin, and that is in the film." The master is convinced that a kind of trust grew out of this, since the head of the Russian state knew that the director would not edit the material much.
Snowden movie
Stone is known as a director who makes films on sensitive political topics, his heroes were President Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush. The last work of the three-time Oscar winner was a film about the former US intelligence agent Edward Snowden, which premiered in the fall of 2016.
The film tells the story of a former National Security Agency official who in 2013 passed on classified materials to the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers about the surveillance programs of the US and UK intelligence services on the Internet.
Snowden flew to Hong Kong, and from there to Moscow, where he spent some time in the transit zone of the Moscow airport. Russia then granted him temporary asylum for a year on the condition that he cease his activities against the United States.
The plot of the film develops from the moment when Snowden was not yet an agent of the special services, until the scandal with the leak of classified information. American actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt played the main role, and his girlfriend was actress Shailene Woodley. The film is in the genre of "political thriller", and the script is based on the book of Snowden's lawyer from the Russian side Anatoly Kucherena entitled "The Time of the Octopus."
While Snowden has not received widespread audiences, Stone, who raises some of America's most embarrassing questions, is hardly surprised at the film's lack of success. However, at one of the most popular and topical world festivals in Toronto, where the film premiered, the screening was greeted with a standing ovation.
"Ukraine on fire"
The painting "Ukraine on Fire" tells about the history of Ukraine from 1941 to 2014. At the same time, the film focuses on the nationalist movements that existed during World War II and participated with the Nazis in the massacres of Jews and Poles, during the Cold War were supported by the CIA during the times, and in recent years have influenced peaceful demonstrations.
Stone learned firsthand about the events that preceded the Maidan, and also asked ex-President Yanukovych about the economic difficulties of 2013, relations with Russia, negotiations with the Navy, as well as about the reasons for leaving the country.
Former Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Vitaliy Zakharchenko spoke in the film about the events of the turning point of November 30, about who, in his opinion, ordered the use of force against the protesters, and what forced the start of the protests.
In the summer of 2016, Ukraine is on Fire won the Best Documentary Award at the Taormina Film Festival in the Sicilian city.
The topic of Ukraine did not leave Stone even later. In February, he said that in the place of American President Donald Trump, he would declassify all information on this country, since US citizens do not know the real state of affairs.
The director believes that the CIA is behind all the important events of our time, including the conflict in Ukraine, "which was their goal from the very beginning of the Cold War." Stone also called "fairy tales" the statements of the American establishment that Russia allegedly "captured Crimea, is present in the Donbass and generally threatens Ukraine."
Stone said there is overwhelming evidence that Washington needs a contrived pretext to start a war.
"This is madness. The United States needs fear, needs an enemy and more than one. I think that the American power is built on the enemies, because they bring money, ”the director summed up.
Judging by the reaction - quite predictable - of the "progressive" Western press, he has achieved his goal. The American media didn’t look at him, and called it "propaganda officialdom" (and this is one of the mildest formulations). Well, the author himself only laughed - along with the object of his research.
And rightly so: it doesn't smell of officialdom. On the contrary, we have before us a series of conversations as relaxed and frank as possible when it comes to conversations between the recognized master of cinema and the head of state.
The documentary - judging by the first episodes - turned out to be by no means politically biased, but information-rich. And even educational. Stone is known for intellectual provocations, and almost every film of his can be attributed to them. But in what it was always difficult to convict him - it was propaganda. And even more difficult - in the love of semi-officialdom.
And although this time, of course, it was not without provocation, too - and the creator of the mini-series must be watching with obvious pleasure the seething in the above-mentioned layers of American society - he set himself other tasks. First, to convey to the American audience an alternative view of global world processes. Secondly, to become a "mediated biographer" of Putin, whose direct speech without comments from some CNN overseas is not heard so often. Now they have heard.
This is why the film is important. It is important not so much for the Russians, who, of course, would like to hear from the president answers to other questions (the recent "Direct Line" is another confirmation of this), but some of the questions would have been put quite differently (no matter how much Stone asked his hero about the situation, for example, in the Donbass, these dialogues do not reach sufficient depth and sharpness - we have already seen this from "Ukraine on fire"). It is important, first of all, for the inhabitants of "the country of the free and the homeland of the brave", because many of them have recently boldly made it a rule to freely shift the consequences of the dislocations of their own system onto the notorious external factor. Having in their eyes a concrete embodiment.
In other words, it will be extremely useful for those who nevertheless bother to make their way through the powerful background of screams about Kremlin propaganda and other Russian hackers, to familiarize themselves with a new argument for themselves - at least in the most general terms. It is possible that this will allow some people to see that it is not Viktor Petrov from House of Cards who is sitting in the Kremlin, that Russia is not a factor of chaos in world politics, and that its actions in the international arena are not at all senseless trolling and sabotage. At first glance, it is even strange that this needs clarification. But - it needs.
Oliver Stone directed all the resources of his talent, on the scale of which neither the Liberal Democrats nor the neoconservatives would allow themselves to doubt, to make this understanding possible in his homeland. At least partially. This is already something, you must agree.
