Hollywood films 'worship war', says Stone

Director Oliver Stone has launched an outspoken attack on recent Hollywood films that have "worshipped the machinery of war".

Speaking at the Venice film festival ahead of the screening of his 9/11 epic World Trade Center, Stone criticised films such as Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbour for glamorising war, the BBC reports.

The late 1990s in particular spawned films which celebrated war, he argued, contributing to violence being a "cultural problem" in the US.

"We watched movies that promoted the concept of war, that promoted shock and awe," he said.

"Pearl Harbour and Black Hawk Down - these movies worshipped the machinery of war and I think America went back to the concept of war too easily. I have reasons to be depressed as a Vietnam veteran, and I can say many Vietnam veterans are depressed about why we are in Iraq."

Stone added that his latest 9/11 film was unlike these films and his own past films in that they carry a message of hope.

"In the past I made very intense films, very powerful films about dark subjects," he said.

"Now is a time to go the other way - that's my nature - and I want to be positive."

World Trade Center tells the true story of John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, two rescuers who were among the last to be pulled from the rubble following the terrorism attack, and stars Nicholas Cage.

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