BELGIUM: OLIVER STONE'S NEW FILM "U TURN" GOES ON SHOW AT BRUSSELS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 387456

  • Title: BELGIUM: OLIVER STONE'S NEW FILM "U TURN" GOES ON SHOW AT BRUSSELS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 22nd January 1998
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JANUARY 23, 1998) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) MORGAN FREEMAN WALKING UP STEPS FREEMAN BEING HANDED MICROPHONE (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) FREEMAN SAYING, "THANK YOU VERY MUCH. YOU HAVE MADE ME VERY HAPPY THIS AFTERNOON, THIS EVENING. MY FRENCH ISN'T THAT GOOD BUT I TRY." PHOTOGRAPHERS FREEMAN RECEIVING CRYSTAL IRIS AWARD
  • Embargoed: 6th February 1998 12:00
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  • Location: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
  • Country: Belgium
  • Reuters ID: LVA6XQDQQ0WY5AYYKYY3CESPOI9L
  • Story Text: - Award-winning U.S. film director Oliver Stone has attacked modern-day American culture and the US media for preventing controversial films making it to the screen.

    Speaking at the 25th Brussels International Film Festival, at which he was also awarded a Crystal Iris for his outstanding career, Stone said: "It's very tough to get contemporary social subjects done in our country".

    "There is a predetermined demographic ethic that exists and the increasing power of the media makes it impossible to get something that contradicts their social values through to the public. It puts a false morality on the U.S. culture," he added.

    Stone was at the festival to present his latest film, "U-turn", which he described as a suspense thriller with elements of black comedy.

    The film sidesteps the political criticism that dogged JFK and Nixon and marks a return to the timeless crowd-pullers of sex, greed, betrayal and murder.

    Stone said he had used Hitchcock as an inspiration for the violent scenes in "U-turn" because his murders were messy.

    "To kill someone is a very hard thing to do. Generally it doesn't go to plan and great humour comes from that awkwardness," he said.

    "I detest TV murders where people die without realism functioning at all".

    Stone's "U-Turn" explores how low a man will go to survive.

    It stars Sean Penn who plays a gambler stranded in a small desert town when his car breaks down. In just 24 hours, he has a profound effect on everyone he meets. Penn becomes desperate to leave town when he finds himself penniless and his car is held hostage by a mechanic.

    He is offered a ticket out of town but at a cost. Someone has to die and it is up to him to choose. The consequences are brutal.

    In Brussels at the same time to receive a Crystal Iris award was Morgan Freeman, who appears in three films at the festival - Mikael Salomon's "Hard Rain", Steven Spielberg's "Amistad" and Gary Fleder's "Kiss the Girls".

    "Hard Rain", which premiered in the United States earlier this month, tells the story of a security van hold-up in a town hit by flooding and torrential rain.

    The movie was filmed on a set built inside a giant water tank, so all those involved spent most of their time waist-deep in water under rain-sprinklers.

    But Freeman insisted he had not been put off by the rain.

    "The people who really suffer are the crew" he told a news conference. "The actors are coddled - would you like to come out of the water Mr Freeman, here's a coat Mr Freeman".

    The 60-year-old actor, whose previous films include "Driving Miss Daisy", "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Seven", said that although he had come late to Hollywood, his early grounding on stage had helped him to find success now.
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