Alexander | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Oliver Stone |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Rodrigo Prieto |
Edited by |
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Music by | Vangelis |
Production companies |
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Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 175 minutes [1] (see Alternative versions) |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Budget | $155 million [3] |
Box office | $167.3 million [3] |
Alexander is a 2004 epic historical drama film based on the life of the ancient Macedonian general and king Alexander the Great. [4] It was co-written and directed by Oliver Stone and starred Colin Farrell. The film's original screenplay was derived in part from the book Alexander the Great, published in 1973 by the University of Oxford historian Robin Lane Fox. After release, while it performed well in Europe, the American critical reaction was negative. It grossed $167 million worldwide against a $155 million budget, thus making it a commercial failure.
Four versions of the film exist, the initial theatrical cut and three home video director's cuts: the "Director's Cut" in 2005, the "Final Cut" in 2007, and the "Ultimate Cut" in 2014. The two earlier DVD versions of Alexander ("director's cut" version and the theatrical version) sold over 3.5 million copies in the United States. [5] Oliver Stone's third version, Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut (2007), sold nearly a million copies and became one of the highest-selling catalog items from Warner Bros (as of 2012 [update] ). [6]
Around 285 BC, Ptolemy I Soter, basileus and pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt, narrates the life of Alexander. [4] Alexander grows up with his mother Olympias and his tutor Aristotle, where he finds interest in love, honor, music, exploration, poetry and military combat. His relationship with his father, Philip II of Macedon, is destroyed when Philip marries Attalus's niece, Eurydice. Alexander insults Philip after disowning Attalus as his kinsman, which results in Alexander's banishment from Philip's palace.
After Philip is assassinated, Alexander becomes King of Macedonia. Ptolemy mentions Alexander's punitive campaign in which he razes Thebes, also referring to the later burning of Persepolis, then gives an overview of Alexander's west-Persian campaign, including his declaration as the son of Zeus by the Oracle of Amun at Siwa Oasis, his great battle against the Persian Emperor Darius III in the Battle of Gaugamela, and his eight-year campaign across Asia.
Alexander's most private relationships are these with his childhood friend Hephaestion, Bagoas, and later his wife, Roxana. Hephaestion compares Alexander to Achilles, to which Alexander replies that Hephaestion must be his Patroclus (Achilles's lover). When Hephaestion mentions that Patroclus died first, Alexander pledges that, if Hephaestion should die first, he will follow him into the afterlife (as Achilles had done for Patroclus). Hephaestion shows extensive jealousy when Alexander marries Roxana, going so far as to attempt to keep her away from him after Alexander murders Cleitus the Black in India during a drunken rage.
After initial objection from his soldiers, Alexander convinces them to join him in his final and bloodiest battle, the Battle of Hydaspes. He is severely injured with an arrow but survives and is celebrated. Later on, Hephaestion succumbs to typhus carried with him from India, and dies, deeply saddening Alexander. During a symposium in Babylon, Alexander falls unconscious after downing a large bowl of wine. On his deathbed, Bagoas grieves as Alexander's generals begin to split up his kingdom and fight over the ownership of his body.
In 285 BC, Ptolemy admits to his scribe that he, along with all the other officers, had indeed poisoned Alexander just to spare themselves from any future conquests or consequences. However, he has it recorded that Alexander died due to illness compounding his overall weakened condition. He then goes on to end his memoirs with praise to Alexander.
Ptolemy's memoirs of Alexander were eventually burned, lost forever with other scrolls of the Library of Alexandria by the end of the Roman Empire.
A group of 25 Greek lawyers initially threatened to file a lawsuit against both Stone and the Warner Bros film studio for what they claimed was an inaccurate portrayal of history. "We are not saying that we are against gays," said Yannis Varnakos, "but we are saying that the production company should make it clear to the audience that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander". After an advance screening of the film, the lawyers announced that they would not pursue such a course of action. [7]
At the British premiere of the film, Stone blamed "raging fundamentalism in morality" for the film's failure at the US box office. [8] He argued that American critics and audiences had blown the issue of Alexander's sexuality out of proportion. [9] The criticism prompted him to make significant changes to the film for its DVD release, whose cover characterizes them as making it "faster paced, more action-packed".
In the making of Alexander, Oliver Stone had consulted the Oxford historian Robin Lane Fox, as well as his colleagues and other British experts. [10] Stone also consulted CUNY Queens College historian John Maxwell O'Brien (in part from his book Alexander the Great: The Invisible Enemy: A Biography) though he remains uncredited in the film.[ citation needed ]
The movie has attracted both praise as well as criticism from numerous ancient historians. The general opinion has been that while the movie shows remarkable historical accuracy in several aspects, it is above all a dramatization and includes both stylistic changes as well as some inaccuracies, particularly regarding the depiction of Persians and eastern peoples in general.
Particularly praiseworthy has been its depiction of the battle of Gaugamela. [11] Eugene N. Borza, a professor emeritus focusing on Ancient Macedon has said: "The re-enactment of the enormously complex battle of Gaugamela is impressive, not only reproducing several of the main events of the conflict, but indicating how difficult it was for large armies to operate on a desert plain made opaque by dust and chaotic by the clash of arms," and praised its depiction of the Macedonian phalanx. [10] Roel Konijnendijk, a Dutch historian of Ancient Greek warfare, called it, despite some of the minor inaccuracies, "in terms of ancient warfare [...] the most accurate depiction that you will find anywhere." [12]
Eugene N. Borza had also praised the detailed setpieces depicting the Achaemenid Babylon as "spectacular," such as the interior and exterior designs and noting how the trinkets and jewelry were based on actual recent archaeological findings. [10]
The early-Greek-history ethnographer/analyst Angelos Chaniotis, of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton — in summarizing the first three versions of the film as "a dramatisation, [rather than] a documentary" — insists that, despite its imperfections, historians and history students "have a lot to learn" by "studying and reflecting upon" Stone's film. He concludes that, as a motion picture that "captures the Zeitgeist" (spirit of the times) of the "ancient Greek" era, "no film... can rival Oliver Stone's Alexander." [13]
According to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University: "Oliver Stone's movie Alexander (2004) displays all the familiar Orientalist notions about the inferiority and picturesqueness of Eastern societies. So much so, indeed, that in terms of its portrayal of East–West relationships, Alexander has to be seen as a stale cultural statement and a worn-out reflection of the continuing Western preoccupation with an imaginary exotic Orient." [14]
Persian history expert Kaveh Farrokh questioned the omission of the burning of Persepolis by Alexander and observed that, in the film, "Greek forces are typically shown as very organised, disciplined, and so on, and what's very disturbing is, when the so-called Persians are shown confronting the Macedonians, you see them turbaned. Turbans are not even a Persian item [...] Their armies are totally disorganized. What is not known is that the Persians actually had uniforms. They marched in discipline [sic], and music was actually used..." [15]
Stone has, in his various commentaries in the film's DVD,[ citation needed ] defended the most glaring historical issues in regard to Persian and Indian history, by saying he had no resources to portray accurately a multitude of battles at the expense of storytelling. He described in detail explaining how he merged all the major aspects of the Battle of the Granicus and Battle of Issus into the Battle of Gaugamela, as well as heavily simplifying the Battle of the Hydaspes into a straightforward clash, while merging the near-death of Alexander with the siege of Malli. In a taped discussion at the Oxford Union, Stone stated about his presentation of the Battle of Gaugamela: "I've been told by many historians that the battle is as accurate as they've ever seen in any movie, ever, to what they think happened at the battle". [16]
Alexander was released in 2,445 venues on 24 November 2004 and earned $13.7 million in its opening weekend, ranking sixth in the North American box office and second among the week's new releases. [17] Upon closing on 1 February 2005, the film grossed $34.3 million domestically and $133 million overseas for a worldwide total of $167.3 million. [3] Based on a $155 million production budget, as well as additional marketing costs, the film was a box-office bomb, with projected losses of as much as $71 million. [18] [19] [20]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 16% based on 206 reviews, with an average rating of 4.00/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Even at nearly three hours long, this ponderous, talky, and emotionally distant biopic fails to illuminate Alexander's life." [21] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [22] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale. [23]
One of the principal complaints among American film critics was that Alexander resembled less an action-drama film than a history documentary. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times , giving the film two out of four stars, wrote in his review, "[W]e welcome the scenes of battle, pomp and circumstance because at least for a time we are free of the endless narration of Ptolemy the historian." [24]
Faint praise came from Todd McCarthy of Variety who wrote, "Oliver Stone's Alexander is at best an honorable failure, an intelligent and ambitious picture that crucially lacks dramatic flair and emotional involvement. Dry and academic where Troy (2004) was vulgar and willfully ahistorical". [25]
Keith Uhlich of The A.V. Club named Alexander: The Ultimate Cut the tenth-best film of 2014. [26]
The film was nominated in six categories at the Golden Raspberry Awards in 2005: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Colin Farrell), Worst Actress (Angelina Jolie) and Worst Director (Oliver Stone), Worst Supporting Actor (Val Kilmer) and Worst Screenplay, thereby becoming the second-most-nominated potential "Razzie" film of 2004; however, it won no awards.
At the 2004 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, it received nine nominations: Worst Picture, Worst Director (Stone), Worst Actor (Farrell), Worst Supporting Actress (both Jolie and Dawson), Worst Screenplay, Most Intrusive Musical Score, Worst Female Fake Accent (Dawson and Jolie, lumped into one nomination), and Least "Special" Special Effects. Its only wins were for Most Intrusive Musical Score and Worst Female Fake Accent. [27]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(December 2018) |
Several versions of the film have been released, and these have generally been seen as improvements on the initial release version. [28] [29] Critic Peter Sobczynski said "The various expansions and rejiggerings have improved it immeasurably, and what was once a head-scratching mess has reformed into an undeniably fascinating example of epic cinema." [30]
This is the film as it was originally released in theaters, with a running time of 175 minutes. It was released on DVD and is also available on Blu-ray in some territories.
Stone's director's cut was re-edited before the DVD release later in 2005. Stone removed seventeen minutes of footage and added nine. This shortened the running time from 175 minutes to 167.
Stone also made an extended version of Alexander. "I'm doing a third version on DVD, not theatrical", he said, in an interview with Rope of Silicon. "I'm going to do a Cecil B. DeMille three-hour-45-minute thing; I'm going to go all out, put everything I like in the movie. He [Alexander] was a complicated man, it was a complicated story, and it doesn't hurt to make it longer and let people who loved the film [...] see it more and understand it more."
The extended version was released under the title of Alexander Revisited: The Final Unrated Cut on 27 February 2007. The two-disc set featured a new introduction by Stone. "Over the last two years," he said, "I have been able to sort out some of the unanswered questions about this highly complicated and passionate monarch – questions I failed to answer dramatically enough. This film represents my complete and last version, as it will contain all the essential footage we shot. I don't know how many film-makers have managed to make three versions of the same film, but I have been fortunate to have the opportunity because of the success of video and DVD sales in the world, and I felt, if I didn't do it now, with the energy and memory I still have for the subject, it would never quite be the same again. For me, this is the complete Alexander, the clearest interpretation I can offer." [31]
The film is restructured into two acts with an intermission. Alexander: Revisited takes a more in-depth look at Alexander's life and his relationships with Olympias, Philip, Hephaestion, Roxana, and Ptolemy. The film has a running time of three hours and 34 minutes (214 minutes, about 40 minutes longer than the theatrical cut and almost 50 minutes longer than the first director's cut) and is presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround audio. Beyond the new introduction with Stone, there are no other extras on the DVD except for a free coupon to the movie 300 . [32] The Blu-ray and HD-DVD releases both feature a variety of special features however, including two audio commentaries and a new featurette. [33]
For seven years, it was the only version of the film available on Blu-ray, until the release of the Ultimate Cut, which also includes the Theatrical Cut.
In November 2012, Stone revealed that he was working on a fourth cut of the film at Warner's request, and that this time around he would remove material, as he felt he had added in too much in the "Final Cut". [34] The version, which is 206 minutes long, premiered on 3 July 2013 at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival [35] and Stone swears that no more versions will follow. [36] 'Alexander: The Ultimate Cut (Tenth Anniversary Edition)' was released in the United States on 3 June 2014. [37]
Alexander III of Macedon, most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20 and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia, Central Asia, parts of South Asia, and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.
The 4th century BCE started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 301 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period.
This article concerns the period 329 BC – 320 BC.
Hephaestion, son of Amyntor, was an ancient Macedonian nobleman of probable "Attic or Ionian extraction" and a general in the army of Alexander the Great. He was "by far the dearest of all the king's friends; he had been brought up with Alexander and shared all his secrets." This relationship lasted throughout their lives, and was compared, by others as well as themselves, to that of Achilles and Patroclus.
The Battle of Issus occurred in southern Anatolia, on 5 November 333 BC between the Hellenic League led by Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid Empire, led by Darius III. It was the second great battle of Alexander's conquest of Asia, and the first encounter between Darius III and Alexander the Great. The battle resulted in the Macedonian troops defeating the Persian forces.
The Battle of Gaugamela, also called the Battle of Arbela, took place in 331 BC between the forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III. It was the second and final battle between the two kings, and is considered to be the final blow to the Achaemenid Empire, resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander.
Meleager was a Macedonian officer who served under Alexander the Great. He was among the generals that accompanied the king in his quest to conquer Asia Minor, and was one of the most experienced among them. The only military figure who was more experienced than Meleager was the Macedonian general Antipater, who remained in Macedon during Alexander's entire Asian campaign.
Alexander Senki, released in North America as Reign: The Conqueror and in Europe as Alexander the Great, is a Korean-Japanese anime first released in 1999. A re-imagination of the life of Alexander the Great based on the novel of the same name by Hiroshi Aramata, the series was produced by an international crew that drew from the resources of the worldwide animation community. Character designs and original designs for the show were conceived by Peter Chung while the show was written by Sadayuki Murai and directed by Yoshinori Kanemori. Most of the production work was handled by Korean animators.
Parmenion, son of Philotas, was a Macedonian general in the service of Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. A nobleman, Parmenion rose to become Philip's chief military lieutenant and Alexander's strategos. He was assassinated after his son Philotas was convicted on a charge of treason. His siblings Asander and Agathon would also become prominent members of Alexander's Macedonia.
Elektra is a 2005 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Elektra Natchios and directed by Rob Bowman. It is a spin-off from the film Daredevil (2003), with Jennifer Garner reprising her role as the titular character. The story follows Elektra, an assassin who must protect a man and his prodigy daughter from another assassin who was hired by the Hand. Goran Višnjić, Will Yun Lee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Terence Stamp also star.
Alexander the Great is a CinemaScope and Technicolor 1956 epic historical drama film about the life of Macedonian general and king Alexander the Great written, produced and directed by Robert Rossen. Filmed in Spain, it was released by United Artists and stars Richard Burton as Alexander along with a large ensemble cast. Italian composer Mario Nascimbene contributed the film score.
Sisygambis was the mother of Darius III of Persia, whose reign was ended during the wars of Alexander the Great. After she was captured by Alexander at the Battle of Issus, she became devoted to him, and Alexander referred to her as "mother".
Ariobarzanes, was an Achaemenid prince, satrap and a Persian military commander who led an ambush of the Persian army at the Battle of the Persian Gate against Macedonian King Alexander the Great in January 330 BC.
Fire from Heaven is a 1969 historical novel by Mary Renault about the childhood and youth of Alexander the Great. It reportedly was a major inspiration for the Oliver Stone film Alexander. The book was nominated for the "Lost Man Booker Prize" of 1970, "a contest delayed by 40 years because a reshuffling of the fledgeling competition's rules", but lost out to Troubles by J. G. Farrell.
The Susa weddings were arranged by Alexander the Great in 324 BCE, shortly after he conquered the Achaemenid Empire. In an attempt to wed Greek culture with Persian culture, he and his officers held a large gathering at Susa and took Persian noblewomen in matrimony. The collective weddings involved 80 couples and blended various Greek and Persian traditions. Celebrating his own Persian wife, Alexander intended for these new unions to help him begin identifying himself as a son of Persia and thereby legitimize his claim as the heir of the Persian kings of the Achaemenid dynasty. It was also expected that any children produced from these marriages would, as the progeny of both Greece and Persia, serve as a symbol of the two civilizations coming together under Alexander's Macedonian Empire.
Alexander is the original film score of the film Alexander (2004), scored by Greek electronic composer Vangelis. It received the Public Choice Award at the 2005 World Soundtrack Academy.
The historical and literary tradition describes several of Alexander's relations, some of which are the subject of question among modern historians.
The Battle of the Persian Gate took place as part of the Wars of Alexander the Great. In the winter of 330 BC, Ariobarzanes of Persis led a last stand with his outnumbered Persian army at the Persian Gate, near Persepolis, and held back the Macedonian army for approximately a month. However, through captured prisoners of war or a local shepherd, Alexander found a path around to flank the Persian troops from the rear, allowing him to capture half of Persia proper in another decisive victory against the Achaemenid Empire.
Stateira, possibly also known as Homa, was the daughter of Stateira and Darius III of Persia. After her father's defeat at the Battle of Issus, Stateira and her sisters became captives of Alexander of Macedon. They were treated well, and she became Alexander's second wife at the Susa weddings in 324 BC. At the same ceremony Alexander also married her cousin, Parysatis, daughter of Darius' predecessor. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, Stateira was killed by Alexander's other wife, Roxana.