Alexander

At first, I didn't feel much of a need to comment on the film, since so many others have written and have said so many things. But I think there are some really important points to made, and I haven't seen anyone make them. So here I am writing.

In my opinion, almost everyone misunderstood the relationship between Hephaistion and Alexander. In the modern world, especially in the West, two men are either very close to each other, sleep together, and have sex, or they keep a good comfortable distance from each other and, if they're friendly, might punch each other on the arm. In this film, we see a relationship that is hard for most people today to understand, namely a passionate love relationship between two men in which sex is not very important and possibly even absent.

Aristotle essentially explained the whole film near the beginning when he told the young couple something like the following, as best I can remember it, "When two men lie together in lust, it is over indulgence. But when two men lie together in purity, they can perform wonders." Or something like that. Given what I know of that culture, I am sure that "in purity" means no sex, or at least very little. That's why we never see them kiss. In the film, as in many older films, kissing is a metaphor for sex. Even when Alexander kisses his mother, it refers to the idea of sex. That's why Alexander kisses Bagoas, but not Hephaistion.

Now I'm not sure if the real historical Aristotle would have made that remark. That's not exactly what he says about homosexuality in the Nicomachean Ethics. But the remark is plausible enough since Alexander could easily have heard such an idea during his youth. Plato (before Aristotle) expressed that idea, and Zeno of Citium (after Aristotle) did too. So even if Aristotle never said this to Alexander, it is plausible enough that the idea was in the air and that Alexander heard it from someone or other.

Some have complained that the "homosexuality" (assuming that A's relationship with Heph. should even be called that) was thrown in their faces too much. But it's crucial to the plot. Stone is hypothesizing that Hephaistion was essential for what Alexander did. Further, it's a standard Hollywood convention to juxtapose a love story with some great political, military, or otherwise grand event. There are tons of examples. Titanic, Enemy at the Gates, Gone with the Wind, ... the list could go on forever. It really is homophobic to complain about Stone continually going back to this theme, because he has a perfectly good artistic reason to do it.

A few more details: Alexander's hair. I think that Stone was trying to make Alexander look like Martin Potter in Satyricon -- a nod to Fellini.

Alexander's accent and soft appearance. Another nod to a great director passed on, this time Stanley Kubrick. Farrel really looks a lot like Ryan O'Neil in Barry Lyndon. In fact, he really looks like a Ryan O'Neill / Martin Potter coalescence. I think it's deliberate.

The softness of Alexander's personality. In a lot of scenes it made sense. He was gentle enough to know how to approach Bucephalus and tame him without scaring him. He was open minded enough to adopt a lot of Persian culture and encourage intermarriage, while the other more "he-man" folks around him were less comfortable with the idea.

Yes, if you haven't figured it out by now, I do like the film. People's hatred of the film is hard for me to understand.

Don't go looking for three hours of blood and guts. The Greeks were philosophers and there is lots of talk, about everything from moral virtue to sin, to greed and hubris, friendship and love...you get the idea. People who liked Humanities and Contemporary Civilization in college will like this film a lot more than people whose idea of a good time is three hours of Mel Gibson causing bloody havoc. The battle scenes, while gory, are not as explicit as many blood-and-guts fans might be hoping for. Then, the male-male romance was tough on a lot of young guys on dates with their girlfriends. There were lots of nervous titters from young men. This film is ground-breaking, and for those who haven't come to terms with the fact of our universal innate bisexuality (re-read your Freud), it can be troubling. See this film in a trendy neighborhood with highly educated snobs, especially gay ones. You'll be a lot happier.

Saw Alexander last night and loved it. Would I recommend it? Yes-BUT-be forewarned, this is not your classic historical epic so leave behind all ideas of what an historic epic film should be and bring along an open the mind for a wonderful ride. After all, one doesn't expect Ben-Hur or The Robe or The Ten Commandments from Oliver Stone. He uses jumpy camera shots and grainy filters as well as wonderful color filters that give the battle scenes a viscerally disturbing edge, taking the viewer out of their complacent acceptance of 21st century, violent battle scenes and making them squirm. I felt the desiccating heat at Gaugamel as well as the cloying humidity of the Indian forests. The grandeur of the CGI presentation of Babylon was awe inspiring as was the set for the Library at Alexandria.

The subtle presentation of the film in Greek Tragedy format worked well for me, from Pharoah Ptolomy representing the chorus through the Oedipal angst of Alexander's love/hate relationship with his parents. The costuming was perfection, as was the architecture. Not once was I jolted by an incorrect piece of art, jewelry, fabric or weapon. The use of a Gypsy Horse (or Irish Cob) for Bucephalus was a striking choice. They are a majestic breed and, although I am under-educated as to what his actual breed was, he was well cast.

Before seeing the film I was only aware of Messers Stone and Farrell and Ms. Jolie's involvement so I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Brian Blessed as the wrestling master and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Cassander, and I was thrilled by the Vangelis score! I have not heard a Vangelis score since The Bounty.

As for the representation of love between Alexander and Hephaestion, my hat is off to Oliver Stone for his presentation of a love that transcended gender and was as true as that Paris held for Helen. Unlike the recent film of Troy, in which the lovers Achilles and Patroclus were made into platonic cousins, Oliver Stone has courageously represented an historic love to a culture wherein the attitude towards male/male pairings have become anethema. That the Great General Alexander had a male life companion is a simple fact of history as we know it. In my years at school it was not presented as either laudable or offensive, it was simply a researched fact. History as we know it tells us that the Greece of Alexander's time looked upon such pairings as Alexander's and Hephaestion's as something acceptable as long as they grew in knowledge and virtue. Christopher Plummer's Aristotle sums this up in one simple speech near the beginning of the film and, by taking Ganymede to his side, the greatest of all Greek Gods, Zeus, sanctioned such pairings. Like it as not, right or wrong, the *gender issue* and *gay issue* are a none other than a matter of popular opinion, and popular opinion at the time of Alexander was that men lay down with men as well as women. It simply was, and that is how Oliver Stone handled it-simply-without defense or apology and that took guts.

Even without the *controversial* relationship between Alexander and Hephaestion, this would have been a 9.5 out of 10 for me.

With such an epic story, you would think someone like Stone would produce an epic film. From the random accents of the characters (specifically, I have no idea what Jolie was trying to do), to some pretty atrocious acting from Farrell-he's capable of much better, but this was at the height of his grandiosity and ego. There are so many moments where it feels like the film is onto something, only to have it stop and spin off into another, pointless direction. Bottom line: a $155 mil film about Alexander the Great should have been iconic, but Alexander falls flat on its face from the weight of the egos involved.

Hollywood star power and tons of money can't save this overwrought, melodramatic story of the life and times of Alexander The Great (Colin Farrell), the Greek warrior who conquered lands in times B.C.

The single biggest problem here is the script, and in particular the plot structure. Just as viewers are getting familiar with a plot sequence, the time period of the story shifts backward to a previous era, or forward to a future era. Displayed on the screen as "10 Years Earlier" or "40 Years Later" or "9 Years Earlier" or "8 Years Later", back and forth we go. It's maddening. It makes the story, which already contains too many characters with strange names, muddled and hard to follow. Director Oliver Stone apparently tries to cram in too much information; as such, the story's scope is too broad. Another possibility is that the time-shifts were necessitated in post-production editing. But whatever the cause, the screen story's convoluted plot is a huge barrier to understanding Alexander and the people in his life.

In addition, the script's dialogue contains too much exposition, mostly from Old Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) who, via numerous monologues, lectures us about Greek history. Again, one gets the impression that Stone is trying too hard to make the film a comprehensive history lesson.

Non-script elements are not much better. Casting for the main parts is poor. I like Angelina Jolie, but she is no Olympias. And Colin Farrell, with his golden locks, would fit better in a modern day romantic comedy. Acting is hammy, at times almost laughably so. Actors don't communicate with each other so much as they speechify. Every line of dialogue is heavy with import. Even the film's makeup is overdone. Jared Leto, with all that eyeliner, looks like a drag queen.

Perhaps the best element of the film is the color cinematography. It's quite good. Some of the landscapes are visually sweeping and majestic. And I liked that ethereal background music from Vangelis. Also, the costumes are colorful and apparently quite authentic.

I like Oliver Stone. But I have never cared for sword and sandal movies. They always seem pretentious, so proud of themselves, in their extended runtimes and sweeping scope. "Alexander" is no exception; it muddles along for nearly three hours, and covers most of one man's lifetime as he conquers lands from the Mediterranean to the Far East.

Maybe Oliver Stone would have been better advised to confine his saga to a smaller, more restricted story, one wherein viewers can get to know the protagonist and his inspirations and challenges. In its present form, "Alexander" is just too sprawling and epical to warrant any enthusiasm from me.