Kind: captions
Language: en
if you could talk to vladimir putin once
again
now
what kind of
what kind of things would you talk about
here what kind of questions would you
ask
the following is a conversation with
oliver stone he's one of the greatest
filmmakers of all time with three oscar
wins and 11 oscar nominations
his films tell stories of war and power
fearlessly and often controversially
shining light on the dark parts of
american and global history
his films include platoon
wall street born on the 4th of july
scarface jfk nixon alexander w snowden
and documentaries where he has
interviewed some of the most powerful
and consequential people in the world
including fidel castro hugo chavez and
vladimir putin
and in this conversation oliver and i
mostly focus our discussion on vladimir
putin russia and the war in ukraine
my goal with these conversations is to
understand the human being before me
to understand not just what they think
but how they think to steal man their
ideas and to steal man the devil's
advocate
all in service of understanding not
derision
i have done this poorly in the past i'm
still struggling with this but i'm
working hard to do better
i believe the moment we draw lines
between good people and evil people
will lose our ability to see
that we're all one people in the most
fundamental of ways
and lose track of the deep truth
expressed by the old soldier knits in
line that i return to time and time
again
that the line between good and evil
runs to the heart of every man
oliver stone has a perspective that he
extensively documents in his powerful
controversial series the untold history
of the united states
that
imperialism and the military-industrial
complex paved the path to absolute power
and thus corrupt the minds of the
leaders and institutions that wield it
from this perspective the way out of the
humanitarian crisis and human suffering
in ukraine and the way out from the pull
of the beating drums of nuclear war is
not simple to understand
but we must because all of humanity
hangs in the balance
i will talk to many people who seek to
understand the way out of this growing
catastrophe including to historians to
leaders and perhaps most importantly to
people on the ground in ukraine and
russia
not just about war and suffering but
about life
friendship family love and hope
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in the description and now dear friends
here's oliver stone
you're working on uh a documentary now
about nuclear energy yes so it's
interesting to talk about this energy is
such a big part of the world
about the geopolitics of the world about
the way the world is what do you think
is the role of nuclear energy in the
21st century good question and first of
all hobbies everyone's talking about
climate change right so here i wake up
to that a few years ago and
clearly we're concerned
uh
i
picked up a book by josh goldstein and
his his co-author who's swedish those
two wrote a book called bright future a
bright future came out a few years ago
and i lapped it up it was a book
fact-based
clear
not too long and not too technical and
uh it was very clear that they were in
favor of all kinds of
renewables renewable energy yes
they hated made it very clear how
dangerous oil
and
gas were
methane
and made it very clear to the layman
like me and
at the same time said that this
renewables can work so far
but the gap is enormous as to what how
much electricity this kind of the world
is going to need
in 2050 and beyond
2 three four times we don't even know
the damage but we have india we have
china we have africa we have
asia coming on to the scene wanting more
and more electricity so they addressed
the problem as a global one not just as
often in the united states you get the
ethnocentric
united states point of view that we need
we know we're doing well blah blah blah
we're not doing well but we we we sell
that to people that were comfortable we
spend more energy than anybody this
country per capita
than anybody and at the same time
we don't seem to understand the global
picture so that's what they did and they
made me very aware so the only way to
close that gap the only way in their
mind is nuclear energy and talking about
a gap of building
a huge amount of reactors over the next
30 years
and
starting now
uh they make that point over and over
again
uh
so obviously this country the united
states is not going to go in that
direction because it just
is incapable with its of having that
kind of will political will and fear is
a huge factor and still a lot of
shibboleths a lot of
myths about
nuclear energy
have
confused and confounded the landscape
the environmentalists have played a huge
role
in
doing good things many good things but
also
confusing and confounding the landscape
and making accusations against nuclear
energy that were
exaggerated
so taking all these
things into consideration we set about
making this documentary which is about
finished now almost finishing it's an
hour and 40 minutes and that was a hard
part getting it down from
about three and a half hours to about
this something more manageable and is it
interviews its interviews among others
but essentially we went to russia we
went to france which is the most perhaps
advanced
nuclear country in the world russia
and the united states we went to the
idaho laboratory
and talked to the
the scientists there as well as the
department of energy people that are
handling this idaho is one of the
experimental labs the united states is
probably one of the most advanced and
they're doing a lot of advanced nuclear
there
we also uh
we studied well russia gave us a lot of
uh insight
we're very cooperative because they have
some of the most advanced uh nuclear
actually the probably most advanced
nuclear reactor in the world at bellairs
the ural mountains
so we we did an investigation there
and uh in france they haven't they have
some very advanced uh
nuclear reactors and their building and
now they're building again
they had a little the green party came
into power and just not into power but
became a factor in france and there was
a motion when hollande was president
they started to move away from it
actually they were beginning to just
abandon
they let not complete their in other
words let close down some of the nuclear
reactors there was talk of that but
thank god france did not do that and uh
macron came in and
recently reversed it it reversed it and
they're building as fast as they can now
especially with the ukraine war
uh going on there's
an awareness that
russia will not be providing or may not
be providing the energy europe needs
so
and then china is the other one too
that's the other factor i'm talking
about the big boys
they have doing tremendous work and fast
which is very hopeful
but of course china is building in all
directions at once the coal continues to
be huge in china
and
methane too but to basically colder coal
and india in china are the biggest users
of coal
and we know as you know germany went
back to coal a few years ago so all
these factors it's fascinating picture
globally so we try to achieve a
consensus that where nuclear can work
and where it will be working where and
it will be used more and more the
question is how much carbon dioxide
china
and russia will be putting out france is
the only one that's not putting it out
the united states has not changed with
all the talk and all the nonsense about
renewables and
the new lifestyle and all this it's it's
great for your guilt complex but it
doesn't do anything for the total commun
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the
world who's going to lead the way on
nuclear do you think you mentioned
russia france china united states who's
going to live i don't think it's going
to be a uni united nations kind of thing
because the world doesn't seem capable
of uniting we don't we go to these
conferences
kyoto and
we talk and we agree but then we don't
actually enforce so i don't think it can
happen that way i think it's
going to be an individual race with
countries they're going to just be do it
for their own self-interest like china
is doing it
china
the thing is if it works and i'm praying
that it will really work on a big scale
china will back away from coal naturally
the same thing will be true of india
they will see the benefits
because if you go to india you see the
cities the pollution you walk around in
that stuff and you know you get
it's not there's no hope in this and you
sense it so people will move in this
direction naturally because nuclear is
clean energy
and the amount of
casualties of nuclear is the lowest on
the industrial scale for energy
producing
from coal down to oil everything the
lowest casualty rate
very low is .002 or something is nuclear
so
not that many people have died from
nuclear not that many i think
50 people at chernobyl which was the
worst accident
nobody died at fukushima nobody died at
three mile island and that's what you
hear all over and over again these these
accidents
the environmentalists have sold us the
idea that they're dangerous
uh and it's a lot of environmentalists
thank god of changing it they've come
off that routine and they've saying
this we were wrong we've done a lot of
good work greenpeace did a lot of good
work whale whales saving this saving
that but
they admit themselves not they don't but
people who have been in the organization
have said we were wrong
in 1956
we showed the
the articles in the new york times that
came out the rockefeller foundation
which of course is a big
producer of oil the rockefeller family
and
the foundation came out uh
with a
study
which was weighted they tipped the scale
put a thumb on the scale but it was a
scientific
expose of radiation
in the uh in the in the study that came
out in the printed in the new york times
because the new york times publisher
salzburger was on their board he was one
of them at board members so they got a
lot of
strong publicity
condemning radiation from which killed
started the process of doubting nuclear
energy the radiation levels that they
pointed out were very minor and of
course if you go into a scientific
analysis of this now with what we know
it's just not true
but it it tilted the scale back in the
50s 60s and started the question
questioning the nuclear
business do you think that was
malevolence or incompetence no i think
it was competition
i don't think it was conspiracy as much
as it was a sense we don't want this
nucle nuclear energy is going to end the
dominance of oil absolutely and it will
and it will anyway because it's the only
sane way for the world to proceed but
the world
will have to learn through
adversity
so in other words the situation could
get worse
much worse
and certain countries are just gonna
have to adapt like we always do when
things become too hard you've got to go
you have to change your thinking
and humans are pretty good at that yes
talking about human nature they're very
adept at that
germany for example i mean they were
when the fukushima happened they went
out of the nuclear business that was
shocking to me
uh they just pulled out and they
destroyed uh
destructed several of their nuclear
reactors that were still functioning and
put up coal
or
or yeah put up coal and oil
replaced it and as a result
germany
drifted into this place next to france
their cons their electricity bills went
up and france has stayed the same they
don't have that they have a different
system in europe but you know more or
less no question that france was doing a
lot better than germany
and uh now
when with this ukraine issue it's a very
interesting fulcrum point whether
germany is go what what direction
they're going to go now how can they
how can they keep going with coal they
just can't
what's the connection between oil
coal nuclear and and war
sort of energy
and conflict
do you see when you look at the 21st
century when you were doing this
documentary were you thinking of nuclear
as a way to power the world but is it
also to
avoid conflict over resources
is there some aspect to energy being a
source of conflict that we are trying to
avoid
i don't have the energy the history of
energy at my at my fingertips and it's a
very
long history here but i would say in my
apparently not
it it does seem that it's individually
each country can answer its needs if
by building
and
up until now we haven't had conflict
except
in this issue of russia supplying europe
the
the uh
the obviously the pipeline
nordstream ii has been closed and
nordstrom one is also probably going to
be phased out
and
the concept of russia supplying gas to
europe is now up in here and who knows
what's going to happen i just don't see
how
europe can get away
from using
russian gas
but russian gas is not the solution
because it's methane too and it goes up
into the atmosphere methane is in in the
short term is just is worse than coal
worse
there's all kinds of charts we show in
the film we try not to be too over
factual
but
methane is not the answer it's a
short-term answer
the uh
will countries go to war over energy is
a is a question that i'm trying to think
of all the wars that happened
you could say germany of course during
world war ii needed oil very badly and
they it it dictated their strategy yeah
with romania etc and
getting the oil fields open but
i don't really care i'm not i haven't
thought that one through i'd have to
make a documentary on it to really
understand how
energy and war
interface it's always part of the
calculation but it's a question of how
much yeah right that's the question
you've uh i just have to ask because you
mentioned your mom was from france
you've traveled for this documentary and
you traveled in general throughout the
world in russia ukraine
um what are the defining characteristics
of these cultures let's let's go with
russia so i you know as as i told you i
came from i'm half ukrainian half
russian i came from that part of the
world what are some interesting
beautiful aspects of the culture of
russia and ukraine i can't really speak
honestly of ukraine i was there only in
and when i visited the soviet union
under the communism and i uh calve was
beautiful it was one of the nicer places
i went but they were very much
stultified by the communist system they
all were
the best places to visit in russia were
always in the south whether georgia or
or the uh the the uh muslim countries it
was always a better culture in terms of
comfort
but communism was rough and that was the
end of it pretty much brezhnev regime
and
then andropov gorbachev was three years
in the future when i was there so i
can't talk about ukraine with and
they've they're not been friendly to me
since isis of course since i made their
putin interviews you know ukraine
has banned me i believe they they've
been very tough on people who are
critical i think the russian people have
been very special to me
i and i'm perhaps because of my european
upbringing but i enjoy talking to them i
find them very open very generous
and
they appreciate support they appreciate
people who say
you know i understand why your
government is doing this or this or this
this is i've tried to stay open-minded
and listen to both sides the thing that
i have seen as an american is of course
this american
enmity towards russia from the very
beginning
i grew up in 1940 46 i was born in the
50s it was
it was so anti-russian
they were everywhere they were in our
schools they were in our state
department they were
spying on us they were stealing the
country from us that was the way the
american
right wing not even the right wing i'd
say the republican party pictured the
russians they were
actively engaged in infiltrating america
and changing our thinking yeah and
television shows were based on this it
was very much the j edgar hoover
mentality that communism was even behind
uh
the student protests of the 1960s that
this was the direction in which the fbi
and the cia were thinking
so i grew up with a prejudice
and it took me many years my father was
a republican
and he was a stock broker and he was a
very intelligent man but even he
because he was a world war ii soldier uh
he was a colonel
had fallen under the influence you it
had in order to be successful in
american business in the 1950s you had
to have a very strong
anti-anti-soviet line very strong you
wouldn't get ahead if you expressed any
kind of
let's end this cold war any kind of
activity of that nature you would be
cast aside as a as a pinko or somebody
who was
not completely on the board with the
american way of doing business which was
capitalism works communism doesn't
and in particular
communism is embodied by the soviet
union
um is the enemy so hence
hence yeah that's the way
you were the narrative behind the cold
war
that's correct
and it
basically lasted
i mean you saw the ups and downs of it
uh when reagan came in i was well first
of all we had the crisis of
1962 with the cuban missile crisis and
kennedy proved himself to be a warrior
for peace he resolved that with
khrushchev that was a big moment huge
moment and people don't give him credit
enough for
for really saving us from a war that
could have could have affected all of
mankind but it still didn't
avert
no because the moment he was killed
honestly there was a lot of we can talk
about that as you know i've made a film
jfk revisited as a documentary we
released uh this year
about
the movie i made in 1991
but
the moment he was killed i would argue
that lyndon johnson went back
immediately to the old way of thinking
the old way of doing business which was
the eisenhower
truman way since we which which we had
adapted since world war ii that was an
interim
you have to think about it from
roosevelt dies in 45 roosevelt has an
interim of
16 15 years where he
he he has he has more of a democratic
regime more liberal he establishes he
recognizes the soviet union for the
first time
since the revolution and he actually has
a relationship with them he sends
ambassadors who are friendly and
he wants he has a relationship with
stalin etc and uh at yalta
and uh uh tehran rather that's where he
had the relationship uh do you think if
jfk lived we would not have a cold war
no absolutely not i and we go into great
depth on that in the film and i'd urge
you to see it because it goes into all
the issues around the world kennedy was
being very much an anti-imperialist it
turns out and many people just don't
understand that but you have to look at
all his policies in middle east with
had a relationship with sukarno and
indonesia
uh with latin america he made a big
effort with the alliance for progress
and uh when africa above all with
lumumba he was very shocked at his death
and tried to de defend
the f the right the integrity of the
belgian congo with doug hammershold of
the u.n he made a big effort
unfortunately it didn't work out because
they were dog hammers all was killed and
then kennedy was killed and
congo descended into the chaos of joseph
mubutu's dictatorship
but kennedy was very active in terms of
as an irishman not as an englishman he
was an irishman
i say that because well we'll come back
to that because mr joe biden is an
irishman but it's a different kind of an
irishman they're both catholic irish but
kennedy really made an effort
to
change the imperialist mindset
that it still was very strong in america
and europe and lyndon johnson changed
back to the old policy and we were never
able to really
keep data going where the russians
briefly had it with carter but then
brzezinski came in brzezinski was his
national security adviser he was put
there by rockefeller and brzezinski was
a pole he got revenge from the poland
poland has always been attacking russia
as far as i remember
back to another century i mean the two
world wars that occupied russia and so
tragically
uh entry points were always through
poland and ukraine
uh
so uh brzezinski got his revenge and
carter ended up being an enemy of the
soviet union and
creating yet
as brzezinski took pride in it he
created the atmosphere of the trap for
the soviets to go into afghanistan in
79.
that trap was set he says he said in
um
so
there was never except for brief moments
of periods of
death with the soviets
and i grew up
under that i didn't really know anything
of this uh going on because i was
i was learning i was educating myself as
i was going learning movies and trying
to try to be a dramatist and this and
that so i wasn't thinking about this
then uh when reagan came in i was
worried again because it was it was a
beat of the old beat which was there the
most evil empire i mean it does it goes
on in american history it doesn't end
reagan got a lot of points for that
and of course when uh
when
gorbachev came in it was
a beautiful moment for the world it was
a great surprise it was probably the
best years of for america from at least
from my point of view in terms of this
relaxation in the mood
to 1991
were great years in terms of ability to
believe once again that there could be a
peace dividend
but the world changed again in 1991 92
there's an internal mechanism who knows
you could blame
you can blame the united states you
could blame russia for
gorbachev was perhaps not the right man
to try to administer that country at
that point he had great visions he was a
man of peace
but it was very difficult to hold
together such a huge empire so vision is
not enough to hold together the soviet
union i think
the details are interesting i followed
up on that a little bit because i was
recently in countries like kazakhstan
talked about uh
the the negotiations that were going on
and
the breakup of the soviet union it's
very interesting story because it
involves everything ukraine of course
everything is going on now some what is
it 30 million russians were left outside
of the soviet union when it collapsed
they had no home anymore they were homes
in other countries such as in ukraine
uh
so it's an interesting story and with
repercussions today
kazakhstan
is a per is a good example of keeping a
balance keeping it neutral yeah he
played both sides
and he because
yeltsin wanted him to join
the the russian confederation in a
certain way where
he'd be supporting against gorbachev
there's a whole inward battle there
uh
i think the the ukraine came along with
uh
yeltsin as well as
uh
you'd have i'm sorry i don't remember
now but two other two other regions came
with him and uh
that was a block that broke up the uh
the soviet union it was yeltsin's uh
plan to and it wasn't
make the russian federation and they did
i would love to return back to jfk
eventually
because he's such a fascinating figure
in the history
of human civilization but let me ask you
fast forward in 2000 yeltsin
was no longer president and vladimir
putin became president
you did
a series of interviews with vladimir
putin as you mentioned
over a period of two years from 2015 to
2017.
let's let me ask with a high level
question
what was your goal
with that conversation oh
came out in 2017 i guess i started him
in 2014
at that point
the snowden affair had happened i was
working on a movie on snowden that
happened in 13.
uh ukraine
happened in 14
and uh
one thing after another by by 14
putin was enemy number again becoming a
wanted man on the american list he was
enemy
he was certainly in the top five or
uh and but the the animosity towards
putin had been growing since 2007 at
munich
i remember that speech when he made it
it's in my documentary that's a
four-hour documentary four different
conversations i mean we talked over two
years two and a half years but i
remember that image of him at munich
making a very
important speech about world harmony
about the balance necessary in the world
and i remember the sneer
the sneer on john mccain's face he was
in munich
obviously eyeballing putin and hating
him and it was so evident that mccain
had no belief whatsoever that the that
this he was almost treating him like
this or the communists are back and we
know that putin was not a communist we
know that putin is very much a market
man and he made no he he made it very
clear and tried to keep an open climate
a new relationship with europe but the
united states always
certain people in the united states
always sell that as a threat like putin
is trying to take europe away from us as
if we own it as if we have the right to
own it but pun was making the point it's
very important about sovereignty and
sovereignty for
countries is crucial to for for this new
world to have balance that's sovereignty
for china sovereignty for russia
sovereignty for iran sovereignty for
venezuela sovereignty for cuba this is
an idea that's crucial to the new world
and i think the united states has never
accepted that
sovereignty is not an idea
that they can allow they you have to be
obedient to the united states idea
of so-called democracy and uh freedom
but
the it's much more important is
sovereignty for these countries and the
united states has not obeyed that as not
al has not even acknowledged it and it
never comes up so from the perspective
of the united states when power centers
arise in the world yes
you start to oppose those
not because of the ideas but because
they have but merely because they have
power
isn't that at the heart of the doctrine
of the uh neoconservatives and they knew
the pact for the new american century
they wrote that in 1996 seven
they said there shall be no emergence of
a rival power
it was very clear it was about power
and they have they've stuck to that
doctrine which is if you if you start to
get dangerous in any way or have power
we're going to knock you out
now that won't work but i i don't
believe it can work and that is
unfortunately a policy the united states
is following
and uh the neoconservatives group which
is very small but it's very strong
apparently and their idea has
resonated it was it was behind the
george bush's invasion of
iraq
it was part of not only iraq but
cleaning out the whole world draining
the swamp
going to afghanistan first and then
although
iraq had nothing to do with al qaeda's
attack
going after iraq
and of course 60 some other countries
that where terrorism had some
had some uh
signs of
wherever america judged would be a
dangerous country we had the right
you're either with us or against us now
that is a disastrous policy and led to
one thing after another the iraq war
never learned a lesson
the neoconservatives were never fired
never thrown out of office the people
who
prosecuted that war are still around
many of them are still around and
they're they're obviously guarding
america now let me return to this
question of power
don't forget
the sneer that i saw there
that emblemized the united states
reaction also there were several other
american representatives
who were laughing kind of mocking uh
putin it was very serious i i felt
that was a divide there
so
since then i mean in a certain sense the
europe reaction to putin is crucial and
they were they were more with him back
then and a big thing for america was
always to keep nato to keep europe in
its pocket as a satellite and with this
recent war of course they've succeeded
in in all beyond their dreams if the
russians have fulfilled the fantasy of
the united states to finally be this
aggressor that they have pictured for
years yeah we can talk about that later
but at that time
there was uh europe had significant
support for putin yes the united states
was sneering in putin
that's correct you can say that and then
so there's this um
it was
um
there was uncertainty as to the
direction as to the future of russia and
that's exactly when you interviewed
vladimir putin i wanted to know
what they thought because we couldn't
get the
the in the information war that the
united states was fighting against
russia was in evidence back then it was
full out
the uh the condemnation of russia
on all fronts uh i never saw a positive
article about putin and although when i
traveled in the world and i traveled a
lot doing documentaries it was very
clear in the middle east in africa in
other in asia there was respect for him
that he was a man who was getting job
his job done in the interests of russia
he was as i said in the documentary a
son of russia
very much so in in the positive sense a
son a son of russia not that he's out
there
trying to uh destroy the interests of
other
of other countries know that he was out
there to
sell the promote the interests of russia
but at the same time keep a balance keep
it
keep it keep the world into a harmony
this has always been his picture peace
was always his idea in other words he
always referred to the united states in
all these interviews as our partners and
i said will you stop using that word
they're not
well and he was a little bit slow in
waking up to uh what the united states
was doing
well
that said he's one of the most powerful
men in the world
he was at that time and
let me ask you the human question
as the old adage goes power corrupts and
absolute power corrupts absolutely
did you see
any corroding effects of power on the
man
forget the political leader i'm just the
human being that carries that power on
his shoulders
for so many years keep in mind that he's
been un
unlike most modern leaders he's been in
office
off and on because of there was a
medvedev was president and he was not
literally in charge
he was
he was he was uh he took another
appointment at that point and he but he
was still very much involved but for 20
years more or less he's been at the
administrator of the state the protector
of the state
and he's apparently done
a good enough job that the russian
people have kept him there because
contrary to what many people think i
really believe that if the russian
people didn't want him he would be out
i firmly believe that i don't think you
can let you can go against the will of
the people now it expresses itself in
many ways
at the ballot box and so forth but also
in other ways in russia there's a
strong occurrence of opinion so contrary
to what the
the
position of him as a dictator he
wouldn't last if he was unpopular number
one number two russia is much more
divided than people know there's other
factors in russia he is
there's there are always tensions in in
around the kremlin
who has power who doesn't have power
that's been going on for
100 years but
the the factions in russia are
very much there so when people refer to
russia as putin they're they're mistaken
and they do this regularly in the new
york papers and all this so they say
putin did this putin did that putin's
doing it but it's russia that's doing it
and that's what there's a distinction
there that i
it's changed in the old days
i would read about khrushchev but it was
never khrushchev personally
it was about the soviet union
uh there was respect for a country and
now when it started to get personal with
putin
it it changed it and the our thinking
changed in a negative way we
we no longer respected it as a country
we were seen as a man and the man we had
trashed repeatedly
repeatedly as a poisoner as a murderer
none of which has ever been proven but
which has always been repeated and
repeated to the point at which it
becomes like an orwell
mantra it becomes like he is of course a
bad guy
can i just ask you as a great filmmaker
as a human being what was it like
talking to one of the most powerful men
in the world
honestly and i'm not naive i've talked
to a lot of powerful people
in the movie business there are powerful
people and many of them are corrupted
i've talked to many people in my life
i've been in the military
i've seen i've had other jobs
i have to say i found him to be a human
being i just found him to be reasonable
calm
i never saw him lose his temper and i
mean you have to understand that most
people in the most people in the western
way of doing business get emotional i
don't see that i saw him as a
balanced man as a man who had studied
this like you
there's a calmness to you that it comes
from studying the world and
having a rational response to it his
it's interesting his two daughters one
of them is very scientific and the other
one's doing very well in another
profession but they they're thinking
they're thinking family his wife too was
uh i can't talk for the new wife because
i don't know about it but he's he kept
his family
with great respect he's raised his
daughter's right
he served yeltsin the way he looked at
it he served yeltsin well and he and he
still and he never trashed well uh
yeltsin certainly a lot of people did
but you know i asked him repeatedly you
know was he an alcoholic at this or that
but he wouldn't even go that far he just
respect
and this man yeltsin who was in it was
uh in many ways
ridiculed but in by the russians and
he turned over the power because he felt
like he was overwhelmed he turned over
the power to this man because why how
many people had he fired before him
several
several prime ministers this that why
did he turn power over the outs to uh mr
putin because
he respected him for his work ethic
and his balance his maturity
and that's what i can say is i saw in
him
a
a poor person a poor from a poor family
who worked his way up
through the kgb of americans keep saying
he's a kgb agent but
it's it's like saying you know george
bush was a cia agent but you know he
became a pr you grow you grow in your
life and he went from the kgb to this
technocratic position he re he dealt
with many uh problems incl including the
chechnyan war
which was a
very difficult situation as well as
the russian submarine probably several
things happened early in his that
balance that gave him a lot of
experience and he handled them all
pretty well
do you think he was an honest man i do
now of course the question of money
the charge is that he's the richest man
in the world or ludicrous uh
certainly doesn't live like it or act
like it if you're rich i've i've been
around a lot of rich people in my life
you'd probably have too in america you
run into them so many of them are
arrogant i'm actually uh
good friends now with the richest man in
the world oh of course i saw your
interview with mr uh
musk who i i appreciate at least he
speaks freely
i i i'm positive about him owning
twitter because twitter has become
censorship
city yes has all the major tech
i mean the censorship that we are now
seeing in the united states is so
un-american
and shocking to me and he's a resistance
to that
yeah i like i like musk for that just
for that only but i also appreciate him
his adventures from his nature and his
desire to to to explore the world and to
ask questions yeah
there's certain ways you sound when you
speak freely
there's certain ways you sound a man
sounds when he speaks freely yeah he
speaks freely
and it's refreshing yeah no matter
whether you're rich or not it doesn't
matter when you speak freely it's a
beautiful actually you must
and a major point on going back to
nuclear energy you know he was
he never believed in it at first
apparently uh he was going for batteries
right and he did put a lot of money into
batteries he made them bigger and bigger
batteries but
it just as bill gates said it's just
it's not going to get us there yeah and
uh now i think musk is on another path
he understands the need for nuclear yeah
he's a supporter of nuclear
we're jumping around who never asked for
one thing never
it was an interview it was free form ask
anything you want
no no restrictions no rules
as with castro frankly castro did the
same thing as this chef has so i've had
good luck in interviewing free-ranging
subjects people willing to express
themselves he's much more guarded than
castro
or
chavez because as you know he he's he's
setting government policy when he speaks
and anything he says is can be taken out
of context
but there was no restrictions on what to
talk about none of that nor any desire
to see anything before we published it
no need to check it with them
it was a
completely
do you think he watched the final
product yes i do but i don't think he
made judgments on it i think he was
pleased
um he doesn't go either way you see he's
very it's he's pleased i mean it went
well he's happy for us and but i don't
think he had great enthusiasm uh
expressed it to me and he trusted me and
you can see the way he dealt with me
each time he warmed up to me uh
four times you know the first time i
might have been a little
stiff
you're asking
you don't know what who you're dealing
with and so forth i understand that
but he's used to it now he's he's done a
lot of press the worst press he's done
frankly has been the american press
and not because of his fault but because
of the way they have treated them if you
look at the interviews they're awful
they put first of all i noticed one
thing as a filmmaker right away they use
a dub an overdub they put a russian
speaker yeah for everything he says he
was much harsher he speaks russian in a
much harsher manner than actually putin
does yeah who's very if you on my
interview i left him in his original
language with translator and i think
that's important because he expresses
himself very clearly and calmly
when you listen to the american
broadcast is a belligerent person who
looks like he's about to bang his shoe
on the table uh
and secondly the questions are
highly aggressive from the beginning
there's no
there's no sense of rapport there's no
sense of well it's why mr poon did you
poison this person why mr putin did you
kill this person why are you a murderer
that means it's blunt
blunt negative television yeah it's not
just aggressive so i
obviously speak russian
so i get to appreciate both the original
and the translation
and uh it's not just aggressive it's
very shallow
they're not looking to understand
to me aggression is okay if that's the
way you want to approach it
but it should be there should be
underlying
kind of empathy for another human being
in order to be able to understand
and and so
the the some of the worst interviews
i've ever listened to is by american
press of vladimir putin so nbc
uh and all those kinds of organizations
it's very painful to watch
um and you saw the reception to the
putin interviews in america was hostile
without seeing it
so many people
criticized
my series without having seen it even
even i went on a show a television show
with this famous uh colbert
you know he's very famous in america and
i was shocked on the show to find out
that he hadn't seen anything of the four
hours he was just attacking putin and
through me
i was complicit therefore i was a
i was a putin supporter and he the show
was a disaster it's it's one of my worst
television shows i actually
i had to
just shut up and get off the air i mean
at some point it was embarrassing
because the audience too was clapping
for kobe on anything he said well as an
interviewer in that situation because
between you and vladimir putin there was
camaraderie there was joking
there was
are you
worried do you put that into the
calculation when you're making a film
with somebody
that could be lying to you that could be
evil
you talk about castro you talk about so
are you worried about
how
charisma of a man across the table from
you
can uh don't i take that into account i
absolutely take that into account i know
cat i mean doing castro's
he's a wonderful speaker he's
charismatic so is chavez i think look at
those interviews
i took it into account
but putin doesn't play that game he
doesn't charm you he doesn't try to
overwhelm you with his
uh
bonami at all
he just said ask your question i'll give
you my answer straight here it is this
and he analyzes it this is the history
of nato this is a history of our
relationship with the united states how
many times have we tried to talk to them
about such and such and such and such
and each time we get nowhere
in fact it's a very
i would like to get along with the
united states so much he's saying that
he's saying it's so clearly in all his
words so to play devil's advocate but
he's not making a big deal about it but
there is a charisma in the calmness yes
there is so like
let's just calm everything down it's
simple facts that you can yes you can
you can call
um
so there's like the hitler thing which
is screaming
being very loud charismatic strong
message and so on and then there's a
putin style i'm not comparing those two
there's the style of communication of
calmness
and and that at least to me my
personality that can be very captivating
it's bringing everything down the facts
are simple but then when you say the
facts are simple you can now start lying
and you don't know what's true and
what's wrong
it behooves you to do some research yes
and frankly when coming to research
you're gonna have a problem because if
you go to the americanized versions of
russian history you're going to run into
a problem
and that includes even wikipedia
they will tell you things that are just
not factually supported so it was a
problem in terms of
if you read all the books in the
american the library about putin there's
nothing positive about it uh they're
awful they're awful and a lot of them i
had a good relationship with professor
stephen cohen who's the most i think one
of the most informed men on russia he's
done a lot of research all his life
and uh knew gorbachev very well and was
very
ana analytical about all these
situations that happened before his
death in uh
2019 i'm not quite sure when stephen
died but i knew him well
and
he was the he gave me the best
information i could get i would go to
stephen and i'd say
i'm confused here tell me the history of
this accusation of poisoning against
this person and so forth and he'd
explained it to me in i think very the
clearest ways that i understood and he
said to me once he said most of these
people who go to russia and write this
stuff about putin are going off internet
the internet has really been a source of
a lot of fractured facts here
uh he said pure analysis you have to go
back to the texts all the documents
and to really fully understand but he
under he one he spoke russian
and his wife and him uh katarina
catarina
van gaal who's the editor
publisher of the nation magazine would
go to russia several times
a year and talked to their friend
gorbachev and gorbachev is an
interesting character i've talked to him
interviewed him not interviewed him but
talked to him at length and i like him
very much
and i saw the divide as you saw in the
putin interviews between gorbachev and
putin early on in the interviews you
sense putin doesn't particularly care
for governor chuck because he in his
point of view he screwed up the
administration of russia and is
responsible for so much of the disaster
of leaving all those people outside the
soviet union
so
these are problems and continuing to the
future but
he
at the they see each other at the or he
sees he knows he's there at the may day
parade i i we filmed
and uh he's
he
his attitude is funny he's very human he
says i you know he's welcome he's god
he's got he's pension he's a pensioner
he's done his duty he's there's no
there's no uh
animus towards him
even when gorbachev in the early days
you remember criticized him for his
manners in terms of democracy
but i don't know that that
you know that becomes a quarrel but
frankly by the
by the end of the situation uh it's very
clear that gorbachev has now moved
closer and closer to the says russia is
now really under attack this is
he sees it he sees where the united
states has made a concerted effort to
undermine putin and he does and has he's
repeated this several times about
ukraine i think you've seen what he said
you can quote it
and gorbachev is we have no respect for
gorbachev even even at this juncture
when can you see gorbachev's ideas
printed in most american newspapers very
rarely very rarely and not and recently
not at all so gorbachev who was our hero
back in in the american hero back in
1980s 80s has now been condemned to the
garbage can so to speak of history
well in this complicated geopolitical
picture you just outlined um can we talk
about
the
recent invasion of ukraine so you wrote
on
facebook a pretty eloquent analysis
i i think on
uh march 3rd
let me just read a small
section of that just to give context and
maybe we can talk a little bit more
about both russia and the man putin
he wrote although the united states has
many wars of aggression on his
conscience it doesn't justify mr putin's
aggression in ukraine
a dozen wrongs don't make a right
russia was wrong to invade it has made
too many mistakes
one underestimating ukraine resistance
two overestimating the military ability
to achieve its objective
three underestimating europe's reaction
especially germany
upping its military contribution to nato
which they've resisted for some 20 years
even switzerland has joined the cause
russia will be more isolated than ever
from the west
four underestimating the enhanced power
of nato which will now put more pressure
on russia's borders five probably
putting ukraine into nato six
underestimating the damage to its own
economy and certainly creating more
internal resistance in russia
seven creating a major readjustment of
power in its oligarch class
eight putting cluster and vacuum bombs
into play
nine
and underestimating the power of social
media worldwide and you go on
for a while giving a much broader
picture
of the history and the geopolitics of
all of this so now
a little bit later
two months later
um what are your thoughts about the
invasion of ukraine well it's very hard
to
be honest in this regard because the
the west
the west has brought down a curtain here
and anyone who
questions uh the invasion of ukraine and
its consequences is
is an enemy of the people
it's it's become so difficult uh we i've
never seen in my lifetime ever
such
a wall of
propaganda as i've seen
in the west
and that includes france too because i
was there recently in england england is
of course
really
vociferous
it's it's it's shocking to me how
quickly europe moved in this direction
and that includes germany
i have german friends who expressed to
me their shock over ukraine i have
italian friends same thing and italy of
course has been the perhaps the most
understanding and compassionate of
countries
so it's it's quite evident that there's
a united uh
and this attests the power of the united
states and of course you have finland
and
finland which has
generally been reasonable jumping and
talking about joining nato and sweden
too
generally there's been some more
restraint in the in the way in europe
that's what surprised me the most europe
how quickly they fell
into this nato basket
which is very dangerous for europe very
dangerous this goes back to my idea what
i was saying earlier about sovereignty
these countries have don't really give
me a sense that they have sovereignty
over their own countries
they don't feel
european nations
i'm obviously intuition here is working
i just don't feel
that they have freedom to say what they
really think and they're scared to say
it
when
the united states invaded iraq in 2003
i remember with great in a sense
satisfaction that at least
france shirak who i had not really known
much about stood up and said the united
states were not going to join you in
this expedition basically into madness
schroeder and germany same thing
of course putin condemned the uh
invasion and kupun had been an ally of
the united states since 9 11 if you
remember correctly yes and had called
bush and they were getting along so even
putin said i won't go no don't go into
iraq this is
this is not the solution he he didn't
oppose afghanistan but he opposed iraq
so
sharach
and schroeder stood for the old europe
i'm i remember de gaulle
charles de gaulle he was independent of
the united states charles de gaulle
pulled france out of nato because he saw
the dangers of nato which is to say you
have to fight an american war
when they say and they put nuclear
weapons on your territory in england and
france and uh italy and uh germany and
when they do that
you're you're hitched to this superpower
and you have no say in what they're
going to do if they declare war from
there and they use your territory you're
going to be involved in a major conflict
i'm talking about sovereignty where is
that sovereignty they don't have it
and that has influenced their mindset
for years now
since 1940s since well de gaulle was the
60s
he was he actually reversed the whole
flow and he was it was i think it was uh
sarkozy who put the france back into
nato
and uh now it's
macro i i hope because he was talking to
putin would at least
have an independent viewpoint that could
be helpful here but he so he rolled it
up
he may have told putin something else
but within days he had rolled it up and
gone along with the united states
position
which was enforced by the united states
in a very fierce way
the propaganda as i say i don't know how
much time you spend in america but
it was vicious and everything was
anti-russian russia were killing all
these people were
shooting down
civilians
although there was no proof of it there
was just these are the accidents of war
but all of a sudden it was a campaign of
criminality and they were talking about
bringing putin into war crime trial well
why didn't they talk like that when iraq
was going on and bush was killing far
more people
or for that matter why were they not
talking about the the killings in
donbass and lugansk
during that
2014 to 2000
20 period
that is what is it's a crime there were
so many people that were killed
many of them innocent many of them
minister so what would be the way for
vladimir putin
to
stop the killing in dambass
without the invasion of ukraine yeah
that's a very good question and i've
asked that several times and i don't
have the i have not talked to him since
about two years now uh
it's a very good question what's the
mistakes
what the human mistakes and the
leadership mistakes means a very good
question you see what the american press
has not said and the western press has
not said is that on february 24 was it
that was on that day what they invaded
they were the day before if you check
the logs of the uh european organization
that was you supervising uh
was in the field in ukraine
these are
neutral observers they were seeing heavy
heavier and heavier artillery fire going
into uh
into donbass
from the ukrainian side
so they had apparently ukraine had a
hundred and ten thousand troops on the
border they were about to invade donbass
that was the plan
that's what i think
russia as a as a because of the buildup
on the border of donbass brought 130
they say 130 000 troops to the area uh
near uh
donbass right so you have a build-up of
forces on both sides but you wouldn't
know that from reading the press in the
west you would be you'd believe that the
russians suddenly put all these men into
into the situation with him with the
idea of invading ukraine not only don
mass but invading all of ukraine and
getting rid of the uh decapitating the
government there
which is all assumption we don't know
what they would intended to do but you
at the time is that a lot of people
thought that the
all the talk of the invasion
russian invasion of ukraine it's just
propaganda it's never it's not going to
happen it's very well
i think many of us thought that the
united states is building this up into
an invasion in other words that's that
is the nature of false flag operations
when you you create this propaganda they
are going to invade they are going to
invade and then when they invaded the
united states was completely ready and
all their allies were completely ready
for the invasion correct so why did
putin do that he fell into this
theoretically into this trap set by the
united states that
here you're telling all your allies
across the board they're going to invade
but you
why do you think he did it
so here is it madness or is it no
strategic calculation perhaps
this one i cannot answer you faithfully
because first of all we don't know what
he was told if he was indeed getting the
right intelligence estimates
from what i said earlier in that art and
that
in that essay i wrote
you would think
he was not well informed perhaps about
the degree
of
cooperation he would get from the russia
the ukrainian russians
in in in in ukraine i that would be one
factor that he wasn't he didn't assess
the
operation correctly remember this mr
putin has had
this cancer
and he's i think he's licked it but he's
also been isolated because of covid
and some people would argue that the
isolation from
normal activity which he was he was
meeting people face to face but all of a
sudden he was meeting people across the
table uh a hundred yards away or
whatever 10 yards away it was very hard
to perhaps he lost touch uh with contact
with people so it's not just power it's
the very simple fact that you're just
this i see i'm speculating i don't know
i see that and i also
perhaps he thought in his mind that
there would be a
a faster resolution that the ukrainian
because the evidence had been that the
ukrainian uh russians
the ukrainian army had folded so many
times in the
and that they were only backed up and
they were stiffened by the resistance of
the nazi uh or
nazi oriented as of battalions that was
a factor of course and that is a big
factor for the russians because
these people are very tough they rush
see
what people don't understand is that
ukraine since 20 2014 has been a terror
state
and they've been run you know anytime a
ukrainian has expressed any
uh any uh understanding of a russian of
the russian ukrainian position they've
been threatened by the state from 2014
to 2022 there's been a set of hideous
murders that people don't even know
about in the west journalists
people who speak out liberals
people who uh i i interviewed victor
medvedev who they make out to be some
kind of horrible person but medvedev was
this was a very important figure in the
administration of kushma the first
ukrainian prime minister in the 1990s
and he did a great job on the economy he
was a very thoughtful man if you'll see
my interview it's called ukraine
revealed he's very thoughtful about the
future of ukraine he doesn't want to go
back and join russia he wants it to be
an independent country ukraine is
independent and he wants it to be a
functioning economic democracy more or
less a democracy if you can get that but
between
that exists in a neutral state a neutral
state which ukraine used to be before
2014 it was neutral
from 1991 to 2014 neutral very important
under
poroshenko it just immediately went into
an anti-soviet cold war position
as an ally of the united states and uh
my point was that
it was a very dangerous place in ukraine
people were being killed
death squads were out there
medvedev
they stripped him of his television
stations very suddenly this is olenski
the new president said he zaleski was
elected on a peace platform remember
that he was 70 of the country was for
him to make peace with russia he did he
ever have even tried to make peace with
russia did he attend any of the minsk
two um agreements did he did he visit
did he pay any attention to putin did he
go to russia no not at all the moment he
got into office i'm convinced that the
the uh
the uh militant
uh the militant sector of the right
sector parties of the uh of ukraine let
him know that you will not make a deal
with russia
there'll be no concessions to russia
this is very dangerous this is where
this attitude that's very very hostile
to russia has hurt us the whole world is
being hurt by this and no no one calls
them out
no one calls them out zelensky backed
off
from his platform as a running for
president and as president has been
ineffective did nothing to promote on
the contrary went the other way and
seemed to support the uh the ukrainian
aggression
well he found his support in this war
you've revealed through your work some
of the most honest and dark aspects of
war
nevertheless this is a war and there's a
humanitarian crisis
millions of people as uh
refugees escaping ukraine what do you
think about the human cost of this war
initiated by it's horrible whoever
just as you write
whatever the context whatever nato
whatever pressure
as you wrote
russia was wrong to invade
okay yeah
let's get back to the original question
you said what was he thinking at that
time we never answered that yeah now
by the way uh you know
among those people who are
who've been
ruined by this war you have to include
the fort 2014 to 2022 yes ukrainian
russians fourteen thousand
uh
were killed not necessarily by uh
some of them by maybe accident this and
that but certainly a large number of
that is is responsible to the ukrainian
military and the uh the nazi related
battalions who have done a good job of
death squading that whole area and
remember i did a film about salvador i
know a little bit about death squads and
how they work and i know about
paramilitaries because in south america
they're all over the place america
supports
hates venezuela goes on about venezuela
but do they tell you anything about
colombia it's next door neighbor
colombia for years has been plagued by
paramilitaries that are right-wing and
the united states has said nothing about
them except occasionally there's a
newspaper report now so this is a
this support of death squads by the
united states is all over the world it's
not just in south america and central
america where we see plenty of evidence
of it
it's here too and this is what's
horrible about this whole thing this
hypocrisy of america that they can
support such evil such evil now going
back to your
larger question about
uh yes it's a terrible refugee disaster
but again we have to get the numbers
let's get the numbers and get evidence
because
i i would ask you i'm not sure at this
point whether more civilians were killed
before 2022 in donbass than have been
killed in this latest so we can't talk
about this without we can't talk about
the invasion ukraine without considering
the full war between russia and ukraine
since 2014. that's correct absolutely
and
take the toll on both sides and you
might be surprised by the result uh i
think the russian military of course i'm
not there and i'm not this could be this
is speculation the russian military has
slowed down and part of that reason is
not to keep the civilian corridors open
and i think the ukrainian military has
made it more difficult on purpose
especially some of these battalions that
are death squad battalions have gone out
of their way to keep the civilians
locked into these cities in danger
because it's in their interest to do so
so there's no reason why ukrainian
military who have killed ukrainian
civilians for years would change their
policies
they would have no compunctions about
wiping out for example people with white
armbands in bucca
okay uh as to what putin was thinking at
the time
i
i wondered this and i still do i said
okay so putin can say
one let's say uh the ukrainian
government wants to now invade donbass
this is on february 23 and they have
artillery they're peppery in the whole
place they're going to go in and they're
going to get don bass back
what do you do
and you you have russian uh separatists
who are russian ukrainians who are on
who
are going to fight
how far do you go in supporting them can
russia at this point say well we can't
help you you have to get along you have
to somehow you have to be absorbed by uh
they kev you're going to be absorbed by
them and they're going to be
they're not going to give you autonomy
and you have to live with them
and there's going to be a price to pay
you could do that and you can also say
well we open our borders to don't ask
you can come into our country you can
leave and we will help you to to
resettle
and that's that would be a reasonable
approach so you take it to the next
stage as putin's thinking you take it to
the next stage you
you stall
it's harder for your people of course
there's pressure on putin from inside
his own government
to say what are you going to do you mean
you can't do this there's a lot of
nationalists in russia they would
certainly bring
it would be to his they'd say putin is
weak and that's the biggest rap you can
ever give a russian leader is you're
weak you can't get anything done
so there would have been some damage but
let's say he goes with that and he says
okay we know what the united states
intention is it's to
get rid of me regime change and to get
another yeltsin in that's what they want
and they will go to any ends they will
destroy ukraine if necessary but they
want regime change in russia and then
after they do that of course they'll go
after china but that's the ultimate
policy of the united states this is a
country that has no compunctions about
going all the way
and it will use hypocrisy in all the
news propaganda in the world to get what
it wants this is the equivalent frankly
of
germany's uh goals in world war ii
uh world domination there's no question
in my mind but
we're going about it in our way as
opposed to hitler's way
so just to finish your thought where do
they go
what's stage two okay you let's say they
take ukraine takes back donbass
let's say people get killed in in large
quantities
so we now to the next stage we're
finished with the minsk two agreements
that were never adhered to so what does
russia do they wait for the next
aggression
which is going to come in one form or
another
perhaps in georgia perhaps i don't know
what what happened what the us is
thinking but they would have the u.s
cannot say
uh russia
is has done anything they have not used
violence to stop donbass from belonging
back to uh
ukraine right so
you're in a new setup now it's a whole
thing rearranges
now you have but you still have nuclear
weapons
and you still have a russian
nuclear weapons and they're serious
weapons they're very well developed
crude but not as refined as the american
nuclear force but
powerful
that becomes another game then you open
another board and know what you still
haven't been condemned the sanctions
haven't been imposed that's a new it's a
new game
could he have done could he have lived
with that that's the question i ask
myself
so you see ultimately ukraine today as a
battleground for the proxy war between
russia and the united states the united
states would have then nato ashed nato
eyes ukraine or
certainly put more weapons and you know
the united states has already done a lot
in ukraine with intelligence with
training
advisors
the uh the intelligence aspect of the
ukrainian army has been raised
enormously by the united states
contribution is it possible for you to
steal man to play devil's advocate
against yourself and say that
vladimir zelinski
is fighting for the sovereignty of his
nation
and in in a way against russia but also
against the united states it just
happens that for now the united states
is a useful ally
but ultimately the man the leader
is fighting for the sovereignty of his
nation i don't think he thinks so yes
and he could be he could say that but
he's not acknowledging that the
sovereignty of his nation was stolen but
in 2014 when with a coup d'etat that
brought uh that brought this sec this
right sector into power
and they have controlled the country
since then it's it says it's thuggery
what they've done
the medvedev case is a case in point
they just take what they need
they go to a house and they they have
how many people have been killed aren't
serious people uh journalists killed by
the these uh battalions that's what
people don't realize in other words you
can't speak out you can't a person like
me would have been on a death list on
day day five
uh you don't there's no opposition to
zolensky so he doesn't have a real
sovereignty
it was a stolen sovereignty do you think
uh president zelansky would accept an
interview with you
today actually from
since i made ukraine on fire
uh documentary which perhaps you've seen
which
records the the incidents of 2014 and
the and the maidan
uh demonstrations and shows you the
dishonesty behind it
no i think that they've been very
negative and
they would kill me if i was in ukraine i
mean they don't have any uh
these people are very tough these are as
rough as they come in my opinion and
i've seen rough in my life i mean these
guys are not playing with fair at all
they they these are death squads
no i don't think and zelansky would have
nothing to do with it but of course
it would be dangerous for me and they've
been very hostile in their
in their policies to any any ukrainians
abroad are also threatened
in other words you could be in paris but
if you're if you speak out too much you
i think ukrainians know that they're
going to be targeted and i think that's
part of the reason they don't talk
a lot of them you know you have to take
the anti-russian line but i think a lot
of them are divided so you think
you would be killed and zelonski
wouldn't even know about it so there is
well i'd be i don't think i don't if i
was killed certainly abroad no they
wouldn't kill me abroad i think they'd
like figure out no no no if you traveled
to ukraine i mean i wouldn't get in i
wouldn't get in
except through donbass i'd come
there are some americans in donbass who
are reporting on the war there and i
read their reports actually they're
pretty interesting because they show you
the cruelty of what's going on but never
mentioned in the west never that's
what's so strange about this
this this is the modern world that we're
living in yet this information is not
coming out to the mass of the people and
on the contrary the united states has
closed down
all the all the prop all the rt all the
all the information centers that are
possible alternative news getting to the
american people they've seriously made
an effort and the bbc
the english
and france i was shocked when france
closed rt down because rt is actually
pretty good they yes they may you could
call there are distortions but you know
as well as i do because you hear you
speak
that rt has done a very
brave job of putting correspondence into
the field in very dangerous positions
and they've gotten great footage
of some of the violence that's going on
well given the wall of propaganda in the
west
i also see the wall of propaganda in
russia the wall of propaganda in china
the wall of propaganda in india
what do we do with these walls of
propaganda yeah let's talk about russia
because i you and you would know more
about it but my last experience there
newspapers it was more interesting
there's
put it this way when i went to venezuela
the united states was saying
back then that chavez controlled the
press i get to venezuela and there's
nothing but criticism of chavez in the
press it was owned by the the oligarchs
of venezuela and who hated him so it was
across the board that's why chavez
opened the uh
the state television
spent more money on it and advertised
his point of view through state
television but this in russia uh there
is what i saw was criticism i met with
the publisher who got the nobel prize of
that famous newspaper
and his point of view at that time when
i spoke to him a few years ago was
we're operating there is criticism of
him but you know we you can't call for
the overthrow of the government
nor in venezuela nor in the united
states for that matter if you call for
the overthrow of
the government of the united states
you're going to be in deep trouble well
all right so to push back on that it's
interesting it's so interesting because
we mentioned elon musk and there's a way
that people sound when they speak freely
when i speak to i have family in ukraine
i have family in russia when i speak to
people in russia let's put my family
aside when i speak to people in russia
i think
there's fear
i think
they don't
um sometimes when you call for the
overthrow of government that's important
not because you necessarily believe for
the overthrow of the government but you
just need to test
test the power centers and make sure
they're uh responsive to the people and
i feel like there's a mix of fear and
apathy
uh
that
it has a different texture than it does
in the united states
that worries me because i
i
would like to see the flourishing of a
people in all places
as i said my impression was that there's
far more freedom in the press than was
it was pictured by the west and and that
means different points of view because
the russians are always arguing with
themselves i've never seen a country
that's so contentious there's more
there's more
intellectuals in moscow and the cities
and than you can believe and and you
know the russian people there
they've been fighting government for
years
back from the 1870s zara's times they're
always plotting against the government
and the intelligence he has known
through history as being
contentious and anti-government in many
ways and uh we see the same thing
educated people turning against russia i
don't appreciate those people because i
think they're very spoiled and they
don't understand some of the stuff
that's going on in the west but we have
a lot of russians in in them in europe
and america
that attack russia and sometimes don't
understand that they are under pressure
from the united states and they don't
understand the size of the pressure
and it that's why putin connects with
the people because he
he represents
the common more the common man
who's who's saying to you your interests
are threatened russia is threatened we
are representing only the interests of
russia not we're not an empire we're not
going to expand we he he has no empire
intentions all the west pains in his
empire
i i see no evidence of it uh why didn't
he do something in all these years
nothing he did nothing except defend the
country in georgia and in chechnya so
the imperialist imperative is coming
more from the west
it's the imperialist agenda
going back to uh i'm sorry where we left
our discussion off i mean i was going to
go on with america not only being
censored as closed down now
closed down and you say it's not fear
well it is fear
i am scared because if you get your
facebook page suspended or your youtube
your twitter account thrown off a lot of
good people are getting there
thrown off
you can't say you can't speak out it
affects your business it goes back to
the 1950s when my my father's world when
you could not express any sympathy for a
soviet union without endangering your
job without basically being not trusted
you had to be part of the program to get
along to go along
same thing when uk united kingdom i mean
for all their talk this boris johnson is
an idiot
but all their talk about do you remember
their policies with the ira in ireland
when ireland was threatening them they
cut off the ira completely jerry adams
who was a a wonderful guy i met him
was not allowed to even be heard in
britain during certain years in france
uh all constantly through the algerian
war the algerians were not allowed to be
heard the algerian war for independence
divided france greatly
you could not even show paths of glory
world war one film uh in france for i
don't know 20 years after it came out uh
censorship is a way of life when
democracies also feel threatened they
are much more fragile than they pretend
to be a healthy democracy would take all
the criticism in the world and shrug it
off and say okay that's what's good
about our country well i'd like to see
that in america it used there are times
it's been like that but it's it's so
scary now so it is scary that's that's
what i was trying to say it's not
unscary to me
in china i would say to you yes it's
much scarier to me because
there is
the internet wall that they cut off and
i got into problems in china too because
i said something in in years ago about
you have to discover your own history
you have to be honest about mao you have
to be you have to go back and
let's make a movie about mao that upset
them you know and show his negatives
so china has been much more sensitive
than russia about criticism much more
and it is a source of problems but on
the other hand china has
a lot of grievances a lot going back to
the 19th century and the british
imperialism of that era and american
imperialism if you could talk to
vladimir putin once again
now
what kind of
what kind of things would you talk about
here what kind of questions would you
ask
well
one thing i would certainly ask is what
you were thinking on february 23
and i would ask him to reply to my
question about what if you took this to
phase two you you surrendered in donbass
you know no ego about it you just
surrendered it's in your interest to
your country and you invited all the
refugees from donbass into russia as
much as they can
what would you do now
what's the what's the us next move
and in your opinion how are you gonna
okay where are we gonna go that's that
would be the key question because it's
but he didn't go that way he chose to
take the sanctions and
and to go this way why he did that is a
key question for our time
uh
perhaps it was a mistake perhaps it was
his judgment perhaps as i said but i
don't
knowing the man i did i don't think so i
think it was calculated
now this is projection and speculation
but there is something different about
him
in the past
several months it could be the covet
thing the isolation that you mentioned
i
listened to a lot of interviews and
speeches in russian and there's uh
there's something about power over time
that can change you that can isolate you
well when i was there no he'd been in
office for
already 15 years
he had power
he didn't misuse it in my opinion he was
very even i saw him go on television and
talk to his fellows the same way he
always talked to them
he grew with it he grew in intelligence
and knowledge because he had heard
dealings with the whole world now people
had come to him he was very well known
in africa and middle east certainly
syria
and
i i just never saw a misuse
of his power i saw humility in him
actually
so perhaps
there was a calculation and he
calculated wrong
in terms of what happens if he doesn't
invade
perhaps there was a calculation perhaps
he had a calm and clear mind
and he calculated wrong well he also
made the point that he had there the
talk of zelinski saying
nuclear weapons were going to come into
ukraine there was talk about that right
before the invasion too and certainly
that would have set off alarms
you know the united states is already
kind of doing that by not only putting
its intelligence and its heavy weaponry
into ukraine
but you've got to deal with the question
the next question that comes up the most
immediate question is
is the united states
going to start
and i'm saying this is good
they're making a lot of noise the united
states press about russia using nuclear
weapons and chemical weapons that's a
lot of noise
again going back to my analogy when the
united states starts that it starts the
conversation going it's in the interest
of the united states
for russia to be pinned with any kind of
chemical or nuclear
uh
incident
except for example it'd be very
not simple but it would be possible to
explode a nuclear device
in non-bass in donbass and kill
thousands of people
and we would not know right away who did
it but of course the blame would go
right to russia
right to russia even if it didn't make
sense if there was no motivation for it
it would just be blamed on russia the
united states might well be the one who
does that false flag operation it would
not be beyond them they would
it would be a very dramatic uh solution
to sealing this war off as a major
victory for the united states that's
terrifying no but it can happen it can
happen at one kiloton device low yield
this it's possible so when you walk
across that line you can potentially
never walk back
well i think the united states is
calculating that
it's a dangerous yes i agree but i think
the neoconservative arrogance is such
that they really believe they can push
their advantage to the max now
that because of all these propaganda
successes up to now
the ukrainian army could be wiped out
for all we know there's all this
leftists are neon not see brigades but
they're being advised very well by u.s
and they're sending the weapons in huge
amounts of weapons what about american
budget no one talks about how much money
we're giving to ukraine we get it's a
billion dollars already in weaponry and
not most of it just poured in
what about uh
you know the the russian budget is
uh
defense budget is 60 some billion
dollars a year it's nothing compared to
the united states 1 15th of it but yet
we we've put so much weaponry into
ukraine the money we've spent
on ukraine is all equivalent almost to
what we've spent on on
coven in our own country it's astounding
the distortion of our priorities
uh there's also chemical don't forget
chemical is probably the easier way to
go but in syria there was far too many
incidents of of america
in its quest to demonize uh assad and
the the russians of all these chemical
attacks that were happening that
they were vowing came from russia and uh
in spite of the fact that russia is
pulled out of the uh signed the
agreement on chemical arms and not and
apparently destroyed its stock several
years ago
it's it's strange that the the strangest
incidents happened in syria you go back
to trace everyone good journalism was
done the white helmets got a lot of fame
but they were corrupted and many good
journalists tried to point out the
inconsistencies in the american
accusations
robert perry among them uh who was one
of my mentors at consortium press a lot
of good journey you'd have to go back
but trace each like you would trace each
time you they made an accusation against
putin of murder
you need that same kind of sherlock
holmes intensity investigation and they
don't do it because the united nations
or the chemical
not the united nations as much as the
chemical people the
the organization has been tampered with
if you remember correctly there was
accusations that the chemical chemical
uh
investigative unit i don't know the name
of
was tampered with
and people quit people who were working
on that commission quit and said that
this is not legit
it's a very interesting that syria story
is wacko
so the united states is willing to use
chemical in syria freely it did it three
four times if you remember correctly
trump was challenged that he did not
attack after a chemical incident in
syria
all these newscasters in the united
states uh the most heaviest of them were
saying well president putin is uh
president trump is now finally acting
like a real president when he attacks
when he drops missiles in syria they
actually said that in other words they
wanted the trump to go to war on syria
but he didn't chemical weapons
nuclear is really terrifying do you
think now combine this
with the fascinating choice
in your interviews with vladimir putin
to watch stanley kubrick's
uh
doctor dr strangelove or how i learned
to stop worrying and love the bomb and
given the fact that that you did that
now looking at the fact that the word
nuclear
and it feels like
the world hangs on the brink of nuclear
war
do you think that that's overstating the
case no
that's what worried me from the
beginning and that's probably why i got
involved in all this stuff because i i
go back to the uh
60s when i was a you know when we were
so close to nuclear war i lived through
that period and i thought as as many
people did that this was
it was gonna it was gonna come now
so i've lived through that
and some i didn't sense the period in 83
when reagan took us to the edge if you
remember correctly abel archer it was an
exercise
that almost brought us to include the
russians were
really paranoid at that point and they
were they were responding to our
military exercise on able archer there
was also the korean airliner they went
down there were numerous incidents in
the 80s but i never felt the fear
i thought reagan was
testing the limits but
perhaps if i'd been younger i would have
felt it but anyway no we come close the
united states has risked this several
times
i if i told you it would be hard for you
to believe if i could set a scene for
you in a drama in a in in 1962 when
kennedy has a meeting with the joint
chiefs of staff
and the cia and they talk about a plan a
military plan
to uh
first strike the soviet union and china
okay it was called uh it was an
eisenhower plan that had been put into
opera and put into a potential operation
in uh the
in early 60s or 50s
late 50s
sio p 62
this was an attack on the soviet union
first strike that's why the united
states has never given up the concept of
first strike
is it's interesting that the russian
police nuclear policy posture is
more defensive than the american one
which leaves options open
it's the same options that are open to
neo-conservative uh agreement
that we see from the late 90s where they
say
the emergence of a rival power will not
be
tolerated that's a very broad statement
and it allows you to do a lot
including nuclear so
you have to understand the united states
is
always first of all it breaks so many
treaties i mean we know that from the
putin story about
the anti-ballistic missile treaty in
2002 and then the inf treaty of the they
broke that one that was the intermediate
missile
that was 2019 i don't know when they
broke it off but the united states has
not been very faithful on its nuclear
agreements
and so
i don't know that we can even deal with
you i'd say so diplomatically it seems
to be impossible
now brings me to biden
yes and this is another irishman this is
the opposite of kennedy kennedy was a
catholic irish
anti-imperialist biden seems to be the
opposite he seems to be a goal get along
go along guy who's been
not only old but he's also gone along
with this program which i voted for
biden because i i feared trump but i
thought biden at a certain age would
mellow i really did
he's not mellowed apparently he's still
listening to these people and he
believes them
and it seems that his uh
that horrible woman victoria newland who
was under secretary of state appointed
her to these to this sector of the world
she's very influential and she's been
one of the
worst people on ukraine she obviously
was behind the coup she's she was the
one who boasted that uh you know
we got our man in yachts one of hers
yatsenuk and also
remembers the famous statement fuck the
eu all these things she's but she's back
and she said the other day about
if the soviets if the russians use uh
nuclear weaponry of any kind there's
going to be a horrible price to pay
that was uh she was out of the blue i
said what the hell is she doing she's
talking nuclear all of a sudden and then
since that day
everybody in the u.s press all the shows
have gone talk nuclear nuclear nuclear
secretary of state has done it uh
blinken uh
this
it scares you if you think about it the
united states scares me so that's the
military-industrial complex machine
fully functional fully operational
behind this whole thing is that is that
what's the blame it certainly is that's
why i showed him strange love because i
wanted him to show him i wanted mr putin
to say look at this film you never saw
it how can you not say you know it's a
seminal film in american history to
those people who care and it shows you
the
kubrick had a anti had a pacifist thank
god
anti-war
mentality which he showed in powers of
glory as well as strange love
and it's such a dire
well-done scenario that
i wanted mr putin to be aware of the way
the united states thinks
yeah the absurdity of escalation
the absurdity of war at the largest
scale the absurdity of nuclear war
especially
can we walk back from the brink of
nuclear war
can we can we yes
yes what's the path to walk back season
reason between hormones and diplomacy
there's no reason i mean
talk to the guy
mr biden
why don't you calm down and go and talk
to mr putin in moscow why don't you just
sit across the table from
and try to have a discussion without
falling into ideologies and stuff like
that
they ask you for advice you did some of
the most difficult interviews ever
you have a device
that you can give to someone like me or
anyone hoping to understand something
about a human being
sitting across from them about what it
takes to do a good interview
you're doing one
well no but there's a
listen there's levels to this game
and interviewing somebody like vladimir
putin also language barrier
sit across from the man
tried to keep an open mind
i try to also ask challenging questions
but not challenging with the with an
agenda but seeking to understand and i
understand deeply how do you do that
seeking the truth it's very simple
seeking the truth being a questioner
like you are you want to know what is
really going on i could not get anywhere
with uh biden or bush or for that matter
obama they'd be opaque with me there's
no interview possible with the president
of the united states because he's got to
stand for all the stuff that they stand
for
which is imperialism which is control of
the world how can you defend that you
can't see no one's going to come out and
say that they're always going to blame
the enemy they're going to blame iran
they're going to blame china
so for some people it may not be
possible to break through the opaque
case
i mean have you ever seen an interview
with the president besides being
personable
where he actually discussed american
policy yeah i mean not really but maybe
after their president
i could see obama be being able to do
such an interview i could see george w
being able to do such an interview or
are they not able to reflect at all
george w hasn't shown much conscience in
terms of thinking about what he's done
you've seen that it was you ever seen my
movie w
i think that's one of my best movies
because it shows a man who's just out of
his depth
and has no
he has a conscience at the end of the
movie if he if you remember correctly he
talks to his wife and he says
i don't get it i'm trying to do good in
the world i've done i believe in good
and right and why do people not
understand that you know that kind of
complaint as if he can't get outside
himself to understand the way other
people think
empathy walking like a dramatist is what
i do you walk in the footsteps of other
people when i did a movie about richard
nixon it wasn't because i liked him it
was because i wanted to
i think i understood a part of him
because my father and i think i wanted
to walk in his footsteps that's not to
say i sympathize with him because i
didn't i don't think he helped the
american cause at all but it was
empathize as opposed to sympathize same
thing with bush people were shocked when
i did the bush movie they said how can
you be in any way uh
anyway receptive to this guy
that's wrong
dramatists don't have political
positions they walk in the shoes of
that's why bush movie perhaps was
surprising to many and many people
didn't care for it
maybe that's what
but that's you've got to go there no you
if you did a movie about a villain you
have to go there
you have to
walk in their shoes yes so see them
because they usually villains usually
see themselves
as the hero yes
so you have to
consider what is it like to live in a
world where
this person is the hero yes
is that a burden
is that hard not for george w bush
he's bitching because they didn't
understand them
but he had a good vision he said of
democracy and you know democracy
forgives a lot of sins
can i ask you a hard question on that
yes sure
so because empathy is so important to a
great interview let's ask the most
challenging version of empathy which is
when you're sitting across
from a man on the brink of war that
that leads to tens of millions of deaths
which is hitler so if you could
interview hitler in 1939
as the drums of war start to beat or
1941 when they're already
full-on war but there's still a lot of
pacifists there's still a lot of people
unsure what are the motivations behind
um what hitler is doing
how would you do that interview what
depends when you do it if you do it in
38 uh i certainly would have
no you have to if you sit down across
from hitler you empathize what is your
beef what are you what are you where
have you been what is your consciousness
uh why do you hate uh jewish people why
why uh
what is you know all these questions
that come up
his sense of grievance as a result of
world war one there's justifications
there etc but if i and by the way
churchill was trying to make a deal with
him in 38.
that's a fact that people don't know is
churchill himself and you know there was
still the desire in england to make
peace with germany uh
and it was seen as a possible
what hit what churchill really wanted
was hitler to go against russia and he
he anything to destroy the bolsheviks so
he was using hitler as much as he could
to go after russia
but uh
hitler was too elusive to get to pin him
down
but if you remember hitler was very kind
at the end of kind is not the right word
was
did not go after the british empire when
he had france and he could have
he had another objective which was
obviously the east
so hitler's goal
i think he always had an admiration for
england it's interesting story always
and the the empire
yes
and certainly church we have no doubts
now from history revisionism that
churchill's interest main interest was
not germany it was the british empire
yes and to preserve it to india the road
to india and all that and
middle east
churchill fought the entire
war with the concept of preserving the
british empire all his goals he sent
america on a goose chase into italy
you could argue instead of establishing
a sincere second front in western europe
uh
interesting man
so i would have tried to get you know i
think i would approach it the same way
in 1939 it would have been a different
story because at that point
he'd attacked poland and uh in 1940
france so there's it's another ball game
but certainly if whatever at whatever
point you talk to him you i would try to
understand his point so i would i'm not
judging you hitler i'm saying to you
tell me what you're thinking why are you
invading russia what's your thought
that's all an interviewer should do he
shouldn't be
expressing his contempt for hitler which
like an american journalist interviewing
putin it's i'm getting brownie points
for for expressing my contempt yeah for
you that that does i don't that doesn't
wash with me that's ugly yeah seek to
understand yes
uh this is a technical question but was
language a barrier as an interviewer to
some degree it's very hard to learn
russian
but i had very they have excellent
translators in the kremlin excellent
they are people who are trained
very seriously for for months or years
before they they these people are young
and they're
very bright
i was very impressed with the russian
transit it's interesting i mean i i i'm
impressed as well but there's a humor
that's lost
um there's a wit a dry wit there's stuff
said between the lines
that's not actually
have much content but it's more
kind of
the things that make communication more
frictionless it's the
there's a
there's a kind of sadness to a russian
humor that permeates all things and that
sometimes is lost in translation the
translation is a little bit colder
meaning it just conveys the facts
would you call it sardonic humor i would
say so yeah
and so it's interesting but i think you
could see that from facial expressions
when you're sitting across from the
person and you can
you can feel it
let me ask you in general
what's the role of love
in the human condition
in your life
in life in general you've talked you
looked at some of the darkest aspect of
human nature
what's the role of this one of the more
beautiful aspects of humanity i think
without love i wouldn't i don't think
i'd be able to carry on i think that
love is my
love is the greatest
the ability to love is the greatest
virtue you can have it's
it's it's the ability to share with
another
with your family with your children with
your wife with your lover your partner
it's an ability to extend yourself into
the world and it brings empathy with it
if you love well i think you expand it
to the human race too and i it's it's
it's the strength behind the great
novelists the great artists of our time
uh i think
part of the reason i suppose we're
scared of science sometimes is because
the scientists sometimes don't express
that clearly you can lose that when you
focus on the facts
on empirical data
on the science of things like you can
lose this the humanity that's between
the lines i'm often struck by when i
talk to scientists and i've talked to a
few and how arrogant they can be about
they don't talk to you if you don't
understand their world and they talk to
each other and there's an arrogance a
closed circle kind of thing oh he's not
at my level i can't
there's no discussion to be had with
this person he's a human being
that arrogance is terrifying to me
because
it's next door neighbor to
closed-mindedness which then can be used
by charismatic leaders as it was in nazi
germany to commit some of the worst
atrocities the scientists can be used
as
pawns in a very in a very cruel game
yeah um what advice would you give to
young people you've done
first of all some of the greatest films
ever
you've
you've lived a heck of a
life
you've uh
we're fearless and bold in asking some
really difficult questions of this world
what advice would you give to young
people today high school college
about career
how to have a career they can be proud
of or how to have a life they can be
proud of
well i have three children so obviously
i'm not necessarily the best
best advisor in the world i
and they i do find that the children
i've raised them with a sense of freedom
and they do what they want in the end
it's their life their destiny their
character that's what comes out
you can try to influence it
but you see you can try to get your
daughter to wake up at a certain hour in
the day but it never works you know uh
so i i i long ago gave up on that
and my children are all grown now but
aside from that i think
if i was a teacher in a school and
teaching film
i'd say to the students
get an education you can't just look at
film
you can look at because it's not a full
education it's not the spectrum i don't
think you should teach film as a
i think you need a base in other in
other worlds one of the greatest courses
i took in nyu
was and i was a war veteran on the gi
bill so i was older than the other
students one of the great i took a class
outside the film school in greek
classics
because i hadn't had much history or
and i wanted to know more about the
world of homer and so forth and the
teacher opened my eyes to so much
in that class and i wrote about it in my
memoir it's called uh chasing the light
about the professor leahy and what he
did to me he just he gave me the
concepts clearly of consciousness which
is the homeric theme for of odisha's and
and also lethae
l-a-t-h-e-l-l-e-t-h-e which is sleep and
how most of the
uh crew auditious crew
were experiencing lethal and how
unnecessary it was to stay awake
uh so it's not just film it's just you
have to learn the world as much as you
can when you're young
and
so that i think is the basis of a good
education and a classic one is important
a basis i think then you go on and you
can learn computer uh if you want but
that's specialization you know
if you're a computer geek is that a life
does that give you enough satisfaction
do you get the joy out of
out of people
no just like filmmaking is a skill yes
right you need to have the broad yes
background to understand the world
literature yes
uh history
absolutely
um so one of the things about being
human is life is finite
it ends do you think about your death
are you afraid of your death yeah sure
absolutely you have to come to terms
with death
and that's a tough one for many people
it's it's always there i'm older than
you obviously
and i'm getting closer to it couldn't
happen any day actually
when you get to a certain age you can't
assume that you're going to be alive
tomorrow so i try to deal with that
are you afraid of it
much less so than i was when i was
younger remember i was in vietnam but i
thought i dealt with it there but when i
came back i realized that i wanted to
live
so yes i've learned over time
to get more and more used to it and get
ready for it
what's a good answer to the question of
why live
so the realization that you wanted to
live
what was the reason to live
because it was better than being one of
those corpses that i saw in the jungle
uh you know i saw how finite death is
are there things in your life you regret
oh sure
um
is there something you wish you could
have done differently like if you could
go back to do one thing differently or
that the regrets are trans musculus i'm
curious
what do you say off
offline all the time uh
no
you'd be curious to know he's an
engineer too and engineers really value
mistakes
engineers value making mistakes and
errors because that's a opportunity to
learn
they i mean this is what you do with
systems is you test them to test them
and test them and errors is just
information he did the same thing is
true in its way of filmmaking there are
certain
things you learn as you build films and
you make mistakes it's like putting an
engine together and you
oh the film is flawed in that way you
know it other people may or may not see
it but the car runs or made money or
didn't make money
it can be good and it didn't make money
but then the point is that everything is
a build
every film is a construction same thing
as he goes through on a tesla we go
through on each film
uh
but films are art it's a little yeah the
thing is one film does not lead to a
lifetime guarantee of copyright
well yeah you have uh
the movie game as you've called it yeah
is uh
it's a complicated and cruel game
but it takes enormous amount of work
enormous amount of work to make a film
people unders underestimate that
it's extremely complicated to have
something be successful
because it has so many elements of luck
involved and
reception and
so forth
what do you think i apologize for the
absurd question
but what do you think is the meaning of
life
why are we here
the why i think to realize ourselves to
to realize more of what you are to
realize what life is to appreciate it to
grow
to honest honor our life to honor the
concept of life and to understand how
precious life is
the preciousness of life as the
buddhists say
and of course the immediacy of death all
around us the causes of death are all
around us uh
and our life is like a as they say is
like a
lantern in a strong breeze among the
existing
among the causes of death so life is so
precious and at the same time
immediacy of death and then of course
the continuation of life in whatever
form it's going to take
but in this life to wake up to the
preciousness of it
to the preciousness yeah that's a
wonderful thing by the way i didn't have
that when i was young i took it for
granted
oliver like i said i'm i'm a huge fan
you're an incredible human being one of
the greatest artists ever
uh so it's a huge honor that you sit
with me and talk
uh so deeply and honestly about some
very difficult topics again
you're an inspiration and it's an honor
that you will spend your valuable time
with me thank you very much thanks for
talking fun being here
thanks for listening to this
conversation with oliver stone to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
let me leave you with some words from
oliver stone in the untold history of
the united states
to fail is not tragic
to be human is
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time