Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game by Oliver Stone
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published
July 2020
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Oliver Stone is an interesting writer-director for me. I
think when he is on Salvador, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July,
Natural Born Killers, U-Turn he is great. He has made some turds like
Alexander etc. So when I saw that he had written a book about his early
career I thought it would be interesting. I have enjoyed interviews with
him and learned a few things about story-telling. One of my favorite
quotes about writing comes from him.
"Ass plus chair equals writing," I often say you can't write a novel without that equation.
The frame that this memoir hangs on is the years Oliver Stone worked in the Hollywood salt mines. His early life, his parents, going to war, screenwriting, and up to the moment when he was at the top of the film world when Platoon upset the Oscars and swept the major awards. It is a success story that is not exactly rags to riches in a straight line. Stone won the Oscar for writing Midnight Express.
It is interesting to see how winning the major prize didn't guarantee he would get the movies he wanted to make. I was somewhat interested in his early life and upbringing, once it got into Hollywood life and cocaine I was a little uncomfortable how sad some of that stuff was.
I liked some of the details behind his Conan script which I have read and really enjoyed. A few of the projects that never happened was interesting. His struggles with his first horror movie The Hand were OK. The stories of what a jerk James Woods was in the production of Salvador was not surprising but very interesting considering he has become a big Trumper
The thing is this information and the stories were fine but really were more fitting for a DVD audio commentary or a long-form interview like Marc Maron or Terry Gross. That is my biggest problem with this book is that I wanted these stories I just don't think it was worth 300 pages and taking away from other reading.
"Ass plus chair equals writing," I often say you can't write a novel without that equation.
The frame that this memoir hangs on is the years Oliver Stone worked in the Hollywood salt mines. His early life, his parents, going to war, screenwriting, and up to the moment when he was at the top of the film world when Platoon upset the Oscars and swept the major awards. It is a success story that is not exactly rags to riches in a straight line. Stone won the Oscar for writing Midnight Express.
It is interesting to see how winning the major prize didn't guarantee he would get the movies he wanted to make. I was somewhat interested in his early life and upbringing, once it got into Hollywood life and cocaine I was a little uncomfortable how sad some of that stuff was.
I liked some of the details behind his Conan script which I have read and really enjoyed. A few of the projects that never happened was interesting. His struggles with his first horror movie The Hand were OK. The stories of what a jerk James Woods was in the production of Salvador was not surprising but very interesting considering he has become a big Trumper
The thing is this information and the stories were fine but really were more fitting for a DVD audio commentary or a long-form interview like Marc Maron or Terry Gross. That is my biggest problem with this book is that I wanted these stories I just don't think it was worth 300 pages and taking away from other reading.
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