Alexander Movie
Friday November 26, 2004
Today in his blog, Rogue Classicist David Meadows writes:
A movie has to be more than a documentary. Had Alexander not been portrayed as having some type of noble over-arching motive, I believe the movie would have been dull. If all the battles Alexander waged had been shown, especially in the detail in which the two were shown, I would have walked out -- out of disgust and boredom. Artistic license seems adequate explanation for these.
However, even with artistic license, there were either needless liberties or unchecked continuity errors in the sequence of events in Alexander's life. The clearest example of this was when Alexander was referred to as untried (in battle) at the age of 20 and then in a later Ptolemaic flashback there was possible mention of his earlier military experience. There were two other points that made the movie hard to follow. One was when Parmenion said something evidently quite important in the midst of battle, but the battle din was too great to hear his words. The other was that the time allotted to getting to "know" the (adult) Companions was too brief to be able to recognize them in later sequences. One last negative was that the music, at least at times, seemed to convey emotions that the acting or speech did not.
On the positive side, the movie was far more accurate than recent, albeit fictional, sword and sandals epics [see: Gladiator; Troy]. Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie (as a snakey sorceress) portrayed parents who quite easily could have produced an offspring like Alexander the Great. The relationships between Alexander and Hephaestion and Alexander and Bagoas seemed particularly authentic. Alexander's Persian wife's resemblance to his mother made sense within the context of the domineering portrayal of Olympias. The cinematic effects, especially the red battle scene, added interest to otherwise prolonged remorseless butchery. The scenery and costumes of the Persians were beautiful.
It seems that for people who are familiar with the history of Alexander, the movie probably took too many liberties, for people unfamiliar, it will probably be too hard to follow, and for almost everyone, the movie will be too long. I still enjoyed it and hope to see Alexander again because I forgot to look for Robin Lane Fox among the cavalry.
What did you think? Read or post other comments
Sword and Sandals FAQ
"...devoted readers of rogueclassicism will hopefully recall that when the movie was in production, there were hints that the movie would be somehow critical of the U.S. involvement in Iraq (or at least that's how it appeared to be spinning) ... you don't suppose that most of the negative reviews stem from Stone's movie not being as 'political' in this sense as the various denizens of the media had hoped?"There were two aspects of the Alexander movie that jumped out at me as reflecting the modern world, Alexander's crusading impulse and the hiding of Darius in the hills of Bactria. I'm very glad the comparisons didn't hit the viewer over the head, so I suppose it figures that my reactions (see below) are not entirely negative.
A movie has to be more than a documentary. Had Alexander not been portrayed as having some type of noble over-arching motive, I believe the movie would have been dull. If all the battles Alexander waged had been shown, especially in the detail in which the two were shown, I would have walked out -- out of disgust and boredom. Artistic license seems adequate explanation for these.
However, even with artistic license, there were either needless liberties or unchecked continuity errors in the sequence of events in Alexander's life. The clearest example of this was when Alexander was referred to as untried (in battle) at the age of 20 and then in a later Ptolemaic flashback there was possible mention of his earlier military experience. There were two other points that made the movie hard to follow. One was when Parmenion said something evidently quite important in the midst of battle, but the battle din was too great to hear his words. The other was that the time allotted to getting to "know" the (adult) Companions was too brief to be able to recognize them in later sequences. One last negative was that the music, at least at times, seemed to convey emotions that the acting or speech did not.
On the positive side, the movie was far more accurate than recent, albeit fictional, sword and sandals epics [see: Gladiator; Troy]. Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie (as a snakey sorceress) portrayed parents who quite easily could have produced an offspring like Alexander the Great. The relationships between Alexander and Hephaestion and Alexander and Bagoas seemed particularly authentic. Alexander's Persian wife's resemblance to his mother made sense within the context of the domineering portrayal of Olympias. The cinematic effects, especially the red battle scene, added interest to otherwise prolonged remorseless butchery. The scenery and costumes of the Persians were beautiful.
It seems that for people who are familiar with the history of Alexander, the movie probably took too many liberties, for people unfamiliar, it will probably be too hard to follow, and for almost everyone, the movie will be too long. I still enjoyed it and hope to see Alexander again because I forgot to look for Robin Lane Fox among the cavalry.
What did you think? Read or post other comments
Sword and Sandals FAQ
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