Western Courier

Issue date: 9/16/05 Section: The Edge

Media Credit: www.osobnosti.cz Colin Farrell stars in Oliver Stone´s 2004 version of "Alexander."

When something is done for the first time and turns out to have been done absolutely right, it's difficult to imagine that those who follow will not try to imitate it.

In 1956 when Robert Rossen directed a movie called "Alexander the Great," he probably did not think he was making anything that anyone would want to remake later, yet in 2004 Oliver Stone did just that when he directed "Alexander."

Stone seems to have studied Rossen's film for the two have many striking similarities in plot line, characters and even speech. When Richard Burton played Rossen's Alexander he dyed his hair blond for the role, as did Colin Farrell in Stone's movie. But this is just the beginning. In both films, Alexander's mother, Olympias, is played as someone who is to be guarded by the young Alexander. She is played as a sorceress in the new movie and as simply evil in the original. Alexander's father, Philip of Macedonia, is killed in the same manner after uttering almost exactly the same line to his son.

"This is the man who would lead you from Greece into Persia, he cannot even move from one couch to the next," Alexander says about his father to a gathering of people, which is in the first movie and was copied exactly into the second movie.

Both Alexanders find King Darius of Persia after he had fled in battle, killed and abandoned by his men some distance away and both marry his daughter Roxana. Both Alexanders die before they can give their blessing to the next king, though Burton's Alexander says his kingdom will go "to the strongest."

Both films seem to emphasize the belief Alexander thought he was a god. "To Olympias, your queen and wife, on this day a god was born" is the message from Olympias that Philip hears upon the birth of Alexander in the old movie. In both he goes through the film comparing himself and Achilles and hearing from his mother that he is not Philip of Macedonia's son, but Zeus.'

In both films Olympias is able to convince Alexander that he is a god. That is where most of the similarities end. Both movies insinuate, and the new one goes far beyond insinuation, that Alexander had a few unconventional preferences.

The old movie hints at an Oedipus complex and in the newer film it is rather blatant that Stone wanted to convey that Alexander was gay. In the new version, Alexander actually kisses his mother.

Continued...

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