#286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2022
⏱️ 119 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Oliver Stone is a filmmaker with 3 Oscar wins and 11 Oscar nominations. His films include Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, Scarface, JFK, Nixon, Alexander, W, Snowden, and documentaries where he has interviewed Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(09:35) – Nuclear power
(22:33) – Russia and US relations
(27:48) – JFK and the Cold War
(33:05) – Interviewing Putin
(56:44) – Invasion of Ukraine
(1:06:01) – Why Putin invaded Ukraine
(1:20:25) – Propaganda
(1:27:43) – Interviewing Putin in 2022
(1:34:59) – Nuclear war
(1:41:09) – Advice on interviewing
(1:44:50) – Interviewing Hitler
(1:48:11) – Putin interview language barrier
(1:49:22) – Love
(1:51:17) – Advice to young people
(1:54:23) – Mortality
(1:55:25) – Regrets
(1:57:22) – Meaning of life
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Oliver Stone. |
| 0:02.5 | He's one of the greatest filmmakers of all time |
| 0:04.9 | with three Oscar wins and 11 Oscar nominations. |
| 0:08.5 | His films tell stories of war and power. |
| 0:12.1 | Fearlessly and often controversially, |
| 0:14.5 | shining light on the dark parts of American and global history. |
| 0:18.6 | His films include Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, |
| 0:23.2 | Scarface, JFK, Nixon, Alexander, W, Snowden, |
| 0:28.3 | and documentaries where he has interviewed some of the most powerful |
| 0:32.3 | and consequential people in the world, including Fidel Castro, |
| 0:36.2 | Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin. |
| 0:39.9 | And in this conversation, Oliver and I mostly focus our discussion |
| 0:43.4 | on Vladimir Putin, Russia, and the war in Ukraine. |
| 0:47.9 | My goal with these conversations is to understand the human being before me, |
| 0:52.0 | to understand not just what they think, but how they think, |
| 0:55.8 | to steal man their ideas, and to steal man the devil's advocate, |
| 1:00.0 | all in service of understanding, not the vision. |
| 1:03.8 | I have done this poorly in the past, I'm still struggling with this, |
| 1:07.7 | but I'm working hard to do better. |
| 1:11.1 | I believe the moment we draw lines between good people and evil people |
| 1:16.0 | will lose our ability to see that we're all one people |
| 1:20.0 | in the most fundamental of ways, and will lose track of the deep truth |
... |
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