As enfant terrible of the Hollywood establishment, Oliver Stone has never been afraid to embrace controversy. From Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal to his current project on the My Lai massacre, via the regime of Fidel Castro and the 9/11 attacks, few of the murkiest chapters of the modern age have escaped the film director’s probing gaze.

Now, Mr Stone is to turn his attention to President Bush, announcing that he would create a biopic charting his life and Presidency. But Stone, who once described the president as making “Richard Nixon look like St Augustine,” insists that his portrait will be a fair one.

Entitled simply “Bush” in the great Stone tradition of eponymous film names, the movie will feature Josh Brolin in the lead role, Daily Variety reported yesterday. It will be produced by Moritz Borman, who worked with Stone on “World Trade Center” and “Alexander,” and Jon Kilik, a producer of Alexander.

The director hopes to start production by April, with a release date in time for the election in November, or the inauguration of Mr Bush’s successor in January 2009.

But despite expressing past anger against the invasion of Iraq, the director said he is not looking to make an anti-Bush rant but rather to use major events in the president’s life to explain his rise to power.

"It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors," Mr Stone, who has in the past been accused by Republicans of lacking patriotism, said.

“It’s a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to 'Nixon,' to give a sense of what it’s like to be in his skin. But if 'Nixon' was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece, and not as dark in tone. People have turned my political ideas into a cliche, but that is superficial. I’m a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great."

Mr Stone declined to give his personal opinion of the president, explaining “the filmmaker has to hide in the work.”

"Here, I'm the referee, and I want a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world? It's like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I'll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from. It includes his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States, and his coming into his own with the stunning, preemptive attack on Iraq.”

He said Mr Brolin was better looking than Mr Bush,“but has the same drive and charisma that Americans identify with Bush, who has some of that old-time movie-star swagger.”

Mr Bush has acknowledged that he was a heavy drinker in his younger days, but claims he has been sober since his 40th birthday. He has never confirmed or denied reports that he also used cocaine, explored in James Hatfield’s book, Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President. A forthcoming book by Lord Owen, the former British foreign secretary, was reported by Vanity Fair to include the claim that Mr Bush’s 2002 collapse during a football game was not due to him having choked on a pretzel, as maintained by the White House, but to his consumption of a significant amount of alcohol.

Mr Stone, who has fought his own battles with drink and drugs, earned three Oscar nominations for his 1991 conspiracy film JFK.

In 1996, he also received a script nomination for Nixon, which starred Anthony Hopkins. He won best directing Oscars for the Vietnam sagas Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. Other historical figures reinterpreted by Stone include dead rock star Jim Morrison in The Doors, and Alexander the Great in Alexander.

In 2002, he shot a flattering documentary about President Fidel Castro of Cuba for HBO, but the pay network demanded he balance it with more footage about political prisoners on the communist island.

His efforts last year to film a documentary about Mr Bush's nemesis, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran also ran into difficulties. His request for access was denied with an official reportedly dismissing the filmmaker as "part of the Great Satan."

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