ALEXANDER ***
DIRECTED BY Oliver Stone
STARRING Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto
US 2004 175 mins.
OCEAN’S TWELVE **
DIRECTED BY Steven Soderbergh
STARRING George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta Jones, Julia Roberts
US 2004 120 mins.
WATCHING Alexander, I saw something you rarely see in a multiplex audience: people walking out halfway through, in one case with a derisive burst of laughter. I’d like to think they left because this gloriously eccentric historical was just too insane for them, but I suspect the truth is more banal: that it wasn’t ‘historically accurate’, not the Alexander they learned about in school – or maybe it was just too gay.
It is pretty gay, though not graphically so; those Greek lawyers who tried to block the film’s release can’t have been happy with its fluid sexuality – even if it’s more a constant undertone of homoeroticism, not just in our hero (at one point we glimpse a young catamite being led away at a banquet). The question of historical accuracy is a more problematic one. The short answer is simply that the film isn’t historically accurate; the larger question is, Should it be?
Of course, movies have always played fast and loose with History; a caption in Greek before the opening credits (no doubt inserted for the local market after all the controversy) reminds us that a film is a work of Art, not a documentary. But not all cheating is equally objectionable. I like Troy a lot, but killing off Agamemnon was a cheap, cowardly trick, simplifying the plot so the ‘bad guy’ gets his just desserts.
Alexander isn’t unhistorical in that way. This isn’t a case of History diluted to make it more palatable for the mass audience; it’s a case of one man’s obsessions – his vision, you might say – connecting with his subject in a way so personal, so fervent and specific that nothing, not even History, is allowed to stand in its way.
That man is of course Oliver Stone, the Oscar-winning director who takes the life of Alexander the Great and reflects it through the prism of his own life. Stone is the son of a powerful father (a Wall Street broker) and a ‘foreign’ (French) mother; so was Alexander, whose mother (played by Angelina Jolie) was a ‘barbarian’ queen wed by King Philip. Stone rebelled against his father; so does Alexander. Stone was shaped by War – specifically Vietnam, where he volunteered for a tour of duty and found the nightmarish chaos depicted in Platoon (1986). So was Alexander, who spent most of his life soldiering and ended up conquering most of the then-known world.
History tells us he thought of himself as a god, and may have kept going out of sheer megalomania. Stone prefers to say he kept going – never staying in one place, venturing further into the unknown, often giving the lands he’d so painfully conquered back to their inhabitants – because he was fleeing childhood demons, haunted by an acutely Oedipal sense of failure: his Mum (it says here) pre-empted him, in effect emasculated him, by literally killing his Dad before he had a chance (metaphorically) to do it himself. Philip’s death isn’t seen when it occurs, but saved for a flashback near the end – just as Alexander is bemoaning his “failure” – the better to show how central it is to his psyche.
History tells us Alexander had many wives. Stone prefers to show only one, another ‘barbarian’ queen just like his mother – implying he wanted no other woman but her, which also links up with his bisexual nature. Is it wrong to take only what one wants from History, and ignore (not deny, just ignore) the rest? Stone’s Alexander is a ‘true’ portrait of what Alexander might’ve been like, had he been a restless neurotic haunted by Oedipal issues. ‘Ah, but he wasn’t!’ cries the Indignant Viewer – or was he? Do we really know? Does it even really matter?
Besides, the dysfunctional hero fits with the film’s view of War. In an age when Lord of the Rings mindlessly shows Glorious Death, thousands of troops laying down their lives to vanquish an ‘axis of Evil’, this (like Troy) paints a more ambivalent picture – but it’s far more twisted than Troy, coloured by Stone’s Vietnam experience till it topples over into Apocalypse Now! territory. This is War as labyrinth, quagmire, festering swamp of intrigue and psychosis, ever-more-introverted journey of the mind. In the end, Alexander is Aguirre-like (as in Werner Herzog’s 1972 Aguirre, Wrath of God) – king of the monkeys amid failure and paranoia, monsoon rains and jungle, wine-sodden troops and writhing male dancers: a true nightmare vision.
Alexander was of course a disaster at the box-office. Maybe it’s because it can only be understood in the context of Oliver Stone – the kind of leap critics love to make, and audiences find baffling. In a way, it’s a very self-conscious film – just like Ocean’s Twelve, which at least is more upfront about what it’s doing.
In order to enjoy this sequel to Ocean’s Eleven, you have to put yourself in a meta-mood: it’s not just about the characters, it’s about the stars playing those characters. The most brilliant twist has Julia Roberts playing “Julia Roberts” (I won’t spoil it by explaining it), but it’s also about “George Clooney” and “Brad Pitt” and the whole stylish, secret world of film stars. Everyone behaves like they’re just having fun, and the script is suitably playful. At one point, the gang debate the merits of the name “Ocean’s Eleven”; later, Matt Damon asks for “a more central role this time”, a humorous dig at his second-banana status.
Alas, making it look easy isn’t as easy as it looks. The first film did it by being super-stylish then revealing it had a heart in the lovely ‘fountain scene’, scored to Debussy; this one is heartless and (surprisingly) not even stylish. The images are harsher than they were in Eleven, the camera moves jerkier; there’s none of that luxurious Vegas hedonism. The rhythm, too, is off, especially in the first half: an early sequence has Andy Garcia (the victim in Eleven) coming back to claim his money, and we see him visiting each of the gang in turn – again and again, the joke getting heavier and a little more strained each time.
Some of it works well: Damon looking suitably lost as his colleagues pull a “Lost in Translation” (every scam has a fancy name, criminal argot being part of the joke); Vincent Cassel as a smooth but neurotic super-thief; Catherine Zeta Jones, a terrible actress whom only Soderbergh seems to know how to handle – as in Traffic, he uses her unyielding bossy quality, so her moments of vulnerability actually work. Only Roberts seems a little wan, unattractively lit so she looks pale and drawn.
Some have praised the film’s (slightly) darker quality, comparing it favourably with the airy, sunny Eleven. There, everything went right for the gang; here, everything goes wrong, making it – according to critic Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly – a “film about failure”. But you can’t have it both ways: a film where everyone acts smooth and unruffled, and it’s always being emphasised how the whole thing’s just a lark, can’t also be a film about failure. There is a film about failure doing the rounds, but it’s not Ocean’s Twelve. He’s brash, he’s blond, he looks like Colin Farrell: just call him Alexander.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks (most are also out on VHS). Some of these may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.sendit.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, albeit not the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
THE RETURN OF THE KING (SPECIAL EXTENDED EDITION): Four discs, 50 minutes longer than the Theatrical Version, copious commentaries, documentaries, DVD-ROM features; will Lord of the Rings madness never end? [US]
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE: Much-acclaimed sci-fi animation, the only anime (Japanese cartoon) ever selected in Competition at Cannes. [US]
THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR: Impressive drama, with an unusually dark Jeff Bridges performance. [US]
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS: Scary Korean horror, for fans of Ring and The Grudge. [UK]
CONTROL ROOM and OUTFOXED: Clever documentaries on TV channels at opposite ends of the spectrum – Al-Jazeera and Fox News, respectively – refracted through the war in Iraq. [US]
OLD FILMS
THE JEAN VIGO COLLECTION: Vigo died in 1934, aged 29, having made two shorts and two acknowledged masterpieces: Zero de Conduite (1933) and L’Atalante (1934); all may be found on this essential 2-disc set. [UK]
THE RAPTURE (1991): Mind-boggling drama starring Mimi Rogers as born-again Christian, climaxing – wait for it – in the Apocalypse itself. [US]
WETHERBY (1985): Taut, well-written British drama from playwright David Hare, with superb Vanessa Redgrave performance. [US]
OZU BOX SET / BUNUEL BOX SET / RENOIR BOX SET: Bargains! Three great directors – Yasujiro Ozu, Luis Bunuel and Jean Renoir – represented by three films each, in box sets selling for £30-40 plus shipping. Renoir’s is the best, comprising Grande Illusion (1937), The Crime of M. Lange (1935) and La Bête Humaine (1938), but the Ozu includes Tokyo Story (1953), one of the all-time greats. Hooray! [UK]
MARY POPPINS (40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) (1964): There’s even a deleted song called “Chimpanzoo”… [US]
