Oliver Stone is a filmmaker who makes use of history as a springboard for political and social commentary, and he often includes history in the form of newsreel footage as well as in terms of references and historical characters who are part of the story. He makes use of fragmentary editing as well to create a sense of reality, placing the viewer at the event and in the historical era. He also has a strong sense of sentimentality that is not always recognized and that derives from the way in which he connects past and present, often in an ironic fashion to show how the promise of one era has been tainted by the reality of another. He begins the process of drawing the viewer into the connections he is making between past and present from the first frame, and the opening sequences in his films prepare the viewer for what is to come, sometimes with foreshadowing as well as with the use of newsreel footage and similar devices to place the action in historic time. These opening sequences then connect with the rest of the film. This can be seen in the films Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, and JFK.
Stone's films are not documentaries, but they share certain characteristics with the documentary and use footage in a similar way:
Most concerned documentary filmmakers work with two clear, if unstated, purposes in mind: to witness and to affect. To witness is to say, "Look--this happened, pay attention." To affect is to move the audience, to hope that the film will cause emotional, political, and social change.
Stone clearly intends to witness and to affect, though his role as witness may be created rather than be a direct recording of history. These three films share certain characteristics. All are set largely in the 1960s, or at least have the 1960s as their touchstone for an America in turmoil and an America unaware of the secret underpinnings of government and society. There is a strong sense of paranoia infusing ...