Alexander the Not So Great

telegraph.co.uk ^ | By Hugh Davies

[monkapotamus]

Alexander the Not So Great

By Hugh Davies
(Filed: 31/12/2004)

The Hollywood film director Oliver Stone said yesterday that the flop in America of his £83 million production about Alexander the Great was 'dismaying', confessing that more people watched it on the opening weekend in Croatia 'than in the entire' Deep South.

Mr Stone said: "I still think it's a beautiful movie, but Alexander deserves better than I gave him. There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie.

Oliver Stone talks to lead actor Colin Farrell on set

"They called him Alexander the gay. That's horribly discriminatory, but the film simply didn't open in the Bible Belt."

He said that he should have cut it from three hours to two-and-a-half "and taken out the homosexuality for the US market and for countries sensitive to such things, like Korea or Greece".

He added: "Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness."

The director, speaking to Variety and the New York Times, said that he had dreamt of the project since film school. "I really love this subject so much, but perhaps I just failed to communicate that to an American audience and American critics."

So far, the film has limped to an £18 million gross. Critics have ripped it to pieces. One wrote: "Easily the most fantastic self-destruction I have witnessed in years, Alexander is sordid evidence of what happens when Hollywood producers, burned-out directors and unenthused stars stand in a circle and set fire to $150 million. The real Alexander isn't just rolling in his grave, he's clawing his decayed eyes out."

Mr Stone said it was "always" an uphill battle with the critics. He was hoping for "a breakthrough" after being off the screen for five years. "But I was surprised by the hardness of the reviews."

Moritz Borman, the chairman of Intermedia, the Beverly Hills company that produced the film, said he hoped that the epic mitigated its losses abroad, in places such as Britain.

He claimed that Intermedia has covered its flanks with pre-sales: "We will not lose a penny. But if the picture doesn't work in some foreign territories, they will take the hit. If the picture makes over $100 million foreign, most will be OK. But if the picture fares the way it did here, they will lose.''

Mr Stone said that making the film was like trying to wrap his arms around an elephant. It could have been five hours long, giving him the chance to explain the complicated rivalry among Alexander's mother, wife Roxane, and soul mate Hephiastion.

The director also accepted that he had obscured some symbolic images and foreshadowed plot points. "For example, the young man who kills Philip is shown being humiliated earlier at one of Philip's licentious wedding parties.

"Had I put things in more linear order and shortened everything, maybe more people would get it. There are 100 things like that in the film."

He said he regretted that critics had attacked Anthony Hopkins's lengthy narration scenes as Ptolemy, and an accent used by Angelina Jolie that reviewers mocked.

[Leo Carpathian]

With all the advances in technology, wide screen, HDTV, we are getting served with crap from Holywierdskies. TV sucks with all the "reality" phoney crap, comedy is not funny, full of profanities, news is no news but propaganda.
Back to FR, FNC and old movies. Long live FReepublic!

[Faraday]

"I really love this subject so much, but perhaps I just failed to communicate that to an American audience and American critics."

The movie may be over, but the whining will go on and on.

[freekitty]

I heard this movie really stinks.

[MissEdie]

Carolina Ping!

[Arkinsaw]

...which demonstrates yet again the extraordinary sophistication of the South.

And its not just white fundamentalist Southerners who stayed home in droves either. Black southerners have a conservative streak where this sort of thing is concerned also.

[Riley]

Stone just doesn't get it. He apparently missed a little part of Alexander's life-like the conquest of the known world with a relatively small army. Liberals think people are defined by their sex life or skin color. Period. And achievements are incidental, rather than vice versa. It's a tabloid mentality shared by individuals with no sense of history or appreciation for ordinary people who perform acts which change the course of human civilization. To them, it's who's doing what to whom that really matters. It's the sign of a narrow, unimaginative mind.

Precisely dead-on.

[shubi]

I would have thought Stone would bring out the use of opium to keep his troops on the march and make his warriors immune to pain in battle.

[LadyDoc]

There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie

he's trying to blame the movie's flop on American Homophobia...

However, Midnight cowboy had homosexual heroes and was a hit...I guess Silence of the Lambs was a hit because Hanibal Lector only ate same sex people... Or Breakfast at Tiffany's, where the hero was a male prostitute, and the female star a high class callgirl? Or Elmer Gantry, that exposed money hungry preachers long before Tammy and Jim Baker? Bunch of bull of course. It was a lousy movie...

[IronJack]

Alexander deserves better than I gave him.

Amen! Jeffrey Dahmer deserves better than THIS!

There was clear resistance to his homosexuality.

Duh. Ya think?? First of all, Alexander's "homosexuality" is anything but a historical fact. It's a pure extrapolation drawn from Stone's demented psyche. Secondly, nobody wants to see a martial hero who's a poof.

It became the headline to the movie.

It didn't just "become" the headline. You MADE it that way! Now that it bombed and you're regretting the decision, you're trying to act like the movie somehow made itself.

Had I put things in more linear order and shortened everything, maybe more people would get it.

Had you directed a historical drama drawn from facts instead of perverse motives, maybe the movie would have sold. And it's not the people who need to "get it," Ollie. It's you.

Go back to videotaping bar mitzvahs.

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

more viewed the movie in Croatia 'than in the entire' Deep South.
``````````````````

If he wanted the "Deep South" to show up he should of remade 'Thunder Road'

Funny how the "Deep South" is gaining so much power. Lord have Mercy on the rest of the world! LOL

[American Vet Repairman]

Stone had a great story and fouled it up. He is a gifted idiot at best. If he would have told the historical truth, and stuck with the great story line he would have made a ton of money as well as taught history to the education deprived youth.

[Cicero]

The gay issue is what got the most publicity, but I think the real issue is that the director and most of the actors simply don't understand the nature of war and battle. The hero looks like a lightweight, and the other characters are about as heroic as the folks who starred in "Troy," another big loser.

Probably Alexander was gay. But that isn't why he was still remembered. The essence of the Alexander story is the Macedonian phalanx and Greek courage.

The Persians were no pushovers, either. They were great warriors, but they simply couldn't cope with a revolution in military techniques.

[Kurt_D]

Hey, Oli... you should have made a BETTER movie! Don't blame the audience, blame yourself for your flop.

[arthurus]

Had I put things in more linear order and shortened everything, maybe more people would get it. There are 100 things like that in the film.

I am pretty bad at this stuff but I don't understand why no one wants to see it.

[Casloy]

"Had I put things in more linear order and shortened everything, maybe more people would get it. There are 100 things like that in the film."

That's liberal speak for "they are stupid and don't get it."

[lt.america]

And what about the other Scots/Irish sounding accents in the movie. It was like Braveheart crashed head on with a 'Queer as Folk' episode.

[marmar]

alexander the gay.....that's funny....Hey on the bright side the Passion didn't have any problems...

[D-fendr]

he should of remade 'Thunder Road'

I've been trying to find the original to rent. Can't get the song outa mind:

...and there was moonshine, moonshine, quench the devils thirst..

[bill1952]

Stone just doesn't get it...
To them, it's who's doing what to whom that really matters. It's the sign of a narrow, unimaginative mind.

You took the words right out of my mouth!
Yesterday, I was working in a house where "The View" was playing, and Barbara WaWa was on saying, "I don't know why people are upset at all. It's true we don't know that he was homosexual, but he might have been,so what's the big deal?"

Well Bab, I hate to be the one to tell you, but making up nonsense about people to further your Social agenda is more properly known by most people as lying.

After all, we don't know that he and his mother had an incestuous relationship, but they might have.

We don't know that George Washington was a homicidal pedophile, but he might have been.

We don't know that Andrew Jackson slept with the dead, but he might have.

We don't know that Ronald Regan said those hateful things, but he might have.

There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie.

What there was, was a clear resistance to your passing off your lying agenda as historical truth.

Ever notice that they don't smear the living?

[Reagan is King]

Thanks for the link. He's funny but certainly wrong about what the movie needs to make it better! Here's a blurb:

The greatest failure of Alexander is its fear of providing anything more than surface-level exploration of Alexander's apparent homosexuality. The scenes between Alexander and Hephaistion (Jared Leto) are tepid at best and entirely devoid of any eroticism.