Enclosed by Stone

War

“…Break had much of the essence of Platoon played out to the sound of The Doors. 9 In other words, it was an early amalgam of the thoughts and subject matter that in time, Stone would be able to commit to his movies. Thanks to the G.I.…”

“…Scorsese became a mentor to Stone, and saw in him a kindred spirit who was equally fractious, similarly questioning, and who wanted to turn his camera on the extraneous conditions of an America that had fallen apart in the six short years since the Kennedy assassination. 12 Unsurprisingly then, one of Stone's first attempts at filmmaking while at New York University was Last Year in Viet Nam (1971), which sought to capture some of the raw disillusionment of the war at home. Film was beginning to have a galvanising effect, zoning in on Stone's emotional reflexes and allowing him an outlet for the post-traumatic anxieties that were whirling around in his head.…”

“…Once Too Much still centred on Vietnam with, as he later remarked, 'an eerie parallel to Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July.' 15 Mexico featured as a setting, just as it had for Stone on his return -but so did a tragic, downbeat ending resulting in death and loss. The war was becoming an enduring concern from which Stone could never shake himself free, even in everyday life, but he had not yet found the story that he really wanted to tell.…”