04/18/2004: "Send in the clown"

Some people are so willing to humiliate themselves in public that it almost seems unfair to take advantage of them, but I will anyway. This is from an interview at Slate with Oliver Stone, the director of classic movies like JFK and Natural Born Killers (just kidding), who presents himself as an absolute muttonhead when it comes to Fidel Castro. The interviewer is Ann Louise Bardach, a commentator for National Public Radio's Marketplace program, and the author of two books on Cuba:

ALB: Let me ask you about the part [in the film] where Castro's in front of eight prisoners charged with attempting to hijack a plane [to Miami]. He says to them, "I want you all to speak frankly and freely." What do you make of that whole scene, where you have these prisoners who happened to be wearing perfectly starched, nice blue shirts?

OS: Let me give you the background. He obviously set it up overnight. It was in that spirit that he said, "Ask whatever you want. I'm sitting here. I want to hear it too. I want to hear what they're thinking." He let me run the tribunal, so to speak.

ALB: But Cuba's leader for life is sitting in front of these guys who are facing life in prison, and you're asking them, "Are you well treated in prison?" Did you think they could honestly answer that question?

OS: If they were being horribly mistreated, then I don't know that they could be worse mistreated [afterward].

ALB: So in other words, you think they thought this was their best shot to air grievances? Rather than that if they did speak candidly, there'd be hell to pay when they got back to prison?

OS: I must say, you're really picturing a Stalinist state. It doesn't feel that way. You can always find horrible prisons if you go to any country in Central America.

ALB: Did you go to the prisons in Cuba?

OS: No, I didn't.

ALB: So you don't know if they're any different than, say, the prisons in Honduras then?

OS: I think that those prisoners are being honest.

ALB: What about when you ask them what they think is a fair sentence for their crimes, and one of them starts to talk about how he'd like to have 30 years in prison?

OS: I was shocked at that. But Bush would have shot these people, is what Castro said. � I don't know what the parole system is.

ALB: There is none unless Fidel Castro decides to give you clemency. They seemed very willing to bring up sound bites that Castro is partial to�that they wanted to leave Cuba only for economic reasons, not political ones, etc.

OS: You're going to the theory that they were trying to get good time in front of the camera to get lighter sentences.

ALB: I'm going even further than that. I'm suggesting that they had no choice but to appear there, and that in some ways it was a bit of a mini-show-trial, sort of "Look how well we treat our prisoners."

OS: It does have that aura, absolutely. But I do maintain that if it were a Stalinist state...they certainly do a great job of concealing it.

Oliver Stone�film maker, comedian, dupe.

(Thanks to Kathy Shaidle for the link.)