Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Stone: Castro's Charm Doesn't Affect Film - "...one of Earth's wisest people.."
yahoo.com ^ | February 17, 2003 | uncredited

Posted on 02/17/2003 1:01:25 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

BERLIN - Oliver Stone says the charms of Fidel Castro did not cause him to lose his objectivity when filming a documentary of the 76-year-old Cuban president.

Nevertheless, the three-day encounter left a deep impression. "We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult," Stone said at a press conference after "Comandante" was screened Friday at the Berlin Film Festival.

"The film is an attempt to portray the human figure," Stone said of the HBO documentary in which Castro talks about Che Guevara and the assassination of President Kennedy, and offers a rare glimpse into his private life.

Stone, director of "Platoon" and "Nixon," also was keen to point out the achievements of the Castro regime, such as providing schooling and basic services lacking elsewhere in Latin America, and said he hoped the film might prompt a change in U.S. policy.

"I believe the embargo is outdated," he said. "There is a difficult lobby in Miami and Washington which prevents us breaking this barrier. It points to the power of vengeance and obsessiveness."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: communist; fidelcastro; oliverstone
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-48 next last
To: All
A reminder on the gift of democracy*** Maria had once told me that before leaving Cuba, she had been forced into two years of hard labor by the government when it found out that she wanted to leave the country. She never said much about it, and I didn't question her. Maybe it was the sweetness of the drink that brought her back to the beauty of Cuba that she loved. When Maria talked, though some of her words seemed dark and shocking, she withdrew in silence, and in the background of a solitude of mind I had never witnessed before, she related images and landscapes of hope and promise that saved her from the devastation of the terrible experience.

She told me that the officials would bring workers, including many women, to different labor camps every day. One particular day began with the usual slice of bread (often trodden upon by rats before it was finally served), and guava. The rain had been severe and the ground was thick with mud. Their job was to fertilize seedlings. In the background, Maria heard women crying. Their cries were devastating, and through cruel means of control, the officials told the women that their fate was better than turning to prostitution for a living.***

21 posted on 02/17/2003 2:22:54 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Despite the huge changes that the 1959 revolution made in Cuban society, some social problems have not been completely eliminated

Yeah, like how to eliminate the basic desire for freedom that all human beings are born with....

22 posted on 02/17/2003 2:33:06 AM PST by freebilly (Why do Republicans play hardball like little girls...?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Casto needs to hurry and die first. Then there will be the inevitable delays and power shifting. Bet that the country will be headed for democratic reforms three years after Castro is pushing up daisys.
23 posted on 02/17/2003 2:37:09 AM PST by ex-Texan (primates capitulards toujours en quete de fromage!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

Comment #24 Removed by Moderator

To: freebilly
Yeah, like how to eliminate the basic desire for freedom that all human beings are born with....

Delighting in the Dictator*** In the late 1970s the American writer Sally Quinn returned from Cuba having found it an Isle of Eros. Said she of the country that then housed thousands of political prisoners in dirty cells and torture chambers, "an attitude of sexuality is as pervasive in Cuba as the presence of Fidel Castro. You can feel sex in the atmosphere." Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern bounced around the Cuban countryside with Fidel in a jeep and survived to tell of it. Said he of a man who even then was sending arms and soldiers around the world to support Communist terror and oppose American policy, Fidel is "soft-spoken, shy, sensitive, sometimes witty….I frankly, liked him." And Senator Lowell Weicker, the Republican ever on the prowl for a presidential nomination, launched this line certain to illuminate his presidential qualifications. "Castro's been known to snow people but he didn't snow me," Weicker asseverated. He spoke of Fidel's "enormous intellect and idealism" -- yes, idealism! He questioned why the United States did not take Fidel's side, the side of progress.***

25 posted on 02/17/2003 2:44:09 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Thanks for the link. I understand Saddam Hussein is personally a very generous and gracious man. Maybe we can arrange to have Oliver Stone spend some time with him....
26 posted on 02/17/2003 3:04:33 AM PST by freebilly (Why do Republicans play hardball like little girls...?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: freebilly
I think a visit in the very near future should give him a lot of material.
27 posted on 02/17/2003 3:10:34 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
I think all liberals loathe democracy and republics. They wish they had the courage to tell people what's best for them, and to "thin the ranks" of undesirables.
28 posted on 02/17/2003 3:31:43 AM PST by Puddleglum
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Puddleglum
Casstroll is so smart he put the liberals out to pasture and Bush in the presidency via Elian and his mega -- egomania !
29 posted on 02/17/2003 4:01:43 AM PST by f.Christian (((((((((((( imploding // communism ))))))))))))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Puddleglum
Excerpt from Hillary Clinton and the Third Way***It is Primary Colors' insight into the minds of these missionaries that is revealing. They see Clinton clearly as a flawed and often repellent human being. They see him as a lecher, a liar and a man who would destroy an innocent person in order to advance his own career. (This is, in fact, the climactic drama of the text). Yet through all the sordidness and lying, the personal ruthlessness and disorder, the idealistic missionaries faithfully follow and serve the leader.

They do it not because they are themselves corrupted through material rewards. The prospect of fame is not even what drives them. Think only of Harold Ickes, personally betrayed and brutally cast aside by Clinton, who nonetheless refused to turn on him, even after the betrayal. Instead, Ickes kept his own counsel and protected Clinton, biding his time and waiting for Hillary. Then joined her staff to manage her Senate campaign.

The idealistic missionaries in this true tale bite their tongues and betray their principles, rather than betray him. They do so because in Bill Clinton they see a necessary vehicle of their noble ambition and uplifting dreams. He, too, cares about social justice, about poor people and blacks (or so he makes them believe). They will serve him and lie for him and destroy for him, because he is the vessel of their hope. Because Bill Clinton "cares," he is the vital connection to the power they need to accomplish the redemption. Because the keys to the state are within Clinton's grasp, he becomes in their eyes the only prospect for advancing the progressive cause. Therefore, they will sacrifice anything and everything-principle, friends, country-to make him succeed.

But Bill Clinton is not like those who worship him, corrupting himself and others for a higher cause. Unlike them, he betrays principles because he has none. He will even betray his country, but without the slightest need to betray it for something else-for an idea, a party, or a cause.* He is a narcissist who sacrifices principle for power because his vision is so filled with himself that he cannot tell the difference.

But the idealists who serve him-the Stephanopoulos's, the Ickes's, the feminists, the progressives and Hillary Clinton-can tell the difference. Their cynicism flows from the very perception they have of right and wrong. They do it for higher ends. They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as having the power to redeem the world from evil. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their sordid and, if necessary, criminal means.

And that is why they hate conservatives. They hate you because you are killers of their dream. Because you are defenders of a Constitution that thwarts their cause. They hate you because your "reactionary" commitment to individual rights, to a single standard and to a neutral and limited state obstructs their progressive designs. They hate you because you are believers in property and its rights as the cornerstones of prosperity and human freedom; because you do not see the market economy as a mere instrument for acquiring personal wealth and political war chests, to be overcome in the end by bureaucratic schemes.

Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left-by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints.

Conservatives are caught by surprise because they see progressives as merely misguided, when in fact they are fundamentally misdirected. They are the messianists of a religious faith. But it is a false faith and a self-serving religion. Since the redeemed future that justifies their existence and rationalizes their hypocrisy can never be realized, what really motivates progressives is a modern idolatry: their limitless passion for the continuance of Them. - Excerpted from Hillary Clinton and the Racial Left - David Horowitz

30 posted on 02/17/2003 4:02:41 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Why does the phrase "Useful Idiot" spring to mind yet again?
31 posted on 02/17/2003 4:04:13 AM PST by RightOnline
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RightOnline
It fits so well.
32 posted on 02/17/2003 4:12:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Oliver Stone says the charms of Fidel Castro did not cause him to lose his objectivity ...

Maybe it was the money.

Sorry, i forgot. Stone isn't interested in money. He just wants us to see the reality of Castro. That's why this new movie will be free for all to see. Just like in Cooba.

33 posted on 02/17/2003 4:14:00 AM PST by raybbr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Oliver Stone's best movie was clearly 'The Doors', a subject (drugs and the 1960's) which Stone is no doubt an expert since he is still doing drugs and living in the 1960s.

His other stuff pure fiction but extremely useful to see what goes on inside the Demoncraps collectivist brain...

34 posted on 02/17/2003 4:32:23 AM PST by chilepepper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: raybbr; chilepepper
That's why this new movie will be free for all to see. Just like in Cooba.

His other stuff pure fiction but extremely useful to see what goes on inside the Demoncraps collectivist brain...

It's like watching a bunch of clowns. We'd be rolling in the aisles if it wasn't so tragic. I wonder what "peace" activists think about gun control being dictated by dictators.

35 posted on 02/17/2003 4:37:07 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Oliver Stone is a CRACK HEAD and that's a fact
36 posted on 02/17/2003 4:38:01 AM PST by cactusSharp
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: freebilly
Stone wouldn't, but some director should do a film about Hussein, Castro, and Arafat called "Bet you didn't know these guys are billionaires".
37 posted on 02/17/2003 4:40:53 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult ("Read Hillary's hips. I never had sex with that woman.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: cactusSharp

They look dazed.

38 posted on 02/17/2003 4:43:05 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people

To paraphrase, In the land of the single synapse [Stoneville], the dual synapse man [Castro] is king.

39 posted on 02/17/2003 4:54:32 AM PST by laredo44
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Stone and most of Hollywood love Castro and Cuba. Why don't they move there. Attention: Barbara Steisand, Martin Sheen, Danny Glover, back up what you say you believe. Move to Cuba and live in bliss with aleader you can love and adore. One of the wisest men in the world.

Go, go. You have my blessings.

40 posted on 02/17/2003 4:59:30 AM PST by auggy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-48 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson