The Rising Stone

"I have no deal with any studio. I'm a free man—relatively. I can make a movie anywhere. I'm obviously smart in the sense that I'm very pragmatic. If I can get a lot of money from Tom Pollock to make a movie, I will. If I have to take less money to make a movie and shoot it on [digital video], I will—though I hope not, because DV doesn't look that good... But no one has really answered my question about [the inflation of the movie industry]. My criticism earlier was not only about the studio system, but about apathy and greed in general, in relation to world trade. I think if we don't look at that, then we're not respecting the reality."

"Doesn't anyone want to make the connection between the [presidential] election of 2000 and what happened on September 11? Let's look for the 13th month; let's look to the universe and see if the year will terminate. Obviously, we hope it will not—but there might be great [forces] at work here. The 2000 election was a complete vindication of the fact that capitalism has destroyed democracy."

Paramount Pictures

Born on the 12th of September: director Oliver Stone (left) on the set of 'World Trade Center'

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"With [[digital video], what you need is a place to project it. Right now, you can't project it [properly]: The frame is all over the place. [DV] works with certain films. It helps if the image is smaller, if it's on TV or your laptop. But when you see some of this stuff [on the big screen]—I mean, Spike [Lee]'s movie Bamboozled is a very interesting movie, very provocative, but it looks like it was shot on toilet paper. The audience is not used to seeing that."

"What we're seeing [in the wake of the 9/11 attack] is a revolt, a revolution. When [the attack was seen on TV], people celebrated. It's like the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution: People were dancing in the streets. Because that's the way they feel. They're making a very clear statement to us—a statement of their feelings, a statement of opposition. I'm very concerned about this. As an American—I was [a soldier] in Vietnam—it feels very personal to me. It's a violation on a deep level. And I feel very sad for families whose fathers are not coming home, men who are not going to be in [their families'] lives. 'Vengeance is mine,' said the Lord. 'An eye for an eye.' This is apocalyptic, Old Testament stuff. [The attack] was an Old Testament move—a very, very mystical act. And it's not over."