Oliver Stone
Talk Radio

To each of us, more or less frequently, it can happen to be so incredibly pissed off with the whole world (less likely with oneself) that there is an irresistible need to vent our anger, our hatred in some way. We look for an outlet but know how it starts, not how it ends. Just to get an idea about it, here is a so-called lesser film by Oliver Stone: it's "Talk Radio," and every time I watch it again, I can't help but admit that it's such a powerful film that it could be likened to a horror movie without resorting to splatter effects.

Meanwhile, when the film came out in 1988, Oliver Stone was already established after masterpieces like "Salvador," "Platoon," and "Wall Street." Yet "Talk Radio," at least regarding the reactions of the Italian audience, didn't spark much interest. The underlying thought was that it was too much of a Yankee work since, as seen, in America, it was all too easy to escalate from lively dialectical exchanges to the point of taking a firearm and killing someone. Hadn't a deranged fan already killed the poor John Lennon in 1980, guilty only of becoming a bit bourgeois? In short, without taking anything away from the technical prowess of director Stone, "Talk Radio" seemed like an example of yet another American oddity. And indeed, "Talk Radio" is based on the book and stage play "Talked to death: the life and murder of Alan Berg," dedicated to this radio speaker Alan Berg, killed in 1984 by a neo-Nazi white supremacist. All true, alas, and in the film only the protagonist's name changes to Barry Champlain, played by a superb Eric Bogosian, but for the rest, what you witness is the faithful representation of an incredible yet true story.

Champlain hosts the show "Voci della notte" for a private radio station in Dallas. The ratings are high, many listeners call in (and thus go on air) to vent their problems, their grievances. And Barry Champlain, eloquent, with sharp intelligence, doesn't hold back his opinions, highlighting the pettiness, the existential and ideological small-mindedness of these listeners who are too victimistic and limited, incapable of turning their lives around. If you add to that that Barry is Jewish and doesn't mince words with certain neo-Nazis who call in, well, the picture is complete and the tragic end is foreshadowed (including threatening calls and letters).

In my opinion, the film has several strong points. First, Oliver Stone is in his element directing such a verbose work, and how could it be otherwise when depicting the odyssey of a radio speaker (when should such a character appear laconic?). Furthermore, the protagonist isn't presented as a kind of saint, considering how messed up his personal life is, full of lovers and an ex-wife with whom relations are still a bit tender. He too, then, is beneath it all as unhappy as those who call into the show "Voci della notte."

These people give voice to their fears, dissatisfactions, but above all, they remind me how the so-called Logos becomes flesh, but this isn't always a great sight to see or hear. Each of us speaks, but more often than not, one doesn't encounter wells of wisdom. To the point where, unfortunately, it seems true that words are not just "flatus vocis," but are real stones (or, as in this case, bullets fired by the owner of a firearm). Even Barry, at one point, becomes aware of being at the center of a cacophonous melee and launches into a monologue during a radio broadcast, spewing his contempt towards the listeners and urging them to stop calling in to say only nonsense. At that moment, the speaker's facial expression is unforgettable; it seems to best express the horror felt by someone who, staring into the abyss, feels perversely drawn to it and shuns it.

I previously mentioned how in 1988 a film like "Talk Radio" seemed exquisitely Yankee, but if back then it told a true story within private radio, today sensibilities have changed. If there were so-called phone lions back then, today the phenomenon of keyboard warriors is well-known (even in Italy), people capable of spewing hatred on the web's social media under nicknames. The global human landscape has decidedly worsened, and just to stick to supremacist and neo-Nazi political groups, we have seen what has happened in the recent years in the USA under President Donald Trump. In short, for these reasons as well, rewatching a film like "Talk Radio" can prove to be salutary.