Request for comments regarding Stone's Alexander

[amyntoros]

Possibly so, but, I just know that many would absolutely adore mine though. So much to get their teeth into...

Oops! Age and creeping dyslexia...not to mention senior moments.

The verb should have been abhor.

And such a difference in meaning between the two words! Could it have been a Freudian moment?

Best regards,

[dean]

Hello,

I don't know Amyntoros, if you listen to the commentary I honestly feel that Oliver Stone, talks confidently as an expert but without the knowledge.
It is as if he is making it up as he goes along.
He says that Achilles and Jason all returned to the west and that Alexander was the only one out of all the heroes that never came back.
All I can say is that he has one "HELL" of an imagination!
Dean

[marcus]

I don't know Amyntoros, if you listen to the commentary I honestly feel that Oliver Stone, talks confidently as an expert but without the knowledge.
It is as if he is making it up as he goes along.
He says that Achilles and Jason all returned to the west and that Alexander was the only one out of all the heroes that never came back.

Hi Dean,

Well, it would be odd if Stone didn't talk confidently in his commentary - whether or not he actually knew what he was talking about. He certainly isn't a 'newcomer', if the number of years he'd been dreaming of making Alexander is anything to go by. Now, that doesn't make him an expert, by any stretch of the imagination - as Amyntoros says, which of us can really call ourselves experts?

At the end of the day, whether or not we agree with his interpretation, and whether or not there are some historical errors that we can say for sure are errors (rather than differences of opinion), it was his film - and the point Amyntoros was making was, of course, that if you, or I, were to make our films of Alexander, there's a much better than evens chance that there would be Pothosians who loved them, and others who'd hate them.

Those of us who know our Greek mythology better can certainly take issue with the comment you mention about Achilles and Jason - not least by pointing out that Achilles and Jason were mythological characters, and Alexander was historical. OK, a somewhat silly thing for Stone to say. Doesn't that make him a dunce as far as Greek mythology is concerned, though, rather than as far as Alexander is concerned?

It's all very emotive, this subject, isn't it?

ATB, being picky as a picky thing ...

[amyntoros]

It's all very emotive, this subject, isn't it?

Can't argue with that! I have to confess to a kind of twisted glee (picture a Victorian-style villainess with much rubbing together of hands and maniacal giggles) while imagining the response on this forum when Oliver's new and final version comes to DVD some time next year. The last I heard, it is to be a 3 hour and 45 minute cut with three "intermissions". More of what you love or more of what you hate?

Best regards,

[Paralus]

Could it have been a Freudian moment?

Freudian? He, he, he.

Just Paralus, cutting the smooth waters of the Aegean, as per usual........

The "Freudian moment" will have been the day I chose the vessel of Athens' diplomacy as my nom de plume.

[dean]

Hi Marcus,

Dean said,

Oliver Stone, talks confidently as an expert but without the knowledge.

Marcus/Amyntoros said

which of us can really call ourselves experts?

I said previously, that Stone wasn't making a documentary and it is his film- if he wants to say whatever on his commentary then that is up to him. He didn't know the full picture about Alexander 'cos otherwise Robin Lane Fox wouldn' have been got in on the act.

But yes, you are right- who is an expert here? (God Knows, I certainly ain't)
Anyway, this theme came up in one of my classes which was talking about Troy- I will try to avoid using the word historical but the class was revolving around the idea of taking an original and playing with it to make it more sellable, interesting, dramatic cos the original just wasn't "hot" enough. Here we are talking about Homer and Wolfgang Peterson and his scriptwriter and the choices they made over the original. Up to a certain extent this is what happened to the Iliad anyway with the passing of time, as it was passed from generation to generation and the Heroes just got more amazing and bits were played around with- the conclusions we came up with was it is OK to play with an "original" story if it enhances the story and makes it more fun- no harm done.

Marcus said,

At the end of the day, whether or not we agree with his interpretation, and whether or not there are some historical errors that we can say for sure are errors (rather than differences of opinion), it was his film - and the point Amyntoros was making was, of course, that if you, or I, were to make our films of Alexander, there's a much better than evens chance that there would be Pothosians who loved them, and others who'd hate them.

The point I was trying to make was that Stone is in an important position and in my opinion should do his homework first before giving us a lesson in history. In the commentary he is talking about history- not just the dramatic scenes that appear in his film

And by the way, I am sure that should I ever make a film on Alexander then there also would be lots of members who wouldn't buy the directors cut of my movie.

Best regards,
Dean

[marcus]

The point I was trying to make was that Stone is in an important position and in my opinion should do his homework first before giving us a lesson in history. In the commentary he is talking about history- not just the dramatic scenes that appear in his film

And by the way, I am sure that should I ever make a film on Alexander then there also would be lots of members who wouldn't buy the directors cut of my movie.

Of course, I don't know in what context Stone was talking but you're right. Personally, I have never listened to a director's commentary, and probably never will, so I will probably never hear what Stone has to say, in or out of context!

The fundamental problem is that, by providing a director's commentary, the director is required to ... well ... comment. As far as I can tell from the snatches I have heard (before switching them off) of other D's commentaries on other DVDs, they tend to be rather stream-of-consciousness recordings - they certainly aren't written, timed, and recorded endlessly in a dubbing studio; rather, they are recorded in as much time as it takes to play the film, and the DVD gains some "value" for no more than about 2 hours of the director's time.

My point is that the director therefore is likely to come out with all sorts of rubbish, the level of which depends on how much preparation he/she has done. Stone's problem is that, rather than making an entirely fictitious film, he chose a historical subject, upon which he is not an expert - therefore, for those of us who know a little bit about the subject, it seems arrogant and pompous for him to be making these statements, not least when he gets them wrong.

However, I have watched not a few TV programmes in which they have engaged some expert/pundit, and heard great clangers from these academic experts. So we are all human, after all.

How did this start? Oh well, I do see where you're coming from ... perhaps I'm just a tad more forgiving ...

ATB

[Paralus]

Without going back over the thread, did anyone mention Ptolemy calling Alexander "Magnus"? I'm unaware whether or not Aristotle taught Latin at Mieza.

Thanks Kenny, your Magnus thread tickled the memory.

[dean]

and on , and on,,,,

Dean

[athenas owl]

Without going back over the thread, did anyone mention Ptolemy calling Alexander "Magnus"? I'm unaware whether or not Aristotle taught Latin at Mieza.

Thanks Kenny, your Magnus thread tickled the memory.

He didn't call him Magnus, he called him Megas. I don't think Stone spoke confidently as a scholar in his commentaries, but as someone who had his own "personal relationship" to the Alexander he had been living with in his head for so many years. But that's just me.

This place is wonderful, so many opinions and interpretations of the same sources. Just the reactions to the film would be a great discussion about the historiography of ATG. In some ways that's a better history lesson to me, it says more about the historians. That's not a slight either.

[dean]

Hello

Athenas Owl said,

I don't think Stone spoke confidently as a scholar in his commentaries, but as someone who had his own "personal relationship" to the Alexander he had been living with in his head for so many years. But that's just me.

I couldn't agree with you more- he sees Alexander as being so much before his own time that he thinks that it doesn't really make much difference what we say about him because who is going to know anyway.

If you watch the film about Jim Morrison by Stone "the doors", there is a moment when you see the young Jim during a photo session drunk as usual and there are different images shown, supposedly people who Jim admires- one is a bust of Alexander the great. In Morrison's bio- "No one gets out of here alive" it says that Jim read Plutarch amongst the other 2 billion books he apparently read, even copying slanting his head to one side. I guess that the inspiration for the movie came after making the film about the doors.

Jim Morrison and Alexander the Great? Is this Stone's Alexander? Well, they both liked a nice nightcap or two and also were both great lovers of the arts especially literature but I think that here the similarities end.

Or come to think about it, they both really did break on thru to the other side!
Best regards,
Dean

[Efstathios]

If you watch the film about Jim Morrison by Stone "the doors", there is a moment when you see the young Jim during a photo session drunk as usual and there are different images shown, supposedly people who Jim admires- one is a bust of Alexander the great. In Morrison's bio- "No one gets out of here alive" it says that Jim read Plutarch amongst the other 2 billion books he apparently read, even copying slanting his head to one side. I guess that the inspiration for the movie came after making the film about the doors.

Hmm , wasnt it Dionysus? However, there is a bust of Alexander, http://www.livius.org/a/1/alexander/lou ... _delos.JPG
in which Morrison resembles him.I dont know if he tried to look like him, by leaning his head to the right and all that.