Oliver Stone's "The Putin Interviews" is a litmus test for progressives

TUESDAY, JUN 6, 2017 10:27 AM EDT

Oliver Stone’s “The Putin Interviews” is a litmus test for progressives

The director's cuddly approach to the Russian president forces liberal apologists tough choice

MATTHEW ROZSA

Even before critics had a chance to see Oliver Stone’s new documentary — a series of in-depth interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin airing on Showtime there were plenty of signs that the director would be uncomfortably sympathetic to his authoritarian subject.

If nothing else, Stone’s track record of borderline-obsequious documentaries about past dictators (Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez) strongly suggests that the director has a soft spot for repressive regimes.

Now that reviews of “The Putin Interviews” are starting to leak out, it’s becoming quite clear that those fears were justified.

That said, there are two moments in “The Putin Interviews” that raise questions extending far beyond Stone himself.

There are a number of people on the far left who are willing to apologize for Putin, either as a reflexive response to their ideological disdain for the American military-industrial complex, misplaced concern about being perceived as McCarthyist or because carrying water for Putin is necessary in order to justify many of the actions of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

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http://www.salon.com/2017/06/06/oliver-stone-putin-interviews-showtime-reviews/