Great news: Oliver Stone documentary to put Hitler “in context”

Via Weasel Zippers. Platoon, JFK, The Doors: Isn’t this guy’s work supposed to be some sort of cinematic window into the historical memory of Boomers? I didn’t realize that “Hitler got a bad rap” was floating around in there alongside Woodstock and acid.

At least we know the film will be scrupulously accurate.

“Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena.

“Stalin has a complete other story,” Stone said. “Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’ Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He’s the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect … People in America don’t know the connection between WWI and WWII … I’ve been able to walk in Stalin’s shoes and Hitler’s shoes to understand their point of view. We’re going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated.”…

Stone said that conservative pundits will dislike the show.

“Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not going to like this history and, as usual, we’re going to get those kind of ignorant attacks,” said Stone, who also also compared the experience of sympathizing with war criminals to making his “W” movie about George W. Bush. “I’m trying to understand somebody I thoroughly despised.”

Haven’t heard a good backhanded Bush/Hitler analogy in awhile but that’ll do nicely. Exit question one: Anyone not think his “contextualization” of an economically depressed Germany turning to populist political terror is going to end in some sort of half-assed tea-party analogy? Exit question two: Why does Stone assume that only conservative pundits will object to trying to understand Stalin’s and Hitler’s “point of view”? Not saying he’s wrong, but I’d love to hear him explain.

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