Chasing The Light

How I Fought My Way into Hollywood: From the 1960s to Platoon

Oliver Stone

$35

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Little Brown
28 July 2020

Film, TV & Radio; Films, movies & cinema; Individual film directors, film-makers; Autobiography: general; Autobiography: arts & entertainment

"
*
*
*

""I loved it. An amazing book."" - Louis Theroux

""A rip-roaring read. It left me breathless."" - Chris Evans, Virgin Radio Breakfast Show

""Riveting."" - The New York Times

""... a Hollywood movie in itself."" - Spike Lee

""Raw, savagely honest, as dramatic as any of his movies."" - Mail on Sunday

""A tremendous book - readable, funny and harrowing."" - The Sunday Times

In this powerful and evocative memoir, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, Oliver Stone, takes us right to the heart of what it's like to make movies on the edge.

In Chasing The Light he writes about his rarefied New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface.

Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while taking miscellaneous jobs and driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life.

Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with vivid details of the high and low moments: we sit at the table in meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; relive the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); experience his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and see his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino.

We also learn of the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and witness tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express.

The culmination of the book is the extraordinarily vivid recreation of filming Platoon in the depths of the Philippine jungle with Kevin Dillon, Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp et al, pushing himself, the crew and the young cast almost beyond breaking point.

Written fearlessly, with intense detail and colour, Chasing the Light is a true insider's story of Hollywood's years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s, and Stone brings this period alive as only someone at the centre of the action truly can."

By: Oliver Stone
Imprint: Little Brown
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781913183547
ISBN 10: 1913183548
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 28 July 2020
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Oliver Stone is an Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter and producer. He has written and directed some of the most iconic Hollywood films of all time, from Midnight Express and Platoon to Scarface and Natural Born Killers. Stone is also the co-author of The Untold History of the United States.

Reviews for Chasing The Light: How I Fought My Way into Hollywood: From the 1960s to Platoon

Oliver Stone is a giant provocateur in the Hollywood movie system. His autobiography is a fascinating exposure of Stone's inner life and his powerful, all devouring energy and genius that drove him to become one of the world's greatest filmmakers. Stone rattles cages. He pricks the bubbles of the namby-pambies. He provokes outrage. He stirs up controversy. He has no respect for safe places. Oliver Stone is larger than life. Chasing the Light says it all. - Sir Anthony Hopkins Oliver Stone's narrative, his life story about the heartbreaks, the near misses, and finally the triumphs is a Hollywood movie in itself. I thank Oliver for writing Chasing the Light, especially for my NYU grad film students-or anybody else with artistic dreams of working in this thing called the movie business. Oliver, in honest and sometimes brutal fashion, lays it out-what it took for him to get to where he hoped to be-a successful writer/director working in Hollywood; the road it took is hard AF. Bravo. Bravo. Bravo. - Spike Lee Oliver Stone's story is the story of my generation writ large. - Paul Schrader, screenwriter of Taxi Driver