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The problem is that Oliver Stone wants it both ways: he wants to be seen as revealing "the truth" and yet, when he elides or distorts or deletes factual context and detail, he responds to criticism by declaring that "It's only a movie." That's why I have problems with comparisons between Stone's films and Shakespeare's historical plays. Shakespeare was out to write popular plays and make a shilling or two; he never presented his plays as better, more honest history than the history he was drawing on. Stone does precisely that. He's in the same hypocritical category as Gore Vidal, who claims that his historical novels are more accurate than the histories produced by "scholar-squirrels" -- and yet, when historians point out his mistakes (both sloppy and deliberate) he claims that he's only a novelist and they're being unfair. Besides, given that so many Americans get most of their understanding of the past from popular-culture media (films, TV miniseries, etc.) rather than from scholarship, and given that so many Americans still think that if they see it on the big screen, "it must be true," Oliver Stone's NIXON is probably the only detailed examination of the man that most Americans will ever see. Doesn't that scare anybody?
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