South of the Border

Oliver Stone travels through five countries and talks to seven elected presidents, among them Chávez, Morales, Lula and Kirchner. The question he puts is why the American press describes left governments in South America in the same terms every time. Chávez is at the centre of the film; Stone talks to him in a car, in a field, at his house. The account the film gives is this: these leaders were elected, Washington did not accept it, and the press carried that line. Oliver Stone directs; a hundred and two minutes, written with Tariq Ali and Mark Weisbrot. When it came out, Larry Rohter of the New York Times published a long piece listing errors in it; Stone, Ali and Weisbrot wrote a detailed reply, and Rohter stood by what he had written. The argument was never settled.