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reductivism. “I do think that Snowden is a larger- thanlife story of what’s happening right now, under our noses, and continuing to happen,” he said. “This loss of privacy affects everyone.” Beyond that, the director said, he doesn’t want to say. “I don’t do the whole ‘ take- out’ thing,” Stone said. “I’m always asked, ‘ Oliver, what is the message of this film? What should I take out of this movie?’ Hey, I make the movie. It is what it is. Watch it, learn from it, see it again. My movies are complicated. You walk away and you decide.” Being Oliver Stone, though, he couldn’t leave it at that. “Of course, if you’re willing to surrender all of your security to the government because they say that they will protect you, then that’s your business,” he said. “But ask yourself: Do you really believe a government can protect you from life?”

Snowden is only the latest controversial credit for Stone, a New York native who turned 70 on September 15. His films include Platoon, Wall Street ( 1987), Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Natural Born Killers ( 1994), Nixon, Any Given Sunday ( 1999), World Trade Center ( 2006), W ( 2008) and Savages ( 2012).

Each in its own way kicked up a rumpus, which is fine with Stone.

“I like my films,” he said. “Each one represents an emotional investment of time and life. Each one has taken me to another place. It’s a growth of consciousness. I try not to work on a film unless it has meaning. Snowden is a culmination of where I am now.”

Stone — who won Oscars as Best Director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, and for Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express ( 1978) — is widely viewed as having been shaped primarily by his experiences as an American soldier fighting in Vietnam, but he thinks there’s more to it than that.

“Savagery happened earlier,” he explained. “There was schoolyard cruelty. I thought being in the military was a great experience for me. You understand what a country means.

“I do see Vietnam as the biggest turning point in history,” Stone admitted. “It turned us away from our objective as a country. Another thing we realised is how inefficient the military can be. They spend so much money and everything is ( fouled) up. We overreact to a bullet. Everyone goes crazy. They bring in planes and bomb the ( crap) out of everybody. That’s what we continue to do: we swat flies with elephants.”

Looking to the future, Stone seemed pessimistic, but not entirely without hope. He cited a famous quote from Benjamin Franklin.

“He was asked, ‘ What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’” the filmmaker said. “Franklin said, ‘ A republic, if you can keep it.’ All of these years later, the sovereignty of the individual has been completely overrun and it’s getting worse. So where does it end?

“What I know is that there are a lot of young people out there who are pretty angry,” Stone concluded. “I think we have a reckoning coming.”

— The New York Times Syndicate