Oliver Stone's Alexander
12/17/2004 03:25 Filed in: Movies and Television
From here on referred to as Alexander: The Not-So-Great
After Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came from the land of Kittim, had defeated King Darius of the Persians and the Medes, he succeeded him as king. (He had previously become king of Greece.) He fought many battles, conquered strongholds, and put to death the kings of the earth. He advanced to the ends of the earth, and plundered many nations. When the earth became quiet before him, he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. He gathered a very strong army and ruled over countries, nations, and princes, and they became tributary to him.
After this he fell sick and perceived that he was dying. So he summoned his most honored officers, who had been brought up with him from youth, and divided his kingdom among them while he was still alive. And after Alexander had reigned twelve years, he died.
1 Maccabees 1:1-8, NRSV
Colin Farrell will not look back on this picture as the highlight of his career.
I really cannot recommend Alexander for entertainment's sake. If you love ancient history as I do, you might get something out of it. Frankly, I breathed deeply as I looked out over the city of Babylon with Euphrates River flowing directly through the middle of the city. The landscapes and battles interest me, but that's about it. I was not pleased with the story written by Oliver Stone who also directed the movie.
Oliver Stone loves to twist history. I suppose that by creating an Alexander with bisexual tendencies, an Alexander with a maniacal obsession to find the eastern edge of the world, an Alexander who was poisoned at his death gives Stone some kind of warped feeling of significance. But as far as I know, Alexander the Great was none of these things.
The movie has an all-star cast. Christopher Plummer plays Aristotle. Anthony Hopkins is Ptolemy and narrates much of the movie. Val Kilmer is an excellent choice to play Alexander's father, Philip the Macedonian. Surprisingly, Angelina Jolee delivers perhaps the best performance of the film as Alexander's ambitious mother, Olympias.
But I am sure I am not the only person who has pointed out that Colin Farrell makes a lousy Alexander. I didn't feel that he ever fit the part, and frankly, it was a distraction throughout the movie. Casting for the younger Alexander was very well done as the boy they selected looked so much like Colin Farrell that you would think they filmed these scenes twenty years ago. Yet Farrell as Alexander was a disappointment.
Alexander is extremely violent and contains some of the bloodiest battle scenes I've ever watched. If you're a hard-core history fan and want to see a modern recreation of the ancient world, you may enjoy at least a little bit of the movie. However, if you aren't the least bit interested in such things, I would recommend that you stay away from Stone's interpretation altogether.
I know of no direct evidence that Alexander had leanings toward homosexuality. It could be possible since he was educated by Aristotle and the Greeks promoted the erotic love of young boys as a viable lifestyle. Note that this idea was not as welcome later in Roman society and absolutely forbidden in Jewish thought. But Stone wants to portray Alexander as a modern person--open to all forms of sexuality and openly welcoming all people, including the non-Greek-speaking (the barbarians) as equal. But it just doesn't work in the film.
Although the battle scenes were exciting at first, there are eventually so many of them that they become routine and trying to line up movie battles with actual historical battles became a bit tedious, if not impossible. By the time Alexander and his troops were in India where the locals charged into battle on elephants, I felt like I was back watching The Return of the King as the" oliphants" attacked.
From a biblical perspective, Alexander was a very significant individual. Alexander is referenced implicitly in Scripture if you interpret him as the third beast in Daniel (Dan 7:6). And he is mentioned by name in 1 Maccabees as quoted above. His real contribution comes from spreading the Greek culture, something that he--like his father Philip before him--had been quite enamored with. In reality, both Alexander and his father Philip were Macedonians, but they saw Greek education and government as something superior to their own.
By spreading a common language throughout the known world, New Testament Christians would be able to spread the Gospel without virtually any language barrier. The New Testament itself was written in Greek. The spread of the Gospel message would have been considerably more difficult had it not been for Alexander's military campaigns and the unifying effect he had on the ancient world.
I have attached an Adobe Reader/PDF file below that contains an article on the real Alexander from the IVP New Testament Backgrounds Dictionary. You will need the free Adobe Reader to access this file.
alexander.pdf
After this he fell sick and perceived that he was dying. So he summoned his most honored officers, who had been brought up with him from youth, and divided his kingdom among them while he was still alive. And after Alexander had reigned twelve years, he died.
1 Maccabees 1:1-8, NRSV
Colin Farrell will not look back on this picture as the highlight of his career.
I really cannot recommend Alexander for entertainment's sake. If you love ancient history as I do, you might get something out of it. Frankly, I breathed deeply as I looked out over the city of Babylon with Euphrates River flowing directly through the middle of the city. The landscapes and battles interest me, but that's about it. I was not pleased with the story written by Oliver Stone who also directed the movie.
Oliver Stone loves to twist history. I suppose that by creating an Alexander with bisexual tendencies, an Alexander with a maniacal obsession to find the eastern edge of the world, an Alexander who was poisoned at his death gives Stone some kind of warped feeling of significance. But as far as I know, Alexander the Great was none of these things.
The movie has an all-star cast. Christopher Plummer plays Aristotle. Anthony Hopkins is Ptolemy and narrates much of the movie. Val Kilmer is an excellent choice to play Alexander's father, Philip the Macedonian. Surprisingly, Angelina Jolee delivers perhaps the best performance of the film as Alexander's ambitious mother, Olympias.
But I am sure I am not the only person who has pointed out that Colin Farrell makes a lousy Alexander. I didn't feel that he ever fit the part, and frankly, it was a distraction throughout the movie. Casting for the younger Alexander was very well done as the boy they selected looked so much like Colin Farrell that you would think they filmed these scenes twenty years ago. Yet Farrell as Alexander was a disappointment.
Alexander is extremely violent and contains some of the bloodiest battle scenes I've ever watched. If you're a hard-core history fan and want to see a modern recreation of the ancient world, you may enjoy at least a little bit of the movie. However, if you aren't the least bit interested in such things, I would recommend that you stay away from Stone's interpretation altogether.
I know of no direct evidence that Alexander had leanings toward homosexuality. It could be possible since he was educated by Aristotle and the Greeks promoted the erotic love of young boys as a viable lifestyle. Note that this idea was not as welcome later in Roman society and absolutely forbidden in Jewish thought. But Stone wants to portray Alexander as a modern person--open to all forms of sexuality and openly welcoming all people, including the non-Greek-speaking (the barbarians) as equal. But it just doesn't work in the film.
Although the battle scenes were exciting at first, there are eventually so many of them that they become routine and trying to line up movie battles with actual historical battles became a bit tedious, if not impossible. By the time Alexander and his troops were in India where the locals charged into battle on elephants, I felt like I was back watching The Return of the King as the" oliphants" attacked.
From a biblical perspective, Alexander was a very significant individual. Alexander is referenced implicitly in Scripture if you interpret him as the third beast in Daniel (Dan 7:6). And he is mentioned by name in 1 Maccabees as quoted above. His real contribution comes from spreading the Greek culture, something that he--like his father Philip before him--had been quite enamored with. In reality, both Alexander and his father Philip were Macedonians, but they saw Greek education and government as something superior to their own.
By spreading a common language throughout the known world, New Testament Christians would be able to spread the Gospel without virtually any language barrier. The New Testament itself was written in Greek. The spread of the Gospel message would have been considerably more difficult had it not been for Alexander's military campaigns and the unifying effect he had on the ancient world.
I have attached an Adobe Reader/PDF file below that contains an article on the real Alexander from the IVP New Testament Backgrounds Dictionary. You will need the free Adobe Reader to access this file.
alexander.pdf