Oliver Stone has been no stranger to scenes of explicit violence. To call “Natural Born Killers” controversial would be an understatement, while Brian De Palma‘s “Scarface” (which he wrote) basks in its own gratuitous glory. And Stone’s last feature, “Savages,” featured attractive young people having sex and killing people. So it’s safe to say the director has a wide measure of tolerance for onscreen violence, but it seems “Breaking Bad” (of all things) pushed his buttons too far.
“I don’t know if you saw the denouement [of ‘Breaking Bad’], I happen to not watch the series very much, but I happened to tune in and I saw the most ridiculous 15 minutes of a movie – it would be laughed off the screen,” he told Forbes, adding: “Nobody could park his car right then and there and could have a machine gun that could go off perfectly and kill all of the bad guys! It would be a joke.”
And Stone says it’s not that he thinks anything should be banned, but filmmakers should really ponder the consequences of what they show on screen. “It’s only in the movies that you find this kind of fantasy violence. And that’s infected the American culture; you young people believe all of this shit! Batman and Superman, you’ve lost your minds, and you don ‘t even know it! At least respect violence. I’m not saying don’t show violence, but show it with authenticity,” he said, adding: “…when you’ve reached this height of technology level of a Michael [Bay], of a ‘Transformers,’ I don’t understand the meaning of it and the reason for it, except that it appeals to some visual sense, some kinetic sense of dynamism and a need for action. But action is not always a solution, character is.”
It would be easy to point out Stone’s hypocrisy here considering his aforementioned films, but we wonder what he’ll think when he finally sits down to watch the series and finds out what happens to Gustavo Fring …