Oliver Stone: China's film-makers need to confront country's past

Stone causes controversy by telling Beijing international film festival audience that Chinese directors fail to make movies about Mao Zedong's damaging legacy

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• Ben Child
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• theguardian.com, Thursday 17 April 2014

Typically outspoken … Oliver Stone at the Beijing international film festival. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

Hollywood's habit of allowing Chinese censors to cut offending material from blockbuster movies has led to accusations of artistic surrender from some critics. But at least one US film-maker has clearly not been reading the script: Oliver Stone has told an audience in Beijing that the world's most populous nation desperately needs to confront its past on the big screen if its burgeoning film industry is to be taken seriously.

Speaking at the Beijing international film festival, Stone caused huge embarrassment for organisers when he began to discuss the failure of local directors to confront the damaging legacy of the country's revered founder Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution a half century ago. The outspoken film-maker was appearing on a panel that was supposed to be discussing co-production between China and Hollywood.

"Mao Zedong has been lionised in dozens and dozens of Chinese films, but never criticised," said Stone. "It's about time. You got to make a movie about Mao, about the Cultural Revolution. You do that, you open up, you stir the waters and you allow true creativity to emerge in this country. That would be the basis of real co-production."

He added: "Three times I've made efforts to co-produce in this country and I've come up short. We've been honest about our own past in America, we've shown the flaws."