ED CURTIN—He tells us he didn’t wake up until he was nearly thirty-years-old – in 1976.
Ever since he has devoted his life to the art of waking up his fellow Americans through writing and filmmaking, which he had the great good fortune to learn at NYU film school from that other passionate New York filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, who was his professor. Scorsese shone a light on Oliver after he had made a short film without dialogue called Last Year in Vietnam. It was shown to the class, a tough group of critics, but before anyone had spoken, Scorsese said, “Well – this is a filmmaker.” It was an epiphany that Stone says he will never forget. A pure gift that set him on his way to eventually make his great films. But the journey was hard and took years to complete.