The 12th Mumbai Film Festival, better known as MAMI (after Mumbai Academy of Moving Image, the body which organises the annual fest), has brought a splash of world cinema to Bolly-town. From Kitano to Kiarostami, Coppola to Campion — the latest works from the best of the global auteurs have been wowing Mumbaikars over the last week.

But Tuesday evening Hollywood took over as master filmmaker Oliver Stone flew in from Singapore. The man who gave us some of the greatest American movies in the last three decades is here to collect the International Lifetime Achievement Award. With a moustache which makes him look a touch too sedate for his enfant terrible image, Stone spoke about some of his works and his Calcutta connection with many smiles and a couple of shrugs.

Alexander again

Of the many amazing crests in his filmography, the 2004 epic Alexander is one Oliver Stone film that remains an embarrassing trough. “It rips your guts out when a film is not accepted,” he says. So what went wrong? “We finished shooting in March and we had to ready the film by November. I should have taken more time in post-production.”

So Stone has now readied a new version, called Alexander Revisited. “I went back to the film three years later in 2007 and started work on it with the original intention of the cut,” says the triple-Oscar-winning director. “Now it’s three hours and 44 minutes… more powerful, more understandable. I really feel it’s not fair not to see the film.”

Stone had, in fact, come to Ladakh to shoot the initial sequences of Alexander back in 2003. “We had come to Mumbai and gone to Rajasthan but I was enamoured by the north. Ladakh was so beautiful… . I had never seen landscapes like that. I will always remember that place, I am very fond of it.”

Old and mellow

Stone is well aware that his much-awaited sequel to his 1987 classic Wall Street, the recent release Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, has met with mixed reactions. “People expected something else but they must realise that this is an older Oliver Stone and that life changes,” he says. He is quick to add: “Even the first Wall Street was misunderstood and it was only accepted much later.”

Rather than exploring the financial upheaval America has been going through, Money Never Sleeps tends to concentrate on interpersonal relationships. “The financial issues have been done to death in documentaries, many books written about it and covered comprehensibly in newspapers; I just used it as a backdrop,” Stone explains. “My film is about six people surviving in the shark tank called New York. It’s about greed, betrayal, love…. In fact, everybody betrays everybody in the film. It can almost be considered as an Indian movie. And I like that.”

But Stone does maintain that stylistically both the Wall Streets are on the same page. “They are both sleek and glossy. For its time the original Wall Street was very stylish..We used filters and split-screens. In the new one, we have adapted the language of TV. See all these guys live in a loop. They have constant feedback from computers and TV. So visually we have incorporated that.”

Indian rendezvous

Stone was mentored by none other than Martin Scorsese when he was in film school at New York. No wonder then that he had his dose of Satyajit Ray (whom Marty promoted in a big way in the US) early on in life. “I am not that familiar with current Indian films but I studied Ray in school,” he remembers fondly. “Now, Indian cinema has become so prolific that I can’t keep up. But I love the fact that Indian films have the desire to be flexible. A film can switch genres from musical romance to comedy to tragedy. I have never had a problem with such bending of genres.”

And if the Ray connection wasn’t enough, Stone was once appointed to direct The City of Joy. “Yes, I was tied to do that film years ago and I feel I was double-crossed,” he says. The Dominique Lapierre adaptation was eventually made in Calcutta by director Roland Joffe with Patrick Swayze in the lead.

Stone wouldn’t have had a problem even if Slumdog Millionaire had come his way. “Boyle beat all of us to it…. He did the right thing,” he chuckles. “Oh, if only I had Danny Boyle’s luck!”

Looking ahead

Besides presenting Alexander Revisited, Stone has also brought his new documentary to the Mumbai Film Festival. It’s called South of the Border and explores the phenomenon of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. “I also interviewed presidents of seven Latin American countries to understand their real politics and not what we are told in the American media.”

For the man who made anti-establishment films like JFK, Nixon and W., it’s very important that he stays true to himself. “I have never done a movie that I didn’t think was politically correct for me,” Stone explains. Even if that means studios not funding his films. “I will never sell out.”

Currently, Stone is working on a 12-hour TV documentary called The Untold History of the United States. “It’s for the children who are growing up now… they have no access to the real history of the country,” he says animatedly. “We have always had a very rightist way of looking at history and that’s how it has been documented. I am taking a slightly left of centre approach to our history, which the children of America will have access to.”

Post script

Stone always had more than something to say about American presidents which have landed him in one too many controversies. So what does he have to say about the Obama tenure at the White House, with the Prez coming to India in the coming week? “Oh, I don’t want to influence his trip,” winks the celluloid master, treating himself to a smile which reveals more than it conceals.

HIS SMASHING SIX

Platoon (1986): A war film written and directed by Oliver Stone, Platoon is the first of his Vietnam War trilogy. Stone wrote the story based upon his experiences as a US infantryman in Vietnam. Platoon got four Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Film.

Born on the Fourth of July (1989): The second of the trilogy. Tom Cruise got his first Academy nomination for the film which went on to win two Academy awards.

Heaven & Earth (1993): The third of the war film trilogy, written and directed by Stone. The film is based on the books When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace by Le Ly Hayslip about her experiences in the Vietnam war.

Midnight Express (1978):Oliver Stone’s first Academy Award was for the Best Adapted Screenplay for this Alan Parker-directed film.

Wall Street (1987): A story about a budding stock broker, played by Charlie Sheen, and his hero the unscrupulous Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas. Douglas won a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance. A sequel followed in 2010.

Natural Born Killers (1994): A crime film directed by Stone about a pair of mass murderers and the media coverage given to them. It stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis with screenplay by Quentin Tarantino.