Showtime claimed its four-part documentary of Oliver Stone interviews with Vladimir Putin provided “unparalleled access” to the Russian ruler and “intimate insight into his personal and professional lives.” The timing of the show was certainly appealing, considering the intense media focus on Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Unfortunately, the result is sorely disappointing. The Oscar-winning director’s interviews amounted to little more than a Russian “active measure,” a carefully choreographed vehicle for Putin to air his well-known grievances against the U.S. and reinforce his strongman image. When, for example, Putin claims that Russia “doesn’t interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries,” the viewer eagerly awaits a hard-hitting follow-up question, but Stone rarely challenges the Russian ruler’s assertions.
Stone’s approach is no surprise. The interviews occurred between July 2015 and February 2017. During that period, Stone was in Russia filming the Snowden biopic, his latest work on U.S. government conspiracies. His award-winning film JFK details another conspiracy, a supposed plot by the CIA and shadowy right wingers to assassinate the president. The film is partially based on a book by Joachim Joesten, Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy. Joesten was reportedly a KGB agent, and according to the Mitrokhin archives, his publisher received subsidies from the Soviets to spread KGB disinformation. In Stone’s obsession to unmask an American conspiracy, he was duped by a Russian one.
More relevant to the Putin interviews, Stone also sees U.S. conspiracies aimed at Russia. He has dismissed the DNC hacking operation as an “inside job,” not the work of Russian agents, and he produced Ukraine on Fire, a documentary in lockstep with Kremlin propaganda alleging that the U.S. government covertly orchestrated the country’s orange revolution.
Stone reviews with Putin the broad spectrum of contentious issues with the U.S. and the West, NATO expansion, Chechnya, Ukraine, and Syria. Putin’s comments on each boil down to two main themes: the U.S. is responsible for all the conflicts and the U.S. is trying to undermine Russia. Stone never confronts Putin on any of these issues; instead, he often goads Putin to bash his adversaries even more. “We have blamed everything on Russia since 1917,” Stone comments at one point. On the Ukraine crisis, Stone, without any prompting by Putin, notes that snipers were firing on the duly elected government’s police during protests. “Yes, to create chaos,” Putin agrees, delighted with Stone’s comment.
Stone claims he approached the interviews as a filmmaker and not a journalist. Instead of a black backdrop and director’s chairs, Stone interviews Putin in a variety of cinematic settings, all designed to illustrate the many facets of the Russian ruler’s brand: Putin, the average man—sitting in a simply furnished office, driving a car, feeding horses at his dacha; Putin the macho sportsman—playing hockey; and Putin the leader—conferring by videoconference in a situation room with a commander in Syria, strolling through a former czar’s throne room, flying aboard the presidential jet.
Stone seems giddily enchanted by these venues, which may have sparked his fawning praise for Putin, reminiscent of obsequious interviews of Stalin by Pravda journalists. “You are an excellent CEO,” he notes at one point. In a gag-inducing moment, Stone watches Putin on a TV screen and lavishes more praise, “You could have been a movie star!”
The interviews are also interspersed with graphics and film clips from Russia Today, the Kremlin’s mouthpiece (yet another fact Putin denies in the interviews). After Putin lambastes the U.S. for launching worldwide terrorism by its policies in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the documentary cuts away to horrific scenes of the 2002 terrorist attacks in a Moscow theater and the 2014 attack of a school in Beslan. Neither Stone nor Putin note that botched raids against the terrorists by Russia’s crack security forces resulted in the deaths of many of their own citizens.
Stone does occasionally catch Putin off guard with innocuous questions. He asks, “Do you ever have a bad day?” and Putin responds disparagingly that only women have bad days, a comment that hardly marks him as a defender of women’s rights. While discussing gay rights, Stone asks if Putin would take a shower with a gay sailor; Putin, flustered, responds incoherently that he wouldn’t, he knows judo, and family values must be supported so children are produced. Stone also suddenly confronts Putin by asking, “So why did you hack the elections?” Putin issues his customary denial and seems a bit miffed when Stone presses him further. Probably sensing this, Stone quickly retreats and turns the tables to Putin’s liking by raising U.S. interference in Russia’s 2012 elections.
In the state controlled media, the Putin interviews have been hailed as a documentary explaining the Russian ruler’s wisdom to ordinary Americans. The majority of Americans, however, will not be as easily duped as Stone is. Putin himself seems to realize this when he poses his own question to Stone at the end of the interviews, “Have you ever been beaten?” Stone, quizically, answers yes. Putin responds, “So, it’s not going to be something new, because you are going to suffer for what you’re doing.” Based on reviews of the documentary to date, this time Putin is telling the truth.
