| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Stoned On Castro
"In Cuba, I observed an openness and freedom that I had not
found in any other country in the region, the Caribbean or
Central America. I . . . have never seen the kind of spontaneous
affection for a leader expressed on the streets as I have seen in
Cuba towards Fidel." --- Oliver Stone, giving comments before
the premier of his second movie about Castro, "Looking For
Fidel," at the 52nd San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain.
Ah yes, the glorious people "on the streets," imbued with an
almost supernatural wisdom, the absolute last word in the
legitimacy of a leader and of a political system. How could they
possibly be wrong, particularly when Stone doesn't want them
to be?
Of course, if they happen to be people on the streets of towns
and cities in any of the red states of America and profess to
admire President Bush, I'm guessing Stone wouldn't consider
them quite so wise. In that case, they might just be a bunch of
right-wing reactionaries whose affection for their leader is a
result either of mental instability or inherent evil.
Given Stone's history and his politics, no one should be
particularly surprised at this latest celluloid paean to his
favorite dictator. In Stone's mind, Castro epitomizes
revolutionary chic and Cuba is a land not of grinding poverty,
iron-fisted authoritarianism and washed-up communistic
ideology, but rather an uncorrupt utopia of free health care,
exemplary educational standards and simply some of Latin
America's happiest people.
Just close your eyes and imagine an idyllic tropical island
where the masses "on the streets" are prone to spontaneous
exaltations about their beloved leader and voluntarily
congregate in stifling heat to hear Fidel's frequent five-hour
public "speeches." Imagine, further, that the delightful
conditions in Cuba are a result of Fidel and his merry band of
charismatic comrades who decades ago selflessly came down
from the mountains and out of the jungles to overthrow the
yoke of capitalist slave drivers and set up a workers' paradise.
It's a quite lovely reverie, is it not?
When a journalist at the Film Festival in Spain had the
temerity to interrupt that reverie and ask Stone if the scenes of
popular expressions for Castro in his movie were staged, he
replied that he knew none of it was fake. "I have directed
actors and I know when people are pretending and when they
are not," he said.
Well, sure, Oliver, but isn't it a bit tougher to interpret the
true emotions of large masses of people in a foreign country
than it is to notice that Woody Harrelson, for instance, just
isn't giving a convincing performance on the set one day,
probably due to the
previous night's overindulgence in controlled substances?
Not withstanding Stone's delusions of grandeur where his
interpretive powers are concerned, let's imagine that he's right
and that the majority of Cubans think that Castro is indeed the
cat's meow. All right, then, so what?
Vast numbers of people sincere in their adulation of a
dictator doesn't mean that it's all just fine and dandy. Vast
numbers of people thought that Hitler was the greatest thing
since sliced bread. Ditto Hirohito. Vast numbers of people
right now sincerely believe that Osama bin Laden's vision of an
oppressive pan-Arab Muslim theocracy where infidels are
summarily beheaded is just the greatest idea that's ever been
hatched.
But let's give it to Stone that Cubans--at least the ones that
haven't already fled at the risk of their lives like millions of
others--are truly fond of the bearded one. Wouldn't it still be
nice--not to mention decent, moral and just--if those adoring
masses had an opportunity to actually vote for their leader the
same way Stone does and the way the people of almost every
other country in Latin America do?
Stone apparently fails to see anything the least bit unseemly
in the fact that while he will be punching in his vote against
Bush with supreme relish come November, nobody in Cuba gets
to say word one about Fidel's thus far 45-year "presidency"
without risking prison or a firing squad.
What is it about Stone that allows him to divine, on the one
hand, an insanely arcane and labyrinthine conspiracy in the
death of JFK involving the FBI, CIA, Supreme Court and
Lyndon Johnson, but does not allow him to see the utterly
obvious, which is that Castro is a murdering megalomaniacal
dictator?
Stone's belief system is, no doubt, a result of the '60s,
mind-altering drugs, Vietnam and Watergate, all of which
when combined created a maturity-stunting brew and caused
intellectual as well as moral confusion for so many of the baby
boom generation. Of course, tens of millions from that
generation did manage to eventually grow up and get beyond
all the countercultural nonsense that sounded so appealing
when they were stoned adolescents grooving to a trippy
psychedelic soundtrack.
But not Oliver. In 1991, twenty years after rock star Jim
Morrison was found dead in the bathtub at age 27, Stone made
a worshipful movie about him. While most of us are able to
pretty much see Morrison for what he really was, a moderately
talented, booze- and drug-addicted wretch, Stone sees him as
some sort of countercultural pied piper of self-expression who
fought the oppressive and hypocritical restraints of
mainstream society until the day he died.
Is it possible that in Stone's mind, Castro is some kind of Jim
Morrison-like anti-establishment figure, only in fatigues,
running his hapless little country at the glorious displeasure of
the big bad United States for all these years?
Who knows? The only thing we can be sure of is that Stone
remains on a permanent hallucinatory trip unencumbered by
any realities that have occurred on the ground since
Woodstock and Vietnam. Castro's reign of murder and
oppression may seem like a delectable anti-American triumph
to Stone, but to most others it's just been a 45-year long
bummer.
"In Cuba, I observed an openness and freedom that I had not
found in any other country in the region, the Caribbean or
Central America. I . . . have never seen the kind of spontaneous
affection for a leader expressed on the streets as I have seen in
Cuba towards Fidel." --- Oliver Stone, giving comments before
the premier of his second movie about Castro, "Looking For
Fidel," at the 52nd San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain.
Ah yes, the glorious people "on the streets," imbued with an
almost supernatural wisdom, the absolute last word in the
legitimacy of a leader and of a political system. How could they
possibly be wrong, particularly when Stone doesn't want them
to be?
Of course, if they happen to be people on the streets of towns
and cities in any of the red states of America and profess to
admire President Bush, I'm guessing Stone wouldn't consider
them quite so wise. In that case, they might just be a bunch of
right-wing reactionaries whose affection for their leader is a
result either of mental instability or inherent evil.
Given Stone's history and his politics, no one should be
particularly surprised at this latest celluloid paean to his
favorite dictator. In Stone's mind, Castro epitomizes
revolutionary chic and Cuba is a land not of grinding poverty,
iron-fisted authoritarianism and washed-up communistic
ideology, but rather an uncorrupt utopia of free health care,
exemplary educational standards and simply some of Latin
America's happiest people.
Just close your eyes and imagine an idyllic tropical island
where the masses "on the streets" are prone to spontaneous
exaltations about their beloved leader and voluntarily
congregate in stifling heat to hear Fidel's frequent five-hour
public "speeches." Imagine, further, that the delightful
conditions in Cuba are a result of Fidel and his merry band of
charismatic comrades who decades ago selflessly came down
from the mountains and out of the jungles to overthrow the
yoke of capitalist slave drivers and set up a workers' paradise.
It's a quite lovely reverie, is it not?
When a journalist at the Film Festival in Spain had the
temerity to interrupt that reverie and ask Stone if the scenes of
popular expressions for Castro in his movie were staged, he
replied that he knew none of it was fake. "I have directed
actors and I know when people are pretending and when they
are not," he said.
Well, sure, Oliver, but isn't it a bit tougher to interpret the
true emotions of large masses of people in a foreign country
than it is to notice that Woody Harrelson, for instance, just
isn't giving a convincing performance on the set one day,
probably due to the
previous night's overindulgence in controlled substances?
Not withstanding Stone's delusions of grandeur where his
interpretive powers are concerned, let's imagine that he's right
and that the majority of Cubans think that Castro is indeed the
cat's meow. All right, then, so what?
Vast numbers of people sincere in their adulation of a
dictator doesn't mean that it's all just fine and dandy. Vast
numbers of people thought that Hitler was the greatest thing
since sliced bread. Ditto Hirohito. Vast numbers of people
right now sincerely believe that Osama bin Laden's vision of an
oppressive pan-Arab Muslim theocracy where infidels are
summarily beheaded is just the greatest idea that's ever been
hatched.
But let's give it to Stone that Cubans--at least the ones that
haven't already fled at the risk of their lives like millions of
others--are truly fond of the bearded one. Wouldn't it still be
nice--not to mention decent, moral and just--if those adoring
masses had an opportunity to actually vote for their leader the
same way Stone does and the way the people of almost every
other country in Latin America do?
Stone apparently fails to see anything the least bit unseemly
in the fact that while he will be punching in his vote against
Bush with supreme relish come November, nobody in Cuba gets
to say word one about Fidel's thus far 45-year "presidency"
without risking prison or a firing squad.
What is it about Stone that allows him to divine, on the one
hand, an insanely arcane and labyrinthine conspiracy in the
death of JFK involving the FBI, CIA, Supreme Court and
Lyndon Johnson, but does not allow him to see the utterly
obvious, which is that Castro is a murdering megalomaniacal
dictator?
Stone's belief system is, no doubt, a result of the '60s,
mind-altering drugs, Vietnam and Watergate, all of which
when combined created a maturity-stunting brew and caused
intellectual as well as moral confusion for so many of the baby
boom generation. Of course, tens of millions from that
generation did manage to eventually grow up and get beyond
all the countercultural nonsense that sounded so appealing
when they were stoned adolescents grooving to a trippy
psychedelic soundtrack.
But not Oliver. In 1991, twenty years after rock star Jim
Morrison was found dead in the bathtub at age 27, Stone made
a worshipful movie about him. While most of us are able to
pretty much see Morrison for what he really was, a moderately
talented, booze- and drug-addicted wretch, Stone sees him as
some sort of countercultural pied piper of self-expression who
fought the oppressive and hypocritical restraints of
mainstream society until the day he died.
Is it possible that in Stone's mind, Castro is some kind of Jim
Morrison-like anti-establishment figure, only in fatigues,
running his hapless little country at the glorious displeasure of
the big bad United States for all these years?
Who knows? The only thing we can be sure of is that Stone
remains on a permanent hallucinatory trip unencumbered by
any realities that have occurred on the ground since
Woodstock and Vietnam. Castro's reign of murder and
oppression may seem like a delectable anti-American triumph
to Stone, but to most others it's just been a 45-year long
bummer.