REVIEW
IN ITS ORIGINALSpanish, the word “salvador”
means “saviour”. The title of Oliver Stone’s third feature
as a director (following the less-than-successfulSeizureand
The Hand) couldn’t be more apt. A kind of ‘Withnail And
I Goes To War’, it rescued the filmmaker’s career from the
scrapheap. Stone’s rough-hewn, vital, gripping true story
throws two clowns into a morass of violence and political
intrigue as photojournalist Richard Boyle (James Woods)
and his buddy, DJ Doctor Rock (James Belushi), head to
El Salvador and become embroiled in a civil war between
the right wing military and left wing revolutionaries. Beset
by battles on all sides, Stone’s film nevertheless went on to
Oscar-nominated success. Here the colourful filmmaker
recounts his descent into filmmaking hell.Oliver Stonerecalls the making of
perhaps the most explosive shoot in
film history,SalvadorWhy did you step out of the Hollywood
mainstream to make Salvador?
I had no choice. After The Hand, I was
struggling. There were no jobs as a
director and I wanted to direct. I wrote
Scarface and that didn’t get me anywhere
really. Midnight Express was very
controversial. I had also written the
screenplays for Born On The Fourth
Of A July and Platoon, which had also
been rejected. All my stuff had been
volatile up until that point. I was also
known as a volatile person. I realised,
“I am going to have to make my
own movie.”What led you to Salvador?
I met Richard Boyle the same time I met
Ron Kovic [subject of Stone’s Born On
The Fourth Of July]. Boyle had written
some sketchy stories based on his
journalism in Salvador. On the way to the
airport, he pulled them out of the back
seat of the car and they were fantastic.
At this point I didn’t feel I was
compatible with Hollywood. There were
some new entrepreneurs like John Daly
out of England. Daly was taking some
risks with his little company, Hemdale.
He actually said to me, “Platoon and
Salvador are both great scripts. Which
one do you want to do first?” Nobody
had ever asked me a question like that.
I decided Salvador because I felt Platoon
would be cursed again and fall apart.How did the screenplay come together?
Richard had been thrown out of Vietnam
by the Government. He’d reported on
mutinies. He’d been to Ireland,
Nicaragua, the Lebanon during that
revolution. He was at various key events
in Salvador. His stories were full of a bit
of the Irish blarney. He had that gonzo
journalist style that you just don’t find in
mainstream journalism. We wrote the
screenplay together. He introduced me to
the place, it was quite amazing. The right
wing party liked me very much because
they loved Scarface. These guys were
slapping us on the back, drinking toasts
to Tony Montana. They kept talking
about their favourite scenes and acting
out the killings: “Tony Montana, mucho
cojones! Ratta-tat-tat! Kill the fucking ❯