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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
"Alexander the Great" is being celebrated by Oliver Stone, Leo DiCaprio, DVDs, books, even a video game. An expert explains why everyone's so worked up over the ancient, sexually ambiguous, bloodthirsty conquerer.
Oct 25, 2004 | Maximus has long since maxed out, and Achilles had his moment of triumph at the box office. So now Hollywood has turned to Alexander the Great, the king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire and founder of a new world order, who died in 323 B.C. at age 32, as the muse of not one but two blockbuster movies about him: Oliver Stone's "Alexander," starring Colin Farrell as the sexually adventurous, hard-drinking legend and Angelina Jolie as his mother, Olympias, is headed to theaters Nov. 24, and is generating Oscar buzz before it has even been seen. And Baz Luhrmann is polishing up the script for his "Alexander the Great," starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role and Nicole Kidman as Olympias. (The project was pushed back because Luhrmann says he cares too much about it to be "drawn into a race" with Stone.)
What's more, the 1956 film "Alexander the Great," starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom, has just been released on DVD, National Geographic is releasing an Alexander the Great DVD on Nov. 2, and the History Channel will air an Alexander documentary on Nov. 7. Several new Alexander biographies have been published in the past few months. Libraries and museums have hopped on the bandwagon with exhibits looking at Alexander's life and legend. There's even a new video game that allows players to do battle as the great military leader.
What is it about this legendary -- and notoriously brutal -- leader, a man generally revered in the West and genuinely reviled in the East, that has so captivated our imaginations at this particular point in history? Why Alexander, why now? Salon asked Paul Cartledge, professor of Greek history and chairman of the classics faculty at Cambridge University. Cartledge is the author of "Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past," but is not involved in any of the Alexander film projects.
What is motivating the sudden surge in interest in Alexander?
Well, one reason why there is "Alexander" and a whole slew of ancient world movies coming up is partly because of the success of "Gladiator." Hollywood people had thought, "No, no money in it." But actually now, using modern digital effects -- as "Troy" recently did -- you can show a thousand ships without having to build them all, which would cost you a few dollars. Even so, "Troy" was a $200 million movie, and Stone's "Alexander" is $150 million, but of course it will probably make back much more than that.
And then the second reason for the surge is the situation in the Middle East. Afghanistan and now Iraq.
How does that figure in?
Well, Alexander died in Iraq. He went all the way up to what's now Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and then he went into Pakistan via Afghanistan. He is in a way a Middle Eastern figure and so the issue of East-West, the culture clash or culture conflict, is very big. And some argue that Alexander was actually very good because he tried to reconcile East and West -- on his terms, of course. Others say he was a terrible man because he slaughtered hundreds of thousands, including Indians and Persians and you name it. Some people estimate he killed, or among his opponents there were killed, three-quarters of a million people.
I tend to take a middle position that yes, he was out for himself to an important extent. He was very much the conqueror, and conquering is not always nice. But on the other hand, the effect of what he did in terms of the spread of Greek culture, which laid the groundwork for Western civilization, is undeniable.
