Alexander (film)

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''Alexander'' Alexander_poster.JPG
IMDB Page (external link)
Writer:	Oliver Stone (screenplay)
Starring:	Colin Farrell Val Kilmer Angelina Jolie Anthony Hopkins Jared Leto Rosario Dawson Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Director:	Oliver Stone
Music by:	Vangelis
Distributor:	Warner Bros.
Release Date:	2004 (USA)
Runtime:	175 min / 167 (director's cut)
Language:	English
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Alexander is a 2004 drama/war film, directed by Oliver Stone about the life of Alexander the Great. According to Stone, the theatrical release is as true to history as possible. It is based primarily on the 1973 biography, Alexander the Great (ISBN 0140088784), written by Robin Lane Fox. It is heavily a character driven film. The continuity is nonlinear.

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Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

"By the age of 25 he had conquered the known world and changed the course of mankind forever."

The film opens with the words 'fortune favours the bold' and blends into the death scene of Alexander in June of 323 B.C. Mostly we, the viewers, follow the campaign in Asia until reaching the lush jungles of India that lasted for eight years. The plot also illustrates Alexander's relationship with his childhood friend and lover, Hephaestion, and later his wife Roxane.

Image:Old Ptomely.jpg

Beginning with Alexander's early life, Stone's script starkly portrays the crippling relationship between his parents, king Philip II and Olympia. In lavish sets and images Oliver Stone shows daily life in ancient Macedon. Accompanied by Ptolemy's narration, we see the taming of Alexander's later horse. There is also a nice intimate scene between Alexander and his father, king Phillip II. Following that we witness how the strong bond of father and son rips, in which Phillip bans the 20-year old Alexander from his palace. Soon thereafter he is murdered, and Alexander becomes king of Macedon. Another narration from Ptolemy leads us into the great Battle of Gaugamela, where Alexander finally triumphed over Darius III, and after which he victoriously marches in the heart of the Persian empire Babylon. As the years decline and Alexander's mane grows without a halt, his empire quickly expands eastwards, stretching from Egypt to as far as India.

Image:Alexander.jpg

Investing a great deal of the film's duration into Alexander's marriage to the noble Roxane, daughter of a Bactrian nobleman, the film continues to tell the story of Alexander's campaign in India. The final act of the film is partitioned in an overwhelming presentation of the battle against the Indian forces, and the constant presence of death in Alexander's last years of his life. The visually compelling battle in India rightly represents the megalomaniacal moods of Alexander. He falls, and experiences a close brush with death.

Spread throughout the film, there are three scenes of conspiracy and attempts to end his life. The last of which contains two merged to one, before the final confrotation in India. This time he succeeds again in banging the soldiers' heads together, but the army is divided. Not long after he will pay with his own life.

"You dream, Krateros. You have lost your simplicity when you took Persian mistresses and thickened your holdings with plunder and jewels. Do you not see, you have fallen in love with the things that destroy men."

The film closes with Ptolemy narrating the end of Alexander's bloodline, and the division of his empire into four parts. "Megas Alexandros", the greatest Alexander of them all, are the last words uttered by Ptolemy (Sir Anthony Hopkins), before the camera pans skywards.

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Controversy

Image:Oliver and Alexander.jpg

Even prior to its release, there was controversy about the film's depiction of ancient Greek sexual mores. A group of 25 Greek lawyers threatened to sue both Stone and the Warner Bros. film studio for what they claim is an inaccurate portrayal of history. "We are not saying that we are against gays but we are saying that the production company should make it clear to the audience that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander", said one of the lawyers, Yannis Varnakos.

However, the movie's portrayal of ancient Greek sex customs is completely based on the works of ancient historians. For example, in the film, Alexander's father--King Phillip the II of Macedon--is killed by his paederastic lover (at the wedding party in the film you can see the boy yelling). Pausanias was a young man who was having a sexual relationship with Philip. However, Pausanias's place had been taken by another younger man of the same name that Philip loved more. The elder Pausanias denounced his younger rival as a whore. Unable to endure the insults from the elder Pausanias, the younger Pausanias had a conversation with Attalus and later committed suicide. Attalus then became enraged at the older Pausanias for provoking the suicide of his younger competitor and invited Pausanias to the wedding feast where Attalus made him drunk and had him raped. After the rape Pausanias demanded vengeance from Philip. Philip rebuked Pausanias because Attalus was one of his top generals and the uncle of his latest wife. Pausanias is said to have bided his time until Philip's daughter's wedding. When Philip was walking un-guarded, Pausanias stabbed him to death out of revenge. Aristotle (Politics) and Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus) confirm this.

Curtius maintains that Alexander also took as a lover "... Bagoas, a eunuch exceptional in beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate," (VI.5.23). Bagoas is the only one who is actually named as the eromenos — the beloved — of Alexander. The word is not used even for Hephaestion. Their relationship seems to have been well known among the troops, as Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by Athenaios and Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India, in which his men clamor for him to openly kiss the young man. "Bagoas [...] sat down close by him, which so pleased the Macedonians, that they made loud acclamations for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped clapping their hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him." (Plutarch, The Lives).

The film was a commercial and critical failure. At the UK premiere of the film, Stone blamed "raging fundamentalism in morality" for the film's US box office failure. He argued that American critics and audiences had blown the issue of sexuality out of proportion.

Other comments from Stone about the controversy:

Alexander is too complex for "conventional minds" [1].
"So guys with goose-hunter caps won't come... I don't make a movie for demographics. Once I start doing that, I'll die in the gutter."
"Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness."

The criticism prompted Stone to make significant changes to the film for its DVD release. Stone removed 8 minutes, cutting back his portrayal of Alexander's bisexuality, and added new shots, like at the opening scene of Alexander dying (See 'External Links' for an interview with Oliver Stone, in which he describes some of the changes). The DVD cover characterizes the changes as making the film "...faster paced, more action-packed!" Hollywood Reporter quoted Stone about the toning down of the scenes of bisexuality: "I can't tell you how many 'real guys' are turned off to this shit."

When released in India over the winter of 2004/2005, 45 minutes of the film was cut out so that movie theatres could fit in more screenings and make more money. The 'Indian' Alexander died in India, killed by the Indian king. While Oliver Stone was made aware of this desecration of his film, and was interviewed in the Indian media, no known legal action has been taken.

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