 |
At the Movies
Alexander
I
didn’t
know
they
made
movies
like
this
any
more.
Togaramas
with
well-tanned
actors
standing
around
in
bright
sunlight
declaiming
“O
mighty
king”
and
“I
am
your
loyal
satrap”
and
“Which
way
is
India?”.
I
didn’t
even
know
there
was
anyone
left
who
wrote
dialogue
like
that.
But
clever
Oliver
Stone
has
found
someone
who
does,
and
given
him
work,
which
is
nice,
and
since
no-one
in
the
audience
at
the
film
laughed
or
walked
out
the
night
I
was
there,
I
suppose
the
director
knows
what
he’s
doing.
Best
acting
award
goes
to
the
snakes.
They
never
put
a
foot
wrong.
After
that
the
elephants—who
sometimes
did.
But
is
it
really
conceivable
that
Alexander’s
mother
Olympias
played
about
with
those
looping
and
slithering
serpents
24/7—even
if
her
husband
King
Philip
had
eyes
for
something
younger?
Anyway
it’s
okay
with
me
if
she
wants
a
little
distraction,
because
on
the
subject
of
eyes
Angelina
Jolie,
who
plays
Olympias,
has
two
of
the
best
in
the
business.
* * *
Though
maybe
the
movie
should
have
been
about
Her
rather
than
Him—about
the
sinister
green-eyed
mother
instead
of
the
son…
Then
it
might
have
tried
to
solve
the
mystery
of
Philip’s
murder
(Who
killed
the
King?)
and
Angie’s
involvement,
and
her
son
Alexander’s
sudden
flight
from
the
Macedonian
court.
Not
only
Alexander
himself,
but
all
that
endless
journeying
with
freaky
doe-eyed
heavily
kohled
companions,
and
a
huge
acreage
of
time-wasting
barren
landscape
could
have
been
cut.
Yes:
I’m
sure
now
that’s
the
solution.
Retitled
as
Olympias
this
could
have
been
a
classic
Cold
Case
Crimes
Reopened,
and
might
even
have
thrown
historical
light
on
why
Pausanias
stuck
a
sword
into
Alexander’s
father’s
chest
at
a
ceremony
in
the
palace
of
Aigai.
Then
after
Alexander
and
his
chums
had
gone,
mercifully
disappearing
towards
India
in
a
cloud
of
dust,
Olympias
could
have
been
told
to
put
down
her
pythons,
sit
up
straight,
and
answer
that
question
in
the
Macedonian
Magistrate’s
Court:
Did
you
plan
all
this
mayhem
yourself?
As
it
is,
the
actor
playing
the
lead
in
Alexander
has
to
be
the
most
unlikely
piece
of
casting
since
the
invention
of
the
Edison
kinescope.
With
his
eyes
too
close
together
so
he
looks
puzzled
or
frustrated
or
hurt,
Irishman
Colin
Farrell
resembles
a
simple,
well-fed
butcher’s
boy.
Charisma
he
has
not.
Or
royal
presence.
Or
sense
of
destiny.
Maybe
he’s
the
kind
of
leader
Stone
wanted,
but
as
Peter
Green
wrote
in
the
January
21
Times
Literary
Supplement
(Green
being
the
author
of
a
biography
of
Alexander)
it’s
hard
to
see
why
anyone
else
would
follow
him
to
the
nearest
pub,
let
alone
to
the
ends
of
the
earth.
* * *
Green
makes
a
number
of
points
of
the
kind
professional
historians
are
bound
to
make
about
omissions,
displacements,
and
implausibilities
of
one
kind
and
another.
He
also
places
Stone’s
interpretation
of
Alexander
firmly
within
a
hagiographic
tradition
in
which
a
militarily
brilliant
and
charismatic
figure
leads
“a
Panhellenic
crusade
against
an
effete
alien
theocracy”,
this
setting
the
stage
for
“that
most
seductive
of
self-justified
actions,
proselytization
through
pre-emptive
righteous
conquest.
Invasion
would
bring
enlightenment
to
barbarians
incapable
of
finding
it
for
themselves.”
As
for
the
movie,
when
is
someone
going
to
tell
people
like
Oliver
Stone
that
Battles
are
Boring?
Biff
and
bang
and
stab
and
wallop,
monotonously
repeated
in
confusing
close-ups
over
and
over,
and
accompanied
by
crashing
sound
effects
more
appropriate
to
the
bombing
of
Baghdad,
merely
numb
the
senses.
And
the
result
is
predictable.
Less
than
an
hour
into
the
film,
and
only
a
minute
into
the
fray
at
Gaugamela,
my
yawnometer
registered
an
uncontrollable
stretching
of
the
jaws.
February 2005
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