SOURCE: Packer, George. “Decency and Muck: The Visions of John Sayles and Oliver Stone.” Dissent 44, no. 3 (summer 1997): 105-09.

In the following essay, Packer compares the careers of John Sayles and Oliver Stone, maintaining that although both filmmakers have leftist political leanings, only Sayles succeeds in conveying his convictions on screen.

If any left-wing points of view still reach the broad American public, it's usually by some accident of mass culture. Bruce Springsteen rose to fame independently of his Guthrie-like sentiments for the poor and oppressed (the more they dominate his music, the less popular he's been); Al Franken achieved stardom on Saturday Night Live before he became the best-selling author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. Spike Lee is a more complicated example, because with him the distinction between ideology and careerism completely disappears (for example, his demand that black high school students get the day...