A chat with Chávez - The FT view on Stone's doc

By Matthew Garrahan for the FT

I am sitting on the floor, back against the wall, of a cramped, stuffy room in a Caracas hotel, waiting for Oliver Stone. There must be 25 other journalists in here – most of them local writers from Venezuela – all waiting to quiz the filmmaker about South of the Border, his new documentary on the rise of the left in Latin America and the phenomenon that is Hugo Chávez. The bright lights from the TV cameras have made the little space hot and uncomfortable but the glamorous female presenters near the stage don’t have a hair out of place. They sit smiling, straight-backed and motionless – in contrast with me, a crumpled mess who has spent the best part of 24 hours getting there.

A woman who will translate for Stone is fiddling with a microphone when the director of Platoon and the upcoming sequel to Wall Street strides into the room. He is wearing a blue suit – the jacket has been tossed over his shoulder, which is wise, given the heat – a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie. He is also sporting a moustache which, together with the suit and parted mop of dark hair, gives him the rakish appearance of a character from one of Graham Greene’s Latin America novels. … Read the complete article in www.ft.com/cms