TV Reviews : Oliver Stone Subject of Showtime Profile

In American movies, filmmakers are sometimes establishment figures and sometimes mavericks or radical outsiders. And sometimes, in a curious way, they’re both: like Oliver Stone, the subject of a documentary (at 10 p.m. Sunday on Showtime) by producer/directors Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler.

No current American filmmaker arouses such wild, all-over-the-map reactions and controversies. On the one hand, he seems an Establishment pillar: winner of three Oscars, two DGA and one WGA award. On the other, he’s been damned and verbally pole-axed by enemies that range from Pauline Kael and her followers to Op-Ed pages across the country--the latter for “JFK’s” audacity in accusing the U.S. government of possible complicity in the Kennedy assassination.

Stone’s detractors have their say in “Inside Out,” and we hear some familiar arguments: He’s psychologically trapped in the ‘60’s, he’s a stylistic bully, he doesn’t understand women. But more more often, his friends and co-workers, relatives and supporters speak out.

“Talk Radio’s” Eric Bogosian, with moony eyes and wavy hands, comes across like a ‘60’s soul-mate. Michael Douglas describes how Stone’s confrontational directing helped push him to his “Wall Street” Oscar. Vietnam vet Larry Robinson describes how Stone and his platoon saved his life during a firefight. Stone’s mother, Jacqueline, a French Catholic who married a Jewish stockbroker, recalls his boyhood.

It’s a portrait notable for strong sympathy with its subject. As we see, the special qualities of Stone’s movies that stamp him as a great filmmaker--galvanic excitement, social breadth, burning commitment, savage humor--seem to irradiate his personality as well.