Stone, Oliver
Identification American film director and
screenwriter
Born September 15, 1946; New York, New York
The 1980’s marked for Stone the end of his apprenticeship
as a writer of scripts for other directors and the beginning of
his own career as a filmmaker.
Oliver Stone began the 1980’s writing and directing
his first feature, a horror film calledThe Hand(1981).
Afterward, he spent the next five years writing screen-
plays for other filmmakers, includingConan the Bar-
barian(1982) for John Milius,Scarface(1983) for
Brian de Palma,Year of the Dragon(1985) for Michael
Cimino, andEight Million Ways to Die(1986) for Hal
Ashby. Writing for such talented directors prepared
him to craft better screenplays for his own films.
Stone had served in the U.S. Army for fifteen months
along the Cambodian boarder in the Vietnam War.
He was wounded twice and was awarded a Purple
Heart with an oak leaf cluster, as well as a Bronze Star
for valor. He returned home a changed man. It was
not surprising, then, that as a film director he even-
tually turned to the war for material.
In 1986, Stone released his third fea-
ture-length directorial effort,Platoon,
the first of what would become a trilogy
dealing with the Vietnam War and its
effects on those who fought in South-
east Asia.Platoonfocused on the day-to-
day combat experience of infantry sol-
diers, andBorn on the Fourth of July
(1989) dealt with the experiences of
returning vets as they worked to reinte-
grate themselves into American society.
Heaven and Earth(1993) would com-
plete the trilogy. The three movies pro-
vided perhaps one of the most devastat-
ing critiques of the war on film. The two
films released in the 1980’s helped fuel
a larger reassessment of the Vietnam
experience and its aftermath that be-
came one of the hallmarks of American
cinema in the 1980’s. This reassessment
led to an increasing number of films
critical of U.S. overseas engagements
generally, especially when they inter-
fered with the domestic social and polit-
ical environment of another country.
Stone’s social criticism did not stop with the Viet-
nam War, however. InSalvador(1986), released be-
forePlatoon, he explored the involvement of the
United States in Central America and provided a
vivid portrayal of a foreign policy both devastating
and dangerous in its execution.Wall Street(1987),
dedicated to his stockbroker father, exposed the fi-
nancial excesses of the stock market during a period
of widespread corruption and insider trading, prac-
tices his father deplored. The line “Greed is good,”
delivered by Michael Douglas portraying Gordon
Gekko, the principal offender in the film, could
have become a mantra for the period.Impact Oliver Stone became the most famous
American director of politically focused films of the
1980’s. His films were often brash, angry, violent,
and confrontational, and they usually dealt with con-
troversial subject matter. As a result, Stone simulta-
neously became one of the most admired and the
most reviled filmmakers in international cinema.
He won two Academy Awards for Best Director dur-
ing the decade, honoring his work onPlatoonand
Born on the Fourth of July.922 Stone, Oliver The Eighties in America
Oliver Stone, left, celebrates with Ron Kovic, the subject of the director’sBorn on
the Fourth of July,after the film swept most of the top drama awards at the 1990
Golden Globe Awards ceremony.(AP/Wide World Photos)