The Putin Interviews—Oliver Stone’s Greatest Contribution (Videos)

PATRICE GREANVILLE

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t a moment of acute global crisis detonated by the decomposing US imperial system and its dangerous and pathetic ruling cliques, Oliver Stone has given the world the portrait of a really great leader. In a career punctuated by memorable contributions to art and politics, this may prove to be his most enduring and important legacy.

In four hours extracted from encounters spanning two years (2015—2017), Putin emerges as an articulate, intelligent, eloquent and highly knowledgeable person. Informal and unassuming to a fault, he mixes freely with people, plays hockey, practices judo, does his morning exercises every day, and seems in almost all regards a veritable straight-shooter, a man whose word can be trusted, the precise opposite of Western politicians, past masters of mendacity. (In one scene we see him being interviewed by Stone while he drives his car through the streets and boulevards of Moscow).

Contrary to the horribly malicious picture fabricated by the Western media, the documentary quickly delineates Putin's character as that of a man of principles, one not motivated by money (he explains that very clearly and convincingly in another memorable passage) but by the pursuit of a better life for his compatriots and peace across the planet, on whose future he still bets with a certain degree of quiet and charming optimism. Oliver Stone is to be commended for collating this portrait of a complex and important man, whose sheer humanity, obvious fairness, accessibility, patience and steadfastness, may comfort us and perhaps even save the day as the world enters its darkest hour yet. —PG

DO YOUR PART. WE URGE YOU TO WATCH AND SHARE THESE VIDEOS WIDELY. YOU'LL BE THE RICHER FOR IT. THE TOP 4 VIDEOS ARE THE WHOLE INTERVIEW SERIES AS PRESENTED ON SHOWTIME.

BREAKING (6.27.17): Obviously, powerful actors are blocking as much as possible the diffusion of these materials to the Western public. As mentioned elsewhere, the Oliver Stone documentary (aired on Showtime) has been uniformly panned by the corporate media, all reviewers mocking it and vilifying it with a ferocity and malice that indicates ulterior motives well beyond honest assessment of this work. Obviously, the whore media is doing its best to keep it from reaching a wider audience.

In our case, the situation is naturally of more modest proportions, but still within the framework of suspicious behaviour described above. The saga of how these videos were first circulated and then clearly sabotaged by different parties is worth mentioning in this context.

First, the parties that had uploaded and published the Stone/Putin video interviews to YouTube (in 4 segments), suddenly took them down without notice or explanation. We don't know if this was YouTube or the parties that had published the videos themselves. This forced us to collect the data for the videos from other sources, later uploading them to Vimeo, a platform we thought less strictly controlled by the narrow forces of corporatism and US foreign policy ruling YouTube. Now Vimeo has sent a curt note saying they are canceling our account "for violation of guidelines." The result is the blank boxes you see below. This is the outcome, without a doubt, of sneaky manipulation behind the scenes by thought police parties, and/or stupid, myopic interpretation of commercial guidelines on issues of overwhelming public interest—something to be expected from robotic companies managed and administrated by non-sophisticated or non-progressive political personnel.

Since we regard these interviews as critical to demystify and demolish the barrage of warmongering lies distributed by the Western media about the president of Russia, and given the extremely dangerous and awful state of relations between the US and Russia, a situation created by the reckless maneuvers of the US ruling class and its most deranged sectors, especially the Neocons that infest so many sensitive positions, we believe we have a duty to publicize this documentary to the best of our ability.  Let us be clear about a little detail: the struggle for peace today is a struggle to avert the literal destruction of the planet. How important is any supposed "sacred" copyright held by some corporation or person, or some myopic guideline violation, when that much is at stake? Unfortunately, you can't reason with morons, ignoramuses, robots and people deep in the pockets of the war party, or just young technical particles of a culture in which political awareness is non-existent.

All we can say is that we will try to put up these materials again. Incidentally, this follows in the steps of other recent hack attacks designed to destroy this site's ability to function normally and expand its circulation.  
—PG

PART ONE

The Putin Interviews —By Oliver Stone (As aired on Showtime) Part One from patrice greanville on Vimeo.

PART TWO

The Putin Interviews—by Oliver Stone Part Two from patrice greanville on Vimeo.

PART THREE

The Putin Interviews Part 3 from patrice greanville on Vimeo.

PART FOUR

The Putin Interviews Part Four from patrice greanville on Vimeo.

THE PUTIN INTERVIEWS / OLIVER STONE PART ONE from patrice greanville on Vimeo.

The videos below are recommended but complementary.  

Treatment by the whore media:
Watch the panel on CBS This Morning twist themselves into a pretzel to badmouth Stone's film and its subject without making it too obvious, although the incredibly pathetic Norah O'Donnell, far more a Texas cheerleader and transparent careerist than a real journalist, is quick to hurl some insults at the very beginning of the segment.  

Related

Oliver Stone kicks bill Maher's ass about Israel lobby in America
The comic  who projects an image of immense almost arrogant cleverness suddenly pleads dumb when it suits his prejudices.

APPENDIX

COURTESY OF SHOWTIME

JUNE 28, 2017 

Oliver Stone’s televised interviews with Vladimir Putin will be seen in the Russian president’s homeland and in other countries around the world where broadcasters have snapped up the four-part series.

“The Putin Interviews” went out on Showtime in the U.S. earlier this month over four nights and was simulcast on Sky in Britain and Germany. National Geographic has now taken rights across Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as well as for Belgium and the Netherlands. Channel One will show the interviews in Russia.

IM Global Television is distributing the series and has also sold it to SBS in Australia. In Europe, DR has it in Denmark, ITI in Poland, and FTV in Czech Republic. In Spain, it will air on pay-TV, on the Movistar+ platform.

“The Putin Interviews” was produced by Fernando Sulichin (“The Untold History of the United States”), New Element Media and Rob Wilson. The producers, who were repped by ICM, sealed the Channel One Russia deal and the agreement with Sky themselves. They also licensed the rights to Eagle Pictures in Italy, which has now placed the series with public broadcaster Rai. In France, they dealt with Folamour Pictures, which in turn licensed the rights to public broadcast channel France 3.

Stone conducted more than a dozen interviews with Putin over two years, with no topic off-limits. The pair talked about Putin’s rise to power, his relations with four U.S. presidents, and his view on U.S.-Russian relations today. “If Vladimir Putin is indeed the great enemy of the United States, then at least we should try to understand him,” Stone said.

“This is a one-of-a-kind series with global relevance from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time,” IM Global’s Stuart Ford and Eli Shibley said in a statement.