HOWZAT

Talking about such things, he seems to be shrugging wearily. He’s 60 this year, so his life neatly encompasses the history of postwar America. Plainly, like many other baby-boomers, he thought the failure of Vietnam and the backlash against the war had represented an irreversible turning point, a rejection of easy, imperial militarism. He thought his films had helped ensure that irreversibility. Then it all came back to haunt him, most obviously in the build-up to Iraq 2. “

Everything I had tried to achieve through Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, it was as if there was no memory of those films any more — gone!” Alexander, in this context, becomes an aspect of the weary, resigned shrug. “That whole period, 2002, ’03, ’04, that was so sad. Even the New York liberal intelligentsia wanted to go to war; the senate voted for it. The stampede towards war was evident from 2001. And I did Alexander at that point because, whatever they say, it got me out of that world. I dropped out for three years, and I survived.”

World Trade Center amounts to a sort of continuation of the shrug. It’s not about big politics, it’s about little people. “People in movies identify with the close-ups. That’s still the magic that happens. The biggest issues in the world mean nothing if you can’t illustrate them with people.”

His own left-liberal politics, he knows, were out of step with the view of the cops whose ordeal he documents. But the film happens at a much more elemental level than that. Its initial impact is a visceral combination of dread and suffocating horror as the cops rush into the building, knowing nothing, then, as the south tower collapses, find themselves helpless beneath tons of rubble.

“They go to the edge of physical exhaustion and death, they see death. They help each other, they communicate without seeing each other, and they both have very strong ties to their families and their children. It is that spiritual, loving side that plays a big role in keeping them alive.

“My hope is that, through them, you remember; that long after the movie is finished, you feel the pain of all suffering. It’s not just 9/11, it’s that situation, it’s what you do to stay alive. What does a man or woman do when stuck on a rock face? People respond differently to disaster. That’s what interested me. In the second and third acts, I’m trying to reach for that.”

This is all fine, but, of course, it’s not the type of angry, campaigning movie that made his name. I wonder if he’s ever going to go back to that kind of film. At one point, he just shrugs again and says those films did no good. But, more interestingly, he takes heart from the work of others. “Stephen Gaghan, with Syriana, and the recent work of George Clooney — they’re a new generation. I’d only do something if I could really bring some fierce light to bear. I don’t want to be just another light bulb in the room. I’m interested in the cracks in the dark rocks.”

Stone is absolutely not what I expected. He is eager to be understood and accepted, even to be liked. He is nervous, vulnerable. Perhaps he’s just unsure of himself after Alexander and the return of America to the very militaristic posture he tried to destroy with his cameras. Or perhaps he’s just engaged in some self-examination.

He does let slip that he’s been having help: “I see better now through cognitive psychiatry.” Embarrassed, he won’t elaborate.

Great lunch, nice bloke. But the real high point is nothing, really — just a moment when he forgets all his tensions about red carpets and movies, and suddenly notices a beautiful old Edwardian boat moored in the unbelievable blueness of the bay. “Look at that schooner!” he says.

We squint into the blinding sunlight and, for a moment, everything seems to fall silent.

World Trade Center opens on Sept 29

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