Alexander

[liadnan]

I'm just back from three hours of historical epic: the short version - I rather liked it and don't think it deserves the slating it's had, though it has many failings. I would, however, like to know what someone who hasn't read Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy several times since they were 10ish makes of it.

Apropos of which... that trilogy is quite blatantly the foundation of the film -of the way the story was told and the characters were portrayed-, and so far as I could see it wasn't explicitly acknowledged, though admittedly although I stayed for most of the titles because there were so many people in the cast we'd sat there thinking "oh, that's wossname", I didn't stay to the very end (it was 10 to 11) and there may have been an acknowledgment there. In particular the very first sequence after Old Ptolemy's framework introduction is the beginning of Fire from Heaven: an episode which I'm fairly comes almost entirely from Renault's imagination and serves to set out the emotional relationship between Phillip, Olympias and Alexander, one of the driving themes of both her trilogy and the film - and, quite probably, of the real Alexander's psychological makeup to be fair. Stone goes on to point a big red arrow at what, so far as I remember, Renault leaves as a join the dots exercise for the reader by having Philip include in a discussion with Alexander about mythical heroes not only Achilles and Prometheus but also Oedipus, and a warning about women. That isn't the only bit where I saw her hand but it is the most explicit.

There's nothing wrong with that: her trilogy is probably the best fictionalisation of Alexander's career out there, far better than Maurice Druon's Alexander the God, particularly if you're looking to portray him reasonably positively. But it would have been good to see it acknowledged. I suppose that scene may itself have been Stone's nod to her, but still.

Score a typical Vangelis score: I didn't know for a fact it was him until the credits but would have staggered to find it wasn't. Large chunks of it sounded very much the 1492 score (which I rather like).

One of the reviews I read said Farrell gave a strong performance but was let down by a weak script. While the script is indeed weak, particularly in Farrell's major speeches, his performance was bloody awful, the worst element of the film by a long way. And they really ought to have bleached his eyebrows as well as his hair. The best performance, by far, was Angelina Jolie as Olympias (though I'm biased here). Hopkins as Old Ptolemy was, I thought, fine but there was too much at the end of him summing up.

By and large it seemed pretty close to the historical narrative as I remembered it (I did wonder whether they'd changed the order of his marriages but that was the only significant point). I'd have preferred it had they left it ambiguous whether Alexander was involved in his father's death before the fact: for most of that sequence I wasn't sure how whether Alexander knew what was going to happen or not and then they went and answered a question which should have been left, as it in truth is, open.

Only two battles are included -Gaugamela and, presumably, the battle of the Hydaspes in India but, frankly, wow. I can't remember many better battle scenes. Far and away the high points of the film, excepting only, possibly, Alexander standing looking over the Hindu Kush, and beautifully shot (classic Stone stuff here), particularly the latter. The former in particular had Lane Fox written all over it - a really quite unnecessarily (in that unless you already knew how the battle worked you probably wouldn't get it) accurate account of the battle that shows Alexander for one of the greatest military tacticians of recorded history.

Comments

[eccles.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that it made use of a book by Robin Lane Fox (who is listed as a historical advisor and in lieu of a larger fee got to lead a cavalry charge).

[sshi.livejournal.com]

and on a more banal note, I saw a trailer for it today and nearly fell off the couch laughing at Alexander's flat Dublin accent (ya howya, ya). I have a feeling that it may end up playing as a comedy around here...

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

There is a reference to Renault here:

http://myweb.unomaha.edu/~jreameszimmerman/Beyond_Renault/review2.html

Makes a similar point to you, I think.

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Our consensus was that the first half was really pretty good, but the second half let it down somewhat; I think it may be a failing of Stone's - ISTR The Doors suffering a similar fate.

While it was good cinema, they played merry hell with the history of Hydaspes; which was fought on a plain and won by the Macedonian phalanxes making elephant kebabs of Porus' shock elephant cavalry - which then panicked and trampled their own infantry.

And there are things that they didn't show - like the retreat through the desert - which would have made great cinema.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

My father desperately wanted me to read Ancient History so that he could meet Robin Lane Fox. Not to talk about Alexander, you understand, but to talk about gardening.

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

Recently I was trying to explain some of the history of the hellenistic world to my sister and was struggling to explain how amazing Alexander's campaigns were:

"It was a little like, I don't know, someone from Wales conquering the United States."

"Catherine Zeta Jones?"

(Although, of course, the military weakness of the Persians had been evident to the Greeks for a while before Alexander.)