CHASING THE LIGHT

By Oliver Stone

Octopus

Filmmaker Oliver Stone, renowned for his movies about historical figures and events, turns his lens on his own life with this memoir that covers his childhood and life as a young man, his time in the army during the Vietnam war and his career up to his Oscar win for 1986’s Platoon.

Stone, who is now 77, got his start in Tinseltown writing screenplays for movies, including Midnight Express, which earned him his first Oscar, Conan the Barbarian and Scarface, before making a name as a director.

His book opens with a vivid and quite thrilling anecdote about shooting a particularly complicated and dangerous action sequence for his 1986 movie, Salvador – a fictional story about a pair of journalists (played by James Woods and Jim Belushi) covering the early 1980s revolution in El Salvador.

Woods, though not named by Stone, doesn’t come off very well in his recollection, and it’s this unflinching warts-and-all frankness that characterises the rest of his very readable book.

There are stories about his parents – his mother, a French war bride, met his mucholder father, a high-ranking officer, during World War 2, but their seemingly happy marriage had disintegrated by the time Stone was a teenager.

He writes about his troubled relationships with them, especially after their divorce, which he learnt about on the phone while he was at boarding school.

Stone doesn’t shy away from his own issues either, from his cocaine addiction, his time as a decorated soldier in a losing war and falling out with other filmmakers as he clawed his way into Tinseltown. It’s a compelling read and hopefully a second and third volume will follow.