Stone himself serves as guide to this no-holds-barred retrospective—an extremely candid and comprehensive monograph of the renowned and controversial writer, director, and cinematic historian in interview form.
Over the course of five years, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (Midnight Express, Scarface, Platoon, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Snowden) and New York Times bestselling author Matt Zoller Seitz (The Wes Anderson Collection) discussed, debated, and deconstructed the arc of Stone's outspoken, controversial life and career with extraordinary candor. This book collects those conversations for the first time, including anecdotes about Stone's childhood, Vietnam, his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, and his continual struggle to reinvent himself as an artist. Their dialogue is illustrated by hundreds of never-before-seen photographs and documents from Stone's personal archive, dating back to Stone's birth: personal snapshots, private correspondence, annotated script pages and storyboards, behind-the-scenes photography, and production files from all of his films to date—through 2016's Snowden, and including Stone's epic Showtime mini-series Untold HIstory of the United States. Critical commentary from Seitz on each of Stone's films is joined by original essays from filmmaker Ramin Bahrani; writer, editor, and educator Kiese Laymon; writer and actor Jim Beaver; and film critics Walter Chaw, Michael Guarnieri, Kim Morgan, and Alissa Wilkinson.
At once a complex analysis of a master director’s vision and a painfully honest critical biography in widescreen technicolor, The Oliver Stone Experience is as daring, intense, and provocative as Stone’s films—it's an Oliver Stone movie about Oliver Stone, in the form of a book.
Both this book and Stone’s highly anticipated film, Snowden, will be released in September 2016 to coincide with Stone’s seventieth birthday (September 15, 1946).
Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: Mad Men Carousel, The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Wes Anderson Collection.
Praise
"...it’s the must-have movie book of the fall...It’s a film school in book form – enlightening, entertaining, and essential."Flavorwire
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“. . . a lavish coffee-table book full of images and introspection. . .”Parade online
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“…definitive…everything you could possibly want to know about the filmmaker."AM New York
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". . . this lavish, beautiful book is as much a piece of serious criticism as it is an expression of pure movie love."The Miami Herald
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"Jammed with lengthy Q&As with two-time Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, as well as news clippings, scripts, rare photos, and memos, Matt Zoller Seitz's 480-page book is, like the filmmaker and his movies, obsessive and captivating."Variety online
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“Seitz’s auteurist biography is kaleidoscopic in its dispensing of intimate photographs, archival images and pop culture iconography. Just as Stone’s own kinetic editing explodes in his films, so does the book conflate dynamic interviews and critical analyses with taut narrative urgency.”MovieMaker
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