Under the influence

Filmmaker Oliver Stone is working on a documentary about Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez. Certainly, Stone isn’t obliged to be critical of Chavez. He’s an artist, not a historian. Still, people who one day may pay money to see Stone’s take on Chavez should go in with their eyes open.

According to an Associated Press report, Stone sees the former strong man as energetic and principled, a level of flattery that probably wouldn’t be used by private interests that had their assets nationalized by Chavez’s government. Stone said he also interviewed Chavez allies in Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia, which the movie man said have participated in the region’s “liberation from the United States.”

“The pure energy of the man is intoxicating,” Stone told AP, sounding quite under the influence. Give this to Stone: For a guy who often acts like he can’t stand his own country, he’s taken full advantage of its freedoms and capitalistic economy to do alright for himself.

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