Chasing The Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game

Oliver Stone

Jul 2020 · HarperCollins

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“Vulnerable, introspective, stubbornly tenacious and frequently heartbroken — may just be the most sympathetic character [Stone] has ever written.'' —New York Times Book Review

Before moving to Los Angeles and the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while working odd jobs in Manhattan. Stone recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the highs and lows: meetings with Al Pacino over Stone’s early scripts; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction; the failure of his first feature; his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and much more. Chasing the Light is a true insider’s guide to Hollywood’s razor-edged years of upheaval in the 1970s and ’80s with untold stories of decade-defining films from the man behind the camera.

“Chasing the Light shows a man who still runs towards the gunfire. This is, you will gather, a tremendous book—readable, funny, and harrowing. It’s also full of movie-making gossip, scandal, and fun.” —Sunday Times (London)

“Oliver, in honest and sometimes brutal fashion, lays it out — what it took for him to get to where he hoped to be . . . Bravo. Bravo. Bravo.” —Spike Lee, Academy Award-winning director and producer

''Oliver Stone is a giant provocateur in the Hollywood movie system. His autobiography is a fascinating exposure of Stone’s inner life and his powerful, all devouring energy and genius that drove him to become one of the world’s greatest filmmakers.” —Sir Anthony Hopkins, a multi-award–winning film actor, director, and producer

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OLIVER STONE is the multiple Oscar-winning writer and director of Platoon, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killer, Midnight Express, and many other films.