Oliver Stone's USA: Film, History, and Controversy

Over the years, Hollywood has presented many exciting, if highly unrealistic and inaccurate, portrayals of historical events from the Crusades to the U.S. bombing of Iraq, and hardly anyone has complained. But since the debut of Stone's first major Hollywood movie, Salvador, and on through Platoon, JFK, The Doors and Nixon, the accuracy of the filmmaker's historical interpretations, his intentions and integrity have been continually questioned and often attacked by journalists, politicians and critics. Toplin, professor of history at the University of North Carolina, brings Stone and his critics together in 15 essays that make up a contentious and revealing dialogue. In dueling essays in the book's opening section, Robert A. Rosentone and Stone debate the idea of ""the filmmaker"" (and Stone in particular) as historian. Stone denies the charge of many critics that he sees himself as a ""cinematic historian,"" claiming instead to be an artist with his own vision. The real intellectual conflict, however, occurs in the volume's second and third sections. Here nine film critics and political commentators--including David Halberstam, James R. Farr and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.--write critically of Stone's ""indefensible"" interpretations of history. After they have had their say, Stone presents two defensive but convincing essays in which he neatly and often wittily exposes the unspoken agendas, preconceptions and factual inaccuracies in much of the criticism. By the end, Toplin's compilation is more than just an explication of Stone's work; it affords a deeper inquiry into how political ideas and ""history"" are constructed and conveyed to mass audiences. (June) FYI: Orenstein has a two-year jump on Susan Faludi, who will cover the territory in a book recently sold to Metropolitan Books for publication in 2002.