Alexander der Große

The dialogue accomplishes so much yet is almost poetic. It is of an elegance rarely seen in modern movies. Many of the key elements in the relationships between Alexander, his men, his parents and his perspectives are explored but battle details are glossed over.

Though far from comprehensive, it tells a good tale and serves as a wonderful introduction to the life of Alexander. I was riveted when I watched this, having read Mary Renault's trilogy. An excellent job!

Oliver Stone's 2004 effort was a let down but the depiction of the Battle of Gaugamela is worth watching.

"Alexander the Great" not surprisingly attempts to portray the life of Alexander the Great. On the surface it seems as though it should be excellent considering that the cast is led by two prolific actors, Richard Burton and Fredric March as Alexander and his father Philip respectively. The film also features elegant costumes and lavish sets laden with depictions of ancient art and architecture. However, all of these attributes disappointingly don't prevent the film from being extremely tedious.

The film starts with Alexander's earlier life in Macedon and is mostly focused on portraying antagonisms between Alexander and Philip and the relationship of Alexander's mother to both. Richard Burton and Fredric March have some fine moments, but for the most part their dialogue is uninteresting, which makes the film mostly dull since most of the scenes in the film show lengthy discourses. There are jokes added as well that are often followed by a number laughing, but the humor is mostly stale. There is one amusing point where Philip suggests that Alexander should wait until he is dead before naming a city after himself, but this represents an exception rather than the norm. Barry Jones did give an enjoyable performance as Aristotle, although he is only a marginal element in the film.

During this first phase of the film the Battle of Chaeronea of is also portrayed, where forces led by Philip and Alexander defeated a combined Athenian and Theban force in order to unite Greece under Macedonian rule. The battle, despite having an array of extras in it, is handled clumsily. It starts with brief shots of infantry and cavalry crossing a stream and then fighting out of formation. Then the focused is placed on Philip fighting one-on-one and Alexander charging in after him. This portrayal seems to bear little to no resemblance to the actual battle of history, is short in duration and not particularly exciting.

Shortly after half way through the film, Philip dies and the film moves to a portrayal of Alexander's military exploits in Persia. It is in this stage we are introduced to Memnon, a Greek fighting with the Persians. Peter Cushing gives a strong performance as Memnon armed with sharp lines, making his the top performance of the film though the character is seen in relatively few scenes. Harry Andrews is also notable as the Persian emperor Darius, though Darius is never made particularly interesting in the context of an opponent to Alexander. However, the scene representing the correspondence between Darius and Alexander showing the "clash of egos" was well-done.

Most of this phase of the film is a rotation between short battle scenes and more mostly dull dialogue with some rare decent scenes. The Battle of the Granicus is shown basically as a brief cavalry charge. The treatment of Granicus is better than the treatment of Chaeronea, but not much better. There is another final battle between Alexander and Darius, presumably intended to represent the Battle of Gaugamela. The battle starts with a Perisan chariot charge and seems as though it will be interesting, but it quickly culminates in a brief uninteresting cavalry charge as well. The main problem with these battle scenes is that they fail to give a sense of Alexander's military genius. It seems as though he just accumulated territory through a series of brief heroic cavalry charges and the film never represents the tactics used in any of the battles. These are also a series of brief and unnecessary battle clips overlapped by a map of Persia to represent the conquests not shown in "fuller" battles. After Alexander's conquests, the film ends poorly with an uninteresting "harmony and unity" speech from Alexander for Greeks and Persians. "Alexander the Great" is a colossal bore, and I strongly recommend avoiding it.

This is one of those international productions popular in the 1950's. Made in Spain with British, American and French actors.

Robert Rossen is a good director with many fine movies to his credit but really doesn't seem to have the flair for historical epics. There is too much talk and the battle scenes tend to be rather confusing and poorly choreographed.

Richard Burton does his best, his magnificent voice can make something of the most mundane dialogue and he certainly looks virile despite a rather swish looking blonde wig.

A good supporting cast is largely wasted.

I have always been fascinated by the short and violent life of Alexander of Macedonia, which of course makes me biased in reviewing this film. It has been said of this film that Robert Rossen, who produced, wrote and directed this film, was aiming for a masterpiece but failed honorably. While this is true in a way, I still enjoyed it more than that. This movie is not fast in pace, and the direction is not perfect either, but it feels authentic. I'm sure that not everything portrayed is true to history (does anyone really care?), but it is convincing, and the acting is solid. Richard Burton is a very good Alexander, and he adds a lot of subtle edges to this enigmatic figure from history (just ignore the silly blond wig...) All in all, Alexander the Great is a good film, perhaps too ambitious, and even though it is not very accessible to viewers not familiar with the territory, it is still quite dramatic, convincing and enjoyable if you like historical epics. And even though the film doesn't ask you to care too much about the characters, it is still an interesting, intellectual, and high minded story you probably will not forget. If you keep in mind that it is the events of history that are really on display here, and not so much the individual players, you may enjoy it as I did.

As long as you don't mind the historical inaccuracies, this movie may prove helpful for the Alexander fanatic (like myself). After 1st seeing this film, I was horrified by the botch job that was done on the real Alexander story, but after forcing myself to sit through it a 2nd time I was able to lighten up a bit on the factual content, and just look for any great scenes that this film had to offer. Particularly, is the scene where Alexander goes to Athen's and the background shows a beautifully recreated shiny white Erectheon. Later, Alexander walks through the Parthenon...a dream scene of ancient history buffs everywhere. Another good scene was right before the Battle at the River Granicus. Here Alexander eyes his opponents on the opposite river bank, and comments on who will be the 1st to fall...Richard Burton did a great job in some scenes, but overall seemed to lack the charisma that exemplified Alexander. He has the look, but the British accent doesn't suit Alexander very well. I could go on, but really, see it yourself, or better yet, read "The Campaigns of Alexander" by Arrian, it is much more than any movie could ever be on this enigmatic historical figure.