Directors Turn Spotlight On Us Flaws

Sun Herald

Sunday September 3, 2006

By MIKE COLLETT-WHITE VENICE

TOP directors have used the Venice Film Festival to attack the Bush Administration, the war in Iraq and Hollywood.

Oliver Stone, in Venice to promote World Trade Center, said he was worried about when the war on terror would end.

"The consequences of 9/11 are worse than the day itself," Stone said yesterday.

Stone took a swipe at his own industry, saying movies such as Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor "worshipped the machinery of war".

Spike Lee, in Venice to publicise When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts, about Hurricane Katrina, said the US was "a country for the rich".

"If you're poor . . . he [President Bush] doesn't care about you," Lee said.

Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch filmmaker best known for Basic Instinct, hinted he had returned to the Netherlands to make his latest film Black Book because he was disillusioned with Hollywood.

"After the last movie I did in Los Angeles I felt as empty as the movie," he said, referring to his 2000 film Hollow Man.

© 2006 Sun Herald

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