Oliver Stone has regrets about Midnight Express.
Visiting Turkey for the first time since the movie was released in 1978, Stone admitted "over-dramatising" the screenplay, which he wrote. It was one of his early forays into cinematography for a film that was directed by Alan Parker.
The script, which won Stone an Oscar in 1979, was based exclusively on interviews with Billy Hayes, the American sentenced to 30 years in prison for smuggling drugs into Turkey.In the film, Mr Hayes, who was played by the actor Brad Davis, eventually escapes.
"It's true I over-dramatised the script," Stone told reporters in Istanbul before holding talks with Turkey's culture and tourism minister, Erkan Mumcu. "But the reality of Turkish prisons at the time was also referred to ... by various human rights associations."
Stone said he had been fearful of visiting Turkey for a long time because of the effect the hard-hitting movie had had on the country. "For years, I heard that Turkish people were angry with me and I didn't feel safe there," he told the mass selling Millyet daily.
"The culture ministry gave me a guarantee that I would be safe, so I feel comfortable now," said the American, who went on to direct Born on the 4th of July, Platoon, Evita and, most recently, Alexander.
Echoing the view of diplomats who said that, if anything, foreigners were often treated better than locals in Turkish jails, Stone said that the country had improved greatly since 1974, when a brief visit to Istanbul had given him the impression of being in a "very Ottoman" place.
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Not to take away from Stone's feelings of guilt but when I saw the movie back then I was less than 5 years removed from a one year tour in Sinop, Turkey (across the Black Sea from the Crimea). Nothing in the movie surprised me.
I arrived in Sinop just before a general election. Soon after the election the new ruling party opened the doors and cleaned out the country's prisons in what was called a general amnesty. Since it included the prison in Sinop, all Americans had to stay on base while the newly freed prison population (those that weren't shot down) went wild raping and pillaging it's way into the hinterlands for a couple of days.
Soon after a GI packing up his stuff for reassignment back in the states though it'd be a good idea to pack his stereo speakers with hashish. The friendly merchant that sold him the hashish probably thought what a great idea it would be to also sell the information to the police. That GI spent about 8 months in the local Turkish prison. He was allowed one visit a month which the base commander and Chaplin dutifully made and they took him stacks of blankets, clothing and boxes of rations. Nothing is provided in a Turkish prison except stone walls and metal bars. Every month they took him another supply since he didn't even have a shred of a blanket left from the previous month. But likely because of these goods, he did survive. When he was let out after eight months I saw him in the Day Room when no one else was around. He was pretty twitchy. None of us were surprised.
No, I don't remember anything about "Midnight Express" as being outrageous and I do remember walking out of the movie glad my service in Turkey was far behind me. While there I lived on the economy, traveled extensively and made some Turkish friends. For me it was pretty much a positive experience but I was aware then as I am aware now that their way of life and ours don't correlate in many, many ways, even if Turkey is a "modern" (the most modern) Islamic country.
So, instead, I would rather have read of Stone's recanting on some of his other work, too.
Posted by: Candyman at December 17, 2004 2:50 PMI know it's not in your writing Kate and in the article you linked, but Stone didn't direct "Evita". Alan Parker did.
A little piece of movie trivia. (I'm anal about that kinda thing.)
Posted by: The Hack at December 17, 2004 4:40 PMHaha. Hack, I was about to say the same thing. It is important to get trivia correct. Failure to do so undermines the credibility of the reporting.
Posted by: somebody else at December 20, 2004 1:52 PM