Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight

Description

Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie GameAuthor: Stone, OliverPublication Date: 07\/21\/2020Format: Hardcover\nAn intimate memoir by the controversial and outspokenOscar-winning director and screenwriter about his complicated New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films asPlatoon,Midnight Express, andScarface.Before the international success ofPlatoonin 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts whiledriving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the high and low moments: We see meetings with Al Pacino over Stones scripts forScarface,Platoon, andBorn on the Fourth of July; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature,The Hand(starring Michael Caine); his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels forScarface; his stormy relationship withThe Deer Hunterdirector Michael Cimino; the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisiveSalvador;and tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Awardwinning film,Midnight Express.