![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Wednesday, 1 December 2004
Alexander The Not-Remotely-Great
Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:12So, I'm like downloading Alexander. NO,MR FBI, I INTEND TO GO AND PAY MONEY TO SEE IT, BUT IF YOU PUT BACK THE BRITISH OPENING DATE TO JANUARY 7 WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?
I'm two thirds through, and frankly, I'm bored. This is the worst insult I can give to a film about a man who has fascinated me since I first heard of a legendary king who conquered the entire world but failed to conquer himself. This is the GREATEST man who ever lived, the man who proves to all of us that humanity is capable of great deeds if we only try.
I have seen Alexander The Great many times because Alexander fascinates me and Richard Burton captivates me. What it lacks in technological skill or staging or the like, it makes up in relatively intelligent performances of a relatively intelligent script.
What Alexander makes up in technology, staging and sumptuous costumes, it utterly lacks in intelligent performances of a terrible script.
Bearing in mind this is an Oliver Stone film: colour me fucking surprised.
I don't give a shit that the Macedonians have Irish accents- it almost makes a crazy sort of sense to at least have them all sound like him. I don't give a fuckity bollocks whether this Alexander is an OMGRAGINGHOMO or bisexual or just Colin Farrell. Hell, Colin does the best he can, as far as I can see.
It's just not good enough. This is ALEXANDER THE GREAT for GOD'S SAKE! Of ALL the people in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD, this man deserves the greatest film treatment! We should be busting our guts to make the greatest Alexander film we can.
But this is an Oliver Stone film, so I'm not surprised. This is the man who took what will probably be the only opportunity to make a great Jim Morrison film and threw it away with both hands. Instead of a thoughtful treatment of a complex man, Stone took one slice of one part of one man and nothing else.
To the people who have seen Alexander, does this sound in any way familiar?
He made a film about the man he wanted it to be about, not what the man was. For Jim, it was just 'drunken dude with shaman obessesion' and for Alexander it is just 'blond gay bloke who liked travel'. It wasn't good enough for Jimmy and it certainly isn't good enough for Alexander.
This is a film that so far gives the death of Philip the subtlely complex treatment of a sentence in a voiceover. All the while it spends half its time trying to create some obsessive-mother-love-snake thing. *OK, so I've got further in and it's a flashback. One little flashback that totally jars the whole damn thing and still doesn't make sense of it for the uninitiated. Great.
Now, I personally don't give a rat's arse whether Alexander gets shown as gay or bisexual- I think it's the very least of what this man was. COME ON! He conquered the WORLD and a few thousand years later the only thing we seem to care about is who he shagged? This is no soap opera. If he loved Hephaestion, so be it. If he loved Roxane, so be it. Can we get back to the world conquering yet? The Greeks didn't think of sexuality in quite the same way we do, so surely it's only right we at least take that into account and stop just trying to rile people up for the sake of it?
Once again, Oliver Stone has destroyed the greatest opportunity to portray an essentially good man, so he can take an easier, more controversial route. He may think he's taking the road less travelled, but I respectfully disagree with the full force of my entire being.
I will say this: Colin manages to deal with the killing of Cleitus better than Richard Burton did, but that's about the only thing I can say about it.
I will also say this: all the fab costumes and effects and kohl pencil in the world cannot camouflage a bad film.
Fortune favours the bold? True, but Oliver Stone needs to re-evaluate just how 'bold' he really is. Bold would've been making the film Alexander deserves. Bold would've been making a clever, thoughtful, accurate film. It is not bold just to create something controversial. It worked for JFK, but the gimmick wore thin for Jim and just doesn't work now.
I really didn't like Oliver Stone before this thanks to his filmic butchery of my most beloved Jim, but I'm really fucked off with him now.
Still, it's quite an achievement to make Alexander the Great seem boring. Congratulations.
ETA: Death of Hephaestion almost moving. Stupid vision of Olympias in wine totally stupid. Bust of Alexander at the end of the film looks NOTHING like Colin Farrell or Alexander. CF didn't do a BAD job with the materials provided- Even Richard Burton would've struggled, methinks. Rex Harrison's minute-long moment about Alexander in Cleopatra was more moving than this entire film. Pointless pap shrouded in self-important blather. One good line in three hours: "It's a high ransom she charges for nine months lodging in the womb."Alexander The Not-Remotely-Great
Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:12So, I'm like downloading Alexander. NO,MR FBI, I INTEND TO GO AND PAY MONEY TO SEE IT, BUT IF YOU PUT BACK THE BRITISH OPENING DATE TO JANUARY 7 WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?
I'm two thirds through, and frankly, I'm bored. This is the worst insult I can give to a film about a man who has fascinated me since I first heard of a legendary king who conquered the entire world but failed to conquer himself. This is the GREATEST man who ever lived, the man who proves to all of us that humanity is capable of great deeds if we only try.
I have seen Alexander The Great many times because Alexander fascinates me and Richard Burton captivates me. What it lacks in technological skill or staging or the like, it makes up in relatively intelligent performances of a relatively intelligent script.
What Alexander makes up in technology, staging and sumptuous costumes, it utterly lacks in intelligent performances of a terrible script.
Bearing in mind this is an Oliver Stone film: colour me fucking surprised.
I don't give a shit that the Macedonians have Irish accents- it almost makes a crazy sort of sense to at least have them all sound like him. I don't give a fuckity bollocks whether this Alexander is an OMGRAGINGHOMO or bisexual or just Colin Farrell. Hell, Colin does the best he can, as far as I can see.
It's just not good enough. This is ALEXANDER THE GREAT for GOD'S SAKE! Of ALL the people in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD, this man deserves the greatest film treatment! We should be busting our guts to make the greatest Alexander film we can.
But this is an Oliver Stone film, so I'm not surprised. This is the man who took what will probably be the only opportunity to make a great Jim Morrison film and threw it away with both hands. Instead of a thoughtful treatment of a complex man, Stone took one slice of one part of one man and nothing else.
To the people who have seen Alexander, does this sound in any way familiar?
He made a film about the man he wanted it to be about, not what the man was. For Jim, it was just 'drunken dude with shaman obessesion' and for Alexander it is just 'blond gay bloke who liked travel'. It wasn't good enough for Jimmy and it certainly isn't good enough for Alexander.
This is a film that so far gives the death of Philip the subtlely complex treatment of a sentence in a voiceover. All the while it spends half its time trying to create some obsessive-mother-love-snake thing. *OK, so I've got further in and it's a flashback. One little flashback that totally jars the whole damn thing and still doesn't make sense of it for the uninitiated. Great.
Now, I personally don't give a rat's arse whether Alexander gets shown as gay or bisexual- I think it's the very least of what this man was. COME ON! He conquered the WORLD and a few thousand years later the only thing we seem to care about is who he shagged? This is no soap opera. If he loved Hephaestion, so be it. If he loved Roxane, so be it. Can we get back to the world conquering yet? The Greeks didn't think of sexuality in quite the same way we do, so surely it's only right we at least take that into account and stop just trying to rile people up for the sake of it?
Once again, Oliver Stone has destroyed the greatest opportunity to portray an essentially good man, so he can take an easier, more controversial route. He may think he's taking the road less travelled, but I respectfully disagree with the full force of my entire being.
I will say this: Colin manages to deal with the killing of Cleitus better than Richard Burton did, but that's about the only thing I can say about it.
I will also say this: all the fab costumes and effects and kohl pencil in the world cannot camouflage a bad film.
Fortune favours the bold? True, but Oliver Stone needs to re-evaluate just how 'bold' he really is. Bold would've been making the film Alexander deserves. Bold would've been making a clever, thoughtful, accurate film. It is not bold just to create something controversial. It worked for JFK, but the gimmick wore thin for Jim and just doesn't work now.
I really didn't like Oliver Stone before this thanks to his filmic butchery of my most beloved Jim, but I'm really fucked off with him now.
Still, it's quite an achievement to make Alexander the Great seem boring. Congratulations.
ETA: Death of Hephaestion almost moving. Stupid vision of Olympias in wine totally stupid. Bust of Alexander at the end of the film looks NOTHING like Colin Farrell or Alexander. CF didn't do a BAD job with the materials provided- Even Richard Burton would've struggled, methinks. Rex Harrison's minute-long moment about Alexander in Cleopatra was more moving than this entire film. Pointless pap shrouded in self-important blather. One good line in three hours: "It's a high ransom she charges for nine months lodging in the womb."