May 18, 2025 • 10 mins
This recap episode offers insights from an interview with filmmaker Oliver Stone, focusing on his early life and career up to 1986, as detailed in his memoir Chasing the Light. Stone recounts his experiences serving in the Vietnam War, which significantly influenced his directing, particularly his critically acclaimed film Platoon. He discusses the challenges of bringing this realistic portrayal of war to the screen, including its initial rejection and the difficulties of low-budget filmmaking. Additionally, Stone touches on other notable works like Scarface and the documentary series The Untold History of the United States, highlighting his interest in thorny subjects and his desire to expose hidden truths about American history and foreign policy, such as the JFK assassination and the war on drugs.
---
We all love The Joe Rogan Experience and much prefer the real thing, but sometimes it's not possible to listen to an entire episode or you just want to recap an episode you've previously listened to. The Joe Rogan Recap uses Google's NotebookLM to create a conversational podcast that recaps episodes of JRE into a more manageable listen.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Today, we're diving deep into a
really fascinating conversation.Yeah.
The one between Joe Rogan and filmmaker Oliver Stone.
Episode hashtag 1511. Right from the powerful JRE
channel and our mission basically is to pull out the key
stuff. Especially on his Vietnam
experiences right and making platoon.
Totally. And also his, you know, his
(00:21):
takes on American history, political stuff, it gets pretty
provocative. Definitely.
Our source material is basicallyexcerpts from the transcript of
that JRE video. OK, so let's jump in.
Stone talks about Vietnam almoststraight away.
That last mission, N68. Yeah, I show Valley First
Calvary. It sounds incredibly intense.
He volunteered for extra time too.
(00:42):
That's right, three extra monthsjust to avoid stateside duty.
Which led him to this final mission. 11 days.
Helicopters couldn't get in constant rain.
Leeches everywhere, he said. And just feeling the enemy all
around them. Yeah, harrowing, nerve racking.
And you can immediately see how that experience just, well, it
bled into everything for him. Esecially filmmaking.
(01:02):
Exactly. Yeah, it fundamentally shaped
how we approached war films. He wanted authenticity, not
just, you know, simple heroics. So that direct experience
informed how he directed platoon, then getting the
details right. Totally like the distances in
combat, the intensity of firepower.
He felt movies often got that wrong.
How so? Well, he said, they often overdo
the intensity. Can the enemy way too close for
(01:25):
dramatic effect? His experience was different,
more confusing maybe. And he wasn't a fan of some
later war films post 2001 stuff.Right.
He was pretty critical, called them patriotic, heavily
militaristic, and kind of way off on how combat and death
really look and feel. Did he mention any specific?
Ones he brought up Lone Survivor, suggesting it
(01:45):
exaggerated the number of enemy killed quite a bit.
So his own benchmark for realismwas just different because he'd
actually been there, done that. Precisely.
It's rooted in that messy, oftenunglamorous reality he saw,
which is why Platoon feels different.
Not everyone's a hero in that film.
And the characters were based onreal people he knew.
Yeah, that's a key thing. Sergeant Barnes, Tom Barringer's
(02:08):
character based on a platoon leader with these really
distinct scars. And Willem Dafoe's character,
Sergeant Elias. Based on this beloved guy from a
LRRP unit. LRRP Long Range Reconnaissance
Patrol, right? Those guys went deep.
Exactly. And the real tragedy there, the
real guy Elias was based on, he was killed by friendly fire.
Wow, Stone early hammers that point home, doesn't he?
(02:30):
Friendly fire in Vietnam. He does, he estimates, and this
is staggering, maybe 15 to 20% of their own casualties came
from friendly fire. 15 to 20%, that's huge.
Yeah, including bombing runs, artillery, not just small
mistakes. He even draws a line to the Pat
Tillman incident. How the initial story kind of
(02:50):
obscured the friendly fire aspect.
Exactly, and he feels the Pentagon actively downplays this
stuff, especially in movies. They approve.
They don't want to admit how common it was.
So you can see this deep seated need to tell a different story
born from that raw experience. Which brings us to actually
making Platoon. That took a while, didn't it?
Oh yeah, he started the script back in 76.
(03:10):
Nearly 10 years before it came out.
Why so long? Well, it was a tough sell.
Studios rejected it. They thought it was like, too
real, too much of A downer. Compared to what?
Apocalypse Now? The Deer Hunter.
Yeah, those films had a more mythic quality, maybe, or even
the Rainbow movies, although he said the first Rambo wasn't bad.
(03:32):
So the resistance was to the realism, the lack of clear cut
heroes. Pretty much, it wasn't the
triumphant war story some peoplewanted.
It almost got made in 83 though.With Michael Simoneau producing
Oh Deer Hunter, director of DeerHunter, right?
But that deal fell through. Stone kind of suspects powerful
figures might have blocked. It like.
Who he mentioned maybe Kissingeror Haig who were on MGM's board
(03:54):
then. But look, that's his suspicion
based on timing and stuff, not like a proven fact.
You should take his gospel. Gotcha.
And the Pentagon wasn't exactly rolling out the red carpet,
either. No way they refused cooperation.
They were particularly upset about the whole fragging
depiction. Soldiers killing their own
officers, Yeah, I can see why they wouldn't like that.
Definitely challenge the image of discipline.
(04:16):
So what broke the log jam? He mentioned Kubrick's Full
Metal Jacket might have helped pave the way a bit, right?
But the funding actually came from overseas.
A British company, Hemdale. And they made it on a tight
budget back-to-back with Salvador.
Yeah, filming in Mexico and the Philippines, which probably
explains some of his methods. Like that intense boot camp for
(04:36):
the actors. Oh yeah, sleep deprivation, mock
attacks, the whole 9 yards. He wanted them exhausted,
irritable. To feel like real soldiers in
the jungle. Exactly, he said.
Some actors actually quit, couldn't handle it.
Wow, and the casting was very specific too.
Yeah, young, fresh faces, peoplewho look like the guys he
(04:57):
actually served with from all different backgrounds.
And he had Dale die on set. The combat advisor Vietnam vet
himself crucial for authenticity.
Absolutely getting those little details right.
So when it finally came out December 86, he said it felt
like a bomb went off. Yeah, the timing was potent.
The war wasn't that far in the past and it's realism, the drug
(05:18):
use, the divisions between draftees and volunteers, the
racial stuff after MLK's death. Things that weren't usually
shown. Right.
It hit a nerve globally. Apparently he's stressed getting
the details right, like how bodies actually look after
death, the sheer confusion of battle.
Contrasting it with the Army's method of just like bombing
everything to minimize US casualties.
(05:39):
Yeah, but pointing out that led to civilian deaths and, well,
more friendly fire. And it became a huge hit,
despite being so dark. No obvious kid appeal not
initially aimed at women. Surprising, right?
But it clearly resonated. So Vietnam wasn't just a
setting, it was the heart of it.But his view goes beyond just
that war. Yeah, he talks about the lack of
trust that came out of Vietnam in the government, the military.
(06:02):
Especially how veterans were treated.
Agent Orange PTSD, which, you know, wasn't even really
recognized then. Right.
And he saw parallels later in Central America in the 80s while
making Salvador. Yeah, seeing young GIS deployed
again, maybe without fully grasping the situation, just
like in Nam, he felt he had to show that stuff.
In platoon in Salvador, that sense of obligation comes
(06:25):
through it. Really.
Does it drove him? I mean he even talked about
giving his own dad LSD. Wait, what?
His Republican Eisenhower supporting dad?
Yeah. Apparently, during arguments
about Vietnam, to try and shake up his dad's mindset, his dad
held the whole domino theory line.
That is unconventional. Did it work?
He says his dad did start questioning things later on, but
(06:48):
wow. And when Stone came back from
the war himself, the protests. He said in New York it was more
indifference he felt, not reallyopen hostility.
Interesting, his whole approach seems to be tackling these
tough, thorny subjects as he calls them.
Yeah, but making them entertaining like Nixon or JFK
diving into really controversial.
(07:08):
Stuff JFK especially. He went deep on that, didn't he?
Influenced by Lifton's best evidence knew Jim Garrison.
Yeah, he's firm on Oswald not acting alone, the whole magic
bullet thing. What do you call it?
Straight up horseshit. Pretty blunt.
Can't miss that and he has a newdocumentary coming on it.
Apparently so, using info from the Assassination Records Review
Board looking at inconsistenciesin the autopsy, the rifle
(07:31):
evidence. He also touches on Jack Ruby
right? The weirdness around him.
Potential drugging in prison. Mob links.
Yeah, suggesting Ruby was likelyforced to kill Oswald, and he
mentions the Zapruder film, how it eventually got out.
It's a lot. Shifting gears, he briefly
mentioned Scarface too. Yeah, how?
It had a mixed reception at first, but became this huge
(07:52):
cultural icon. And his view of Tony Montana is
kind of interesting. Yeah, almost like an anti hero
because he saw through the quotebullshit of the drug war.
Stone really sees that whole waron drugs as a disaster.
A bureaucratic invention, he called it.
Pretty much. He finds hypocrisy there,
comparing the waste to stuff he saw in Vietnam like overbuilt
noncombat bases, and points to ongoing issues like protecting
(08:16):
poppy fields in Afghanistan. He seems really proud of his
documentary series The Untold History of the United States.
Oh, massively. Five years of work trying to
debunk myths in American historyfrom 1898 up to around 2013.
When he talks about that powerful system hindering
change, you assume he means the military industrial complex.
That seems to be the implication, yeah.
(08:36):
That network of military contractors, politicians that
can kind of perpetuate itself. And his motivation seems quite
personal too, exploring his own flaws through his work.
Yeah, rediscovering himself, thecontradictions.
He also talked about films he couldn't get made.
Like 1 about Malay. Yeah, thwarted by the 2008
crash, right? And an MLK story that was seen
(08:57):
as too sensitive. He also made Snowden, which he
clearly feels strongly about. Absolutely.
The importance of that story, the shock of the surveillance
state, he laments to the film, didn't get more support in the
US. He met Snowden in Moscow.
He did, and he also talked aboutinterviewing Yasser Arafat, this
really tense moment in Ramallah right before in Israeli raid.
Wow, he acknowledges his outspokenness sometimes
(09:19):
overshadows the films. Maybe.
Yeah, but he feels he has to speak out, and his biggest
concern now seems to be World Peace, the new Cold War vibes,
nuclear weapons. Exactly.
He sees that as the absolute critical issue and he sounds
pretty disillusioned with politics since JFK mostly.
Maybe some initial hope for Obama or Clinton, but feels like
(09:40):
the system itself is just too entrenched.
So wrapping this up, what reallystands out for you from this
whole conversation? Is it that visceral Vietnam
account? That's definitely powerful.
Or maybe the sheer struggle to get Platoon made against the
odds. It shows incredible persistence.
Or just his willingness to keep tackling these really difficult,
(10:00):
controversial parts of American history and politics, even when
it makes people uncomfortable. Yeah, His whole journey, you
know, from the jungle to Hollywood, dealing with power.
Yeah, it gives you a really unique way to look at things, a
unique lens. For sure, and like we said, this
deep dive really just gives you a taste.
There's so much more in the fullepisode.
Absolutely. We definitely encourage you.
If you're interested, go check out the original JRD episode
(10:23):
Hashtag 1511 with Oliver Stone. So thinking ahead, what other
big historical moments or political debates would you find
interesting for us to dive into like this?
Let us know.
Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Today, we're diving deep into a
really fascinating conversation.Yeah.
The one between Joe Rogan and filmmaker Oliver Stone.
Episode hashtag 1511. Right from the powerful JRE
channel and our mission basically is to pull out the key
stuff. Especially on his Vietnam
experiences right and making platoon.
Totally. And also his, you know, his
(00:21):
takes on American history, political stuff, it gets pretty
provocative. Definitely.
Our source material is basicallyexcerpts from the transcript of
that JRE video. OK, so let's jump in.
Stone talks about Vietnam almoststraight away.
That last mission, N68. Yeah, I show Valley First
Calvary. It sounds incredibly intense.
He volunteered for extra time too.
(00:42):
That's right, three extra monthsjust to avoid stateside duty.
Which led him to this final mission. 11 days.
Helicopters couldn't get in constant rain.
Leeches everywhere, he said. And just feeling the enemy all
around them. Yeah, harrowing, nerve racking.
And you can immediately see how that experience just, well, it
bled into everything for him. Esecially filmmaking.
(01:02):
Exactly. Yeah, it fundamentally shaped
how we approached war films. He wanted authenticity, not
just, you know, simple heroics. So that direct experience
informed how he directed platoon, then getting the
details right. Totally like the distances in
combat, the intensity of firepower.
He felt movies often got that wrong.
How so? Well, he said, they often overdo
the intensity. Can the enemy way too close for
(01:25):
dramatic effect? His experience was different,
more confusing maybe. And he wasn't a fan of some
later war films post 2001 stuff.Right.
He was pretty critical, called them patriotic, heavily
militaristic, and kind of way off on how combat and death
really look and feel. Did he mention any specific?
Ones he brought up Lone Survivor, suggesting it
(01:45):
exaggerated the number of enemy killed quite a bit.
So his own benchmark for realismwas just different because he'd
actually been there, done that. Precisely.
It's rooted in that messy, oftenunglamorous reality he saw,
which is why Platoon feels different.
Not everyone's a hero in that film.
And the characters were based onreal people he knew.
Yeah, that's a key thing. Sergeant Barnes, Tom Barringer's
(02:08):
character based on a platoon leader with these really
distinct scars. And Willem Dafoe's character,
Sergeant Elias. Based on this beloved guy from a
LRRP unit. LRRP Long Range Reconnaissance
Patrol, right? Those guys went deep.
Exactly. And the real tragedy there, the
real guy Elias was based on, he was killed by friendly fire.
Wow, Stone early hammers that point home, doesn't he?
(02:30):
Friendly fire in Vietnam. He does, he estimates, and this
is staggering, maybe 15 to 20% of their own casualties came
from friendly fire. 15 to 20%, that's huge.
Yeah, including bombing runs, artillery, not just small
mistakes. He even draws a line to the Pat
Tillman incident. How the initial story kind of
(02:50):
obscured the friendly fire aspect.
Exactly, and he feels the Pentagon actively downplays this
stuff, especially in movies. They approve.
They don't want to admit how common it was.
So you can see this deep seated need to tell a different story
born from that raw experience. Which brings us to actually
making Platoon. That took a while, didn't it?
Oh yeah, he started the script back in 76.
(03:10):
Nearly 10 years before it came out.
Why so long? Well, it was a tough sell.
Studios rejected it. They thought it was like, too
real, too much of A downer. Compared to what?
Apocalypse Now? The Deer Hunter.
Yeah, those films had a more mythic quality, maybe, or even
the Rainbow movies, although he said the first Rambo wasn't bad.
(03:32):
So the resistance was to the realism, the lack of clear cut
heroes. Pretty much, it wasn't the
triumphant war story some peoplewanted.
It almost got made in 83 though.With Michael Simoneau producing
Oh Deer Hunter, director of DeerHunter, right?
But that deal fell through. Stone kind of suspects powerful
figures might have blocked. It like.
Who he mentioned maybe Kissingeror Haig who were on MGM's board
(03:54):
then. But look, that's his suspicion
based on timing and stuff, not like a proven fact.
You should take his gospel. Gotcha.
And the Pentagon wasn't exactly rolling out the red carpet,
either. No way they refused cooperation.
They were particularly upset about the whole fragging
depiction. Soldiers killing their own
officers, Yeah, I can see why they wouldn't like that.
Definitely challenge the image of discipline.
(04:16):
So what broke the log jam? He mentioned Kubrick's Full
Metal Jacket might have helped pave the way a bit, right?
But the funding actually came from overseas.
A British company, Hemdale. And they made it on a tight
budget back-to-back with Salvador.
Yeah, filming in Mexico and the Philippines, which probably
explains some of his methods. Like that intense boot camp for
(04:36):
the actors. Oh yeah, sleep deprivation, mock
attacks, the whole 9 yards. He wanted them exhausted,
irritable. To feel like real soldiers in
the jungle. Exactly, he said.
Some actors actually quit, couldn't handle it.
Wow, and the casting was very specific too.
Yeah, young, fresh faces, peoplewho look like the guys he
(04:57):
actually served with from all different backgrounds.
And he had Dale die on set. The combat advisor Vietnam vet
himself crucial for authenticity.
Absolutely getting those little details right.
So when it finally came out December 86, he said it felt
like a bomb went off. Yeah, the timing was potent.
The war wasn't that far in the past and it's realism, the drug
(05:18):
use, the divisions between draftees and volunteers, the
racial stuff after MLK's death. Things that weren't usually
shown. Right.
It hit a nerve globally. Apparently he's stressed getting
the details right, like how bodies actually look after
death, the sheer confusion of battle.
Contrasting it with the Army's method of just like bombing
everything to minimize US casualties.
(05:39):
Yeah, but pointing out that led to civilian deaths and, well,
more friendly fire. And it became a huge hit,
despite being so dark. No obvious kid appeal not
initially aimed at women. Surprising, right?
But it clearly resonated. So Vietnam wasn't just a
setting, it was the heart of it.But his view goes beyond just
that war. Yeah, he talks about the lack of
trust that came out of Vietnam in the government, the military.
(06:02):
Especially how veterans were treated.
Agent Orange PTSD, which, you know, wasn't even really
recognized then. Right.
And he saw parallels later in Central America in the 80s while
making Salvador. Yeah, seeing young GIS deployed
again, maybe without fully grasping the situation, just
like in Nam, he felt he had to show that stuff.
In platoon in Salvador, that sense of obligation comes
(06:25):
through it. Really.
Does it drove him? I mean he even talked about
giving his own dad LSD. Wait, what?
His Republican Eisenhower supporting dad?
Yeah. Apparently, during arguments
about Vietnam, to try and shake up his dad's mindset, his dad
held the whole domino theory line.
That is unconventional. Did it work?
He says his dad did start questioning things later on, but
(06:48):
wow. And when Stone came back from
the war himself, the protests. He said in New York it was more
indifference he felt, not reallyopen hostility.
Interesting, his whole approach seems to be tackling these
tough, thorny subjects as he calls them.
Yeah, but making them entertaining like Nixon or JFK
diving into really controversial.
(07:08):
Stuff JFK especially. He went deep on that, didn't he?
Influenced by Lifton's best evidence knew Jim Garrison.
Yeah, he's firm on Oswald not acting alone, the whole magic
bullet thing. What do you call it?
Straight up horseshit. Pretty blunt.
Can't miss that and he has a newdocumentary coming on it.
Apparently so, using info from the Assassination Records Review
Board looking at inconsistenciesin the autopsy, the rifle
(07:31):
evidence. He also touches on Jack Ruby
right? The weirdness around him.
Potential drugging in prison. Mob links.
Yeah, suggesting Ruby was likelyforced to kill Oswald, and he
mentions the Zapruder film, how it eventually got out.
It's a lot. Shifting gears, he briefly
mentioned Scarface too. Yeah, how?
It had a mixed reception at first, but became this huge
(07:52):
cultural icon. And his view of Tony Montana is
kind of interesting. Yeah, almost like an anti hero
because he saw through the quotebullshit of the drug war.
Stone really sees that whole waron drugs as a disaster.
A bureaucratic invention, he called it.
Pretty much. He finds hypocrisy there,
comparing the waste to stuff he saw in Vietnam like overbuilt
noncombat bases, and points to ongoing issues like protecting
(08:16):
poppy fields in Afghanistan. He seems really proud of his
documentary series The Untold History of the United States.
Oh, massively. Five years of work trying to
debunk myths in American historyfrom 1898 up to around 2013.
When he talks about that powerful system hindering
change, you assume he means the military industrial complex.
That seems to be the implication, yeah.
(08:36):
That network of military contractors, politicians that
can kind of perpetuate itself. And his motivation seems quite
personal too, exploring his own flaws through his work.
Yeah, rediscovering himself, thecontradictions.
He also talked about films he couldn't get made.
Like 1 about Malay. Yeah, thwarted by the 2008
crash, right? And an MLK story that was seen
(08:57):
as too sensitive. He also made Snowden, which he
clearly feels strongly about. Absolutely.
The importance of that story, the shock of the surveillance
state, he laments to the film, didn't get more support in the
US. He met Snowden in Moscow.
He did, and he also talked aboutinterviewing Yasser Arafat, this
really tense moment in Ramallah right before in Israeli raid.
Wow, he acknowledges his outspokenness sometimes
(09:19):
overshadows the films. Maybe.
Yeah, but he feels he has to speak out, and his biggest
concern now seems to be World Peace, the new Cold War vibes,
nuclear weapons. Exactly.
He sees that as the absolute critical issue and he sounds
pretty disillusioned with politics since JFK mostly.
Maybe some initial hope for Obama or Clinton, but feels like
(09:40):
the system itself is just too entrenched.
So wrapping this up, what reallystands out for you from this
whole conversation? Is it that visceral Vietnam
account? That's definitely powerful.
Or maybe the sheer struggle to get Platoon made against the
odds. It shows incredible persistence.
Or just his willingness to keep tackling these really difficult,
(10:00):
controversial parts of American history and politics, even when
it makes people uncomfortable. Yeah, His whole journey, you
know, from the jungle to Hollywood, dealing with power.
Yeah, it gives you a really unique way to look at things, a
unique lens. For sure, and like we said, this
deep dive really just gives you a taste.
There's so much more in the fullepisode.
Absolutely. We definitely encourage you.
If you're interested, go check out the original JRD episode
(10:23):
Hashtag 1511 with Oliver Stone. So thinking ahead, what other
big historical moments or political debates would you find
interesting for us to dive into like this?
Let us know.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.