USA: Oscar winning filmmaker Oliver Stone directs television ad critical of Iraq war

Record ID: 475352

  • Title: USA: Oscar winning filmmaker Oliver Stone directs television ad critical of Iraq war
  • Date: 9th May 2007
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (MAY 3, 2007) (REUTERS) OLIVER STONE, BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY'S AUTHOR RON KOVIC AND FORMER ARMY SGT. JOHN BRUHNS ENTERING PRESS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAEZT536LNQHUTTNKF5EIXAK1Q
  • Story Text: Oliver Stone unveils new ad that he directed calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, whose movies voiced the frustration of the Vietnam War generation, on Thursday unveiled a political ad calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The 30-second television spot, directed by Stone and sponsored by the MoveOn.org political action group and VoteVets.org, features a simple but impassioned plea by John Bruhns, a former infantry sergeant who fought in Iraq during the 2003 invasion and its aftermath.
    The 60-year-old filmmaker, who made the searing anti-war films "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July" some 20 years ago, told Reuters that America needs to listen to what the soldiers are saying about the war.
    "What we saw in the streets is that they(the Iraqi's) did not want us there," explained Stone. "You feel that from the iraqi civilians stand point, the war is lost in its origin because they feel they've become occupied. For that reason, I wanted to get John's message completely across and "move on" is getting it out there."
    As an American, Bruhns felt a duty to speak out against the war and called the current Bush policy on Iraq, wrong, immoral and irresponsible.
    "For my experience and I'm speaking for myself, the people who were attacking U.S. troops and killing American soldiers in Iraq, were the Iraqi people," said an emotional Bruhns. "They're attacking us, because they felt it was an occupation of their country,"
    Ron Kovic, the author of "Born on the Fourth of July" who was shot and paralysed in Vietnam, supplies a brief voice-over, saying "Support our troops. Bring them home."
    The ad will air nation-wide on CNN starting on Thursday for a week. It appears just after the veto by President George W. Bush of a bill from the Democratic-controlled Congress that would have set dates for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.
    Stone who fought in Vietnam in the 1960s, was asked to direct the ad for MoveOn.org, which says it has 3.2 million members in the United States campaigning for an end to U.S involvement in the four-year-old war.
    Although Stone does not appear in the ad, he said the parallels between U.S. involvement in Iraq and Vietnam were obvious.
    Stone is one of only a handful of directors to tackle the events of September 11, 2001 and the fallout of the attacks. His 2006 feature "World Trade Center" was seen as a surprisingly patriotic film that focused on police officers sent to rescue those trapped in New York's twin towers but who ended up buried in the rubble themselves.
    Asked if he was planning a movie about the war in Iraq, Stone said it was not his generation's war, but that he would be fascinated with doing a picture about the politics behind it the conflict.
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