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Fri August 11, 2006

A Stone’s throw

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By Gene Triplett
The Oklahoman

DALLAS — The director of such dark dramas as “JFK” and “Nixon” is all about light today as he enters a hotel room where reporters are waiting, and promptly instructs a publicity assistant to open the diaphanous drapes that are billowing in front of the open window. Morning sun fills the room, illuminating Oliver Stone’s rugged, slightly weary-looking features as he shrugs out of his salmon-colored sports jacket and sits down to discuss why “World Trade Center” is not the kind of 9/11 dramatization anyone expected from him.


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“I wasn’t chasing the news,” he says in a baritone announcer’s voice, choosing his words meticulously. “I was trying to find a pattern of history, or perhaps something to dramatize that would be valid for the long term.”

In the months immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Stone suggested making a film about terrorism along the lines of “The Battle of Algiers,” a 1965 production that depicted the Algerian revolt against French imperialism. Controversy ensued, as it often does whenever Stone offers his political opinions.

“My idea was to look things in the face, not try to run away from them,” Stone says. “There was no desire to make any such film at that time. Then television usurped some of that territory with ‘Sleeper Cell’ and ‘24-7,’ and so on and so forth. So I was not interested in making a 9/11 film.”

Stone instead turned his attention to the filming of a different kind of historical drama, “Alexander,” which was shot in Morocco, Thailand and England.

“I went and did a film about a Macedonian conqueror from about 2,300 years ago and that was a beautiful way to get away from the mess, the grimness of the news ... the march to war, which frankly broke my heart as a Vietnam veteran,” he says. “I was very depressed and frankly happy to be able to work outside the country and work on another story.”

Not long after returning to the United States, Stone was given a script about 9/11 by fledgling screenwriter Andrea Berloff. Instead of a sweeping drama of carnage, chaos and nationwide fear, it was a much smaller-scale story of two Port Authority policemen, Sgt. John McLoughlin and officer Will Jimeno, who were searching for survivors inside the World Trade Center when the twin towers collapsed, pinning them beneath tons of rubble.

The story detailed their 24-hour ordeal, keeping each other alive with talk of family, their work, their hopes and dreams, while their wives and children experienced their own hell at home, not knowing if the men were dead or alive. Ultimately, Stone saw, the screenplay paid tribute not only to the dozens of police officers, firefighters and paramedics who risked their lives digging through shifting rubble to rescue the trapped men, but to first-responders everywhere. And it served as a memorial for all those who lost their lives that day.

“I said, ‘My God, I never thought of this for a 9/11 movie,’” Stone says. “This is a movie I want to do because this is completely different from anything that anyone’s doing. No one has thought of doing it from the inside out. Who knew that there were two survivors with an incredible story that’s true and it was dying to be told. Andrea’s script laid it out. It was inspirational.

“The wives, the concept of the wives having parallel deaths, so to speak. The rescue shocked me. I mean, it’s all true. When we screened this movie in Seattle the first time, the audience thought we’d laid a Hollywood story on top of the real story. We clarified that it was all true.”

To ensure accuracy and authenticity, the production enlisted the help of as many people involved in the rescue as possible, including McLoughlin and Jimeno, and their wives. It didn’t matter that Stone’s political views were poles apart from those of the two ex-cops. The director wasn’t speculating on possible conspiracies or laying any blame for 9/11. He was simply telling a story of courage and survival. Politics were never discussed.

“It wouldn’t have gone anywhere,” Stone says. “There was no reason, because they never talked about it in the hole. It was somewhat like my Vietnam experience. We never talked about politics over there. We didn’t talk about Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. It just didn’t come up.”

In a separate interview earlier that morning, Jimeno had said he never had any misgivings about Stone’s handling of the story.

“I was honored and proud, because I served in the military, I knew (Stone) served in the military, and there’s a common denominator,” Jimeno said. “I didn’t see combat in the military. I saw it in downtown Manhattan. Oliver had seen it in Vietnam. He knows what it means to lose a comrade.”

Stone says people who aren’t ready for a film about 9/11 are still in the grip of fear over the horrific events of that day.

“You know, you deny what you fear,” he says. “It was a day of strength, also. As John says in the movie, it was not just darkness, it was also light. ... The rescue shows our true reaction to the crisis was strength, not fear. That we were united. We did the right things. We responded to the nightmare on the ground level in the best possible way.”

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