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Film Is a Drug

The title of this blog, “Film Is a Drug,” comes from a quote from a well-known person. The full statement is this:

Film is a powerful medium. Film is a drug. Film is a potential hallucinogen. It goes into your eye, it goes into your brain. It stimulates. And is a dangerous thing. It can be a very subversive thing.

Before I tell you who said this, I’d like you to guess:

Is it:

  1. Bishop T.D. Jakes
  2. Pastor Bill Hybels
  3. Sean Hannity
  4. Anne Graham Lotz
  5. Oliver Stone
  6. Dr. Phil
  7. Alex Kendrick

Okay, enough of the suspense. My hunch is that most of you guessed one of the Christian leaders or perhaps Dr. Phil or Hannity. I mean this seemingly negative depiction of movies sounds like something one might hear in a sermon or said by some conservative media host. So the answer may surprise you. It’s actually Oliver Stone, the A-list director of such movies as JFK, W., Nixon, World Trade Center and the upcoming fall release, Snowden. Check out this video of Stone saying it here:

Now, I’d like you to join me for an imagined meeting of Oliver Stone and myself. Let’s suppose we’re crossing paths at a dinner party. After brief introductions, it’s obvious that Mr. Stone knows nothing about me, so to break the ice I let him know that we have matching film-philosophies—that film can be a very “subversive thing,” a “dangerous thing.” I quickly tell him that I totally agree that film goes into our eyes, into our brains and stimulates.

I tell him that sometimes it stimulates in wonderful ways, but that, as he states, it can stimulate in very tragic ways as well. And up to this point in my make-believe dinner party discussion, Oliver and I are still smiling as I clutch my lemonade and he reaches for a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

But then I have to ask, “If movies are as potentially dangerous and subversive as you suggest, don’t you think that your own film, Natural Born Killers, is one of the most dangerous films ever?” His hand freezes in midair above the cucumber sandwiches.

Now, you may be wondering why my imaginings have Stone acting surprised and maybe even a bit annoyed. I mean, if he believes films are “dangerous,” isn’t it likely he knows his own movie has been linked to its own brand of danger? It was, after all, ranked by Entertainment Weekly as the eighth most controversial film of all time. Many have linked the movie with real-world killings. Stone has repeatedly denied responsibility, comparing the “scapegoating” of his movie to the infamous “Twinkie” defense used by Dan White, when he was on trial for shooting San Francisco politician Harvey Milk in 1978.

“And it worked!” Stone told The Guardian in 2002. “He got away with a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and served five years. But you can’t blame the Twinkies in the same way that you can’t scapegoat the movies. You can’t blame the igniter. People can be ignited by anything. And yet this is something we’re seeing more and more of in America today. It’s a culture of liability lawsuits. The whole concept of individual responsibility has been broken up and passed around.”

But isn’t there some responsibility that filmmakers need to take for their “subversive, dangerous” products?

Soon after Natural Born Killers came out (22 years ago now), Plugged In began tracking the related news stories. Some sources suggest that as many as 33 murders have been linked to the movie.

Obviously, to say that crimes have been linked to a movie is a long way from saying that a movie caused those crimes. But these instances bring up an interesting point: Here’s a movie that does indeed seem to be, to use Stone’s words, “dangerous” and “subversive.” I even have professional experience with this. I personally talked with Lynnville, Tenn., school shooter Jamie Rouse, and he told me that Natural Born Killers had been an influential factor for him when he murdered a teacher and fellow student in 1995.

Even though Oliver Stone may not be able to see the link between his own film and the “dangerous, subversive” things he believes can be linked to the power of a motion picture, I’m still, perhaps oddly, grateful that he can be a voice in this cultural discussion, at least in a general sense. And being so deeply entrenched in the entertainment industry, Stone has an inside seat. Which make his words all the more powerful. So I long for the day when Hollywood no longer gives us movies that are “dangerous” and “subversive,” and only give us movies that would inspire us to do greater things to better our world. Until that day comes, I’m glad for the personal reminder.