Which Alexander the Great pic would you rather see?

[NEON MERCURY]

have you seen Romeo + Juliet?

.that film is up their w/ kids as one of the most worthless , trite , overrated, piece of celluloid garbage....

just that on efilm solidified my disgust of baz......

COMPARE BOTH DIRECTORS WORK...(i know stone has been directing longer)...and why wouldn't one been more interested and hopefull that stones' would/ will be better......

[godardian]

JFK? Nixon? have u seen those?

I'd be willing to give Nixon a whirl, if only for Joan Allen, but yes, I saw JFK, and I was sort of nonplussed. I'd be willing to give it another try, too, but I was definitely not impressed the first time. That was long enough ago that I wouldn't mind reassessing it with my current eyes.

[©brad]

JFK? Nixon? have u seen those?

I'd be willing to give Nixon a whirl, if only for Joan Allen, but yes, I saw JFK, and I was sort of nonplussed. I'd be willing to give it another try, too, but I was definitely not impressed the first time. That was long enough ago that I wouldn't mind reassessing it with my current eyes.

please due so. do it on a sunday, when u have time and can take a break or two. (stone himself said jkf should be watched w/ an intermission)

[Pedro]

JFK? Nixon? have u seen those?

I'd be willing to give Nixon a whirl, if only for Joan Allen, but yes, I saw JFK, and I was sort of nonplussed. I'd be willing to give it another try, too, but I was definitely not impressed the first time. That was long enough ago that I wouldn't mind reassessing it with my current eyes.

please due so. do it on a sunday, when u have time and can take a break or two. (stone himself said jkf should be watched w/ an intermission)

heh....i watched it in one sitting.  the director's cut too.  i was so involved though, it really didn't bother me.  i've watched it a lot since, and i've taken intermissions too.  i say it works better that way.

[kotte]

[Pubrick]

uh,,. hm.

[©brad]

i can't wait.

[kotte]

blond's gay, huh?  

[Gold Trumpet]

i can't wait.

I can't either. I've been on a major Stone haul as of late and he is turning into one of my favorite modern directors.

[godardian]

blond's gay, huh?  

I'd say the micro-miniskirt is more of a giveaway... Farrell has nice legs, though.

[kotte]

blond's gay, huh?  

I'd say the micro-miniskirt is more of a giveaway...

Hehe...didn't Russell wear a mini-skirt as well?

[©brad]

u got to remember though, alexander played for both teams, so it makes sense that he would look a little gay.

[MacGuffin]

A world to conquer
There's a spring in Oliver Stone's step as he strides around a re-creation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the setting for a scene in his epic new movie, "Alexander." Source: Los Angeles Times

"Let's go, guys!" he yells cheerfully to no one in particular, clapping his hands as some 200 extras, dressed variously as Macedonian soldiers, Indians, Persians and skimpily dressed Babylonian women, scurry into position. Eccentrically, Stone has chosen to wear a wide-brimmed hat (indoors!) to complement his sports shirt and chinos. He's flashing his gap-toothed smile a lot. Clearly he's in an ebullient mood.

It's understandable. Stone has long wanted to make a film about the military conqueror Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who in his 32 years created the most stupendous empire the world had seen, stretching from the Balkans to the Himalayas, and including what is now Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. "I started talking about this in 1989, when the German producer Thomas Schuehly approached me," Stone recalls. But when making a film of Alexander's life finally became feasible, he was not alone in wanting to do it.

After the success of "Gladiator" a couple of years ago, sword-and-sandals epics suddenly seemed viable for the first time in 40 years. And the story of Alexander the Great was clearly the one to bring to the screen. At one point, it seemed there might be three competing biopics — confusingly, all earmarked to be made in Morocco. Martin Scorsese was briefly reputed to be interested, while Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis had plans for an Alexander epic, directed by Baz Luhrmann, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. A little more than a year ago, Stone looked like an underdog.

He threw in his lot with the giant European-American production and distribution company Intermedia, wrote a strong script, and generally behaved as if his rivals didn't exist.

Stone's tenacity paid off. Two days before he found himself marshaling extras on the Hanging Gardens set, the "Alexander" production learned that the De Laurentiis-Luhrmann-DiCaprio version had fallen through for now. He finally has a clear run at the story — and he believes that in the person of Irish actor Colin Farrell he has the definitive Alexander.

"The competition got nasty at times," says Intermedia Chairman Moritz Borman, speaking by phone from his office in Munich, Germany. "Quite frankly, when we started, they had Baz Luhrmann, who had just done 'Moulin Rouge.' Leonardo was at that time a bigger star than Colin. I had the smaller package, so to speak. But Oliver's script is extraordinary. So I had a screenplay. They never did. They just had different versions."

Still, this "smaller package" comprises a budget described by Borman as "hovering around $150 million." The film also stars Anthony Hopkins as Ptolemy, who founded the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt; Val Kilmer as Alexander's father, Philip; and Angelina Jolie (in real life only a year older than Farrell) as his mother, Olympias. Jared Leto plays Hephaistion, a Macedonian warrior who is Alexander's closest friend.

A mammoth operation

The production itself is conceived on a truly monumental scale, spanning three continents. Shooting began in Morocco's deserts and Atlas mountains in late September. Interiors were shot here for three weeks over the Christmas-New Year period. "Alexander" has now moved to Thailand for jungle battle scenes; the 85-day shoot concludes early next month.

Borman likens it to "a very big road movie." A staggering 20,000 costumes have been designed. The film's armorers created 9,000 arrows, 3,000 shields, 3,000 swords, 4,000 bows, 200 cavalry lances and 350 axes and clubs.

"In Morocco, we had close to 1,000 soldiers provided as extras by the army," producer John Kilik recalls. "We have a crew of about 120 here in London, but in Morocco it was up to about 500. We had 2,000 people, and 120 horses. We'd have two units going, one with five cameras, the other with three, and Oliver going back and forth. It's like a military operation."

Alexander intrigued Stone from their first introduction.

"When I read the Random House classic book of the 1950s, he took my imagination. The beauty of the man, combined with his dashing exploits and his strong parents — he's fascinating material. He had an idealism I find very rare," Stone says. "He truly believed in the myths and executed them. He outshone Achilles and practically matched the myths of Hercules, in his way. It's an astounding story: a boy who followed his dreams.

"People don't do that often in life, and when you find them, you want to know about them."

Another reason Stone relished the prospect of an Alexander film was the sheer challenge: "No one's done it. No one's written something about Alexander's life that's remembered. There was a bad opera. Robert Rossen, bless his soul, took it on and completely missed it," says Stone, referring to the director's 1956 film "Alexander the Great." "Why didn't Shakespeare try it? Or Marlowe, or the Roman playwrights? It's bizarre."

Stone and his team have seen for themselves why Alexander's life proves such a daunting project. "The big films I made before were contemporary," Stone says. "With this we had to start from scratch, make every single piece of clothing and armor, because nothing is available. We go back 23 centuries, so whatever you need — pottery, glasses — there's nothing you can get."

Even the climate has caused headaches for the production. "In Morocco, we had sandstorms," Stone says. "To some extent, I kept shooting through them, but we still lost 2 1/2 days out of 37 there. The key is to make it a guerrilla operation — get in and out fast."

Then there was the small matter of finance. Borman admitted that shooting started on "Alexander" before all the money was in place. Intermedia sold distribution rights territory by territory. But not until Warner Bros., its U.S. distributor, also agreed to finance the film's distribution in Britain and Italy was the project on safe financial footing.


Enthusiastic star

While getting an epic made is one thing, persuading audiences to see it is another. Much of its success will depend on Colin Farrell, who plays Alexander. And today he is decidedly under the weather, with a bout of flu. Between takes he huddles in a corner of the set, next to a heater.

Farrell has grown his dark hair to chin length and dyed it blond. His limbs are bronzed with tanning oil. He looks the part, in a tunic and sandals, yet there are occupational hazards with such a costume — as he drags deeply on a cigarette, ash falls on his bare thigh and Farrell mutters an obscenity.

"Painful," he says finally. "Especially when your legs have been shaved." But even through his illness, his enthusiasm for "Alexander" is evident. "In the last four years I've been lucky enough to do some big jobs," he says. "But I've never done anything like this. It's a very noble endeavor, this film. Alexander was a man who gained absolute power. He was ruler of what people knew the Earth to be at that stage. He's the original Greek tragedy, you know? He was running away from a lot, running toward a lot and trying to find himself in the middle."

Farrell insists that Stone's script (which he based on a biography of Alexander by British historian Robin Lane Fox) is itself a coherent historical account.

"You can never know enough, so you read 'The Iliad' and Sophocles, you get a feeling for the gods," he says. "But Page 1 to Page 158 [of the script], that's the bible. You can just run with what Oliver wrote and make it your own."

As for Stone, he's thrilled with his leading man. "See that?" he said, after the day's filming. "Colin has the flu, but you wouldn't know it. I ask him for choices with a line, and he just adjusts it four different ways. He's so upbeat…. Oh, yeah, and he's nasty in an Irish way. All his best lines are under his breath. It's hard to get all that. This is a young man's story, and what young American actor has all that?"

Farrell casts his gaze upward, around the enormous set. "Our production designer and costume designer [Jan Roelfs and eight-time Oscar nominee Jenny Beavan] are geniuses. They create this world, and all you have to do is exist in it. I've seen some amazing sets, but look at this!"

He has a point. It's an extraordinary spectacle — a huge space with pillars, columns, fountains and real hanging plants, imported from Holland. The costumes of the extras, representing half a dozen nationalities, are so vivid that at first glance it can give one a sense of visual overload. The scene marks the entry into Babylon of Alexander and his Macedonian comrades, who are greeted warmly. But a member of the city's ruling family is concerned about how they will be treated by these invaders, and Alexander speaks to her reassuringly.

Intriguingly, Farrell speaks in a softer version of his own strong Irish accent — and many of the actors cast as his allies are Irish or English. This was deliberate policy on Stone's part: "These men were Macedonians, not cultivated Greeks, and it seemed to me they occupied a similar position that the Irish and Scots did to the English in the British Empire," he said.

It isn't hard to figure out why Stone was drawn to Alexander the Great; he is fascinated by power and its exercise. He has made two movies about U.S. presidents ("JFK" in 1991 and "Nixon" in 1995) and his last two films, "Commandante" and "Persona Non Grata," focused on Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, respectively.

"One thing that comes out in this film is that the Olympic gods start to lose their hold on man," Stone says. "Mankind goes toward Christianity, that comes 300, 400 years later, but men start to look for personal salvation as opposed to the Olympic gods, who weren't enough. Alexander shows you that man can do it, become the highest reflection of gods."

So the trick is to make a movie that reflects that ambition? Stone smiled: "Exactly."

[MacGuffin]

[©brad]

alright i'm really excited now.