Oliver Stone, polemicist, leftist, artist, and - surprisingly for politically conservative America - mainstream director, is one of the most controversial American filmmakers in Hollywood. His films include JFK, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven and Earth, The Doors, Salvador, Talk Radio, Natural Born Killers, and Nixon - all political, passionate, and disturbing. This book embraces Stone's work, analyzes his films, and places him inside the tradition of American political filmmaking. Mackey-Kallis argues that Stone's films are mythological constructions based on historical events and personae which draw upon "the inevitable tension between social actuality and film form." Not simply an aesthetic contemplation, this book analyzes Oliver Stone's films as artistically structured instruments for public communication. Ample illustrations illuminate her discussions.