One wonders why.
Posted on 12/01/2004 9:19:41 AM PST by UltraConservative
Oliver Stone had a really rotten week. His huge-budget epic drama “Alexander,” starring Colin Farrell, Angeline Jolie, Val Kilmer, and Anthony Hopkins, premiered to critical raspberries and popular apathy. “Alexander” reportedly cost over $150 million to make, and over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, it garnered a mere $21,837,517, finishing sixth at the box office.
In all likelihood, Warner Bros., which produced the film, will still recoup its costs, despite the probability that “Alexander” won’t come close to $100 million in domestic grosses. Europeans are expected to turn out in high numbers to see the Macedonian wunderkind; they turned out en masse to see the American box office flop “Troy” as well.
What was the hold-up for American audiences? It wasn’t the nearly three-hour running time – remember, each movie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy ran over 178 minutes, with the most successful of the trilogy, “The Return of the King,” running at well over three hours. It wasn’t the critical coolness toward Stone’s pet project – several of the movies that finished above Stone’s at the box office last weekend were critically panned (although none to the extent of this disaster).
A large part of “Alexander”’s downfall is attributable to the moral distastefulness of the subject matter. Alexander the Great is played as a mop-top, indecisive bisexual by Farrell. During the course of the movie, Farrell kisses a eunuch full on the mouth, and exchanges numerous lingering glances with boyhood chum and grown-up gay lover Hephaiston (played by an eye-liner-wearing Jared Leto). Anthony Hopkins, playing Ptolemy, intones: ““It was said . . . that Alexander was never defeated, except by Hephaistion’s thighs.”
This stuff doesn’t go over well with most Americans. Frankly, we don’t want to hear about it, and we’re definitely not going to pay money to see it. Critics love films with homosexuality, but very few of those films go on to see great popular success. Since 1994, 17 actors and actresses have been nominated for Academy Awards for playing gay characters; meanwhile, every movie nominated for an Oscar since 1994 containing substantial homosexuality has fallen well-below the $100 million mark, except for “As Good As It Gets” and “American Beauty,” both of which were fueled by Oscar hype.
You can sense how much the critics wanted to love “Alexander,” too, primarily for its exploration of bisexuality, despite the fact that the movie is simply awful. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times ripped into the film, but praised Stone’s portrayal of Alexander’s homosexual tendencies: “There are moments in ‘Alexander’ that show Mr. Stone in fine form, including . . . the aching tenderness between the ruler and his longtime lover, Hephaistion . . .”
Meanwhile, most of the critics complained that “Alexander” failed because it didn’t do enough with Alexander’s sexuality. Desson Thomas of the Washington Post complains that “Alexander's homosexual side is only bashfully explored . . . . There are no thighs, just whispers.” Likewise, Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe writes, “The nervous handling of the important relationship [between Alexander and Hephaiston] lays an absurd emotional dead spot over the picture's overblown finale.”
Unfortunately for the critics – and Stone -- the cultural pendulum has begun to swing toward traditional morality again. The five films that beat “Alexander” to a pulp were: “National Treasure,” “The Incredibles,” “Christmas With The Kranks,” “The Polar Express,” and “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.” These films were rated, respectively, PG, PG, PG, G and PG.
These are all family friendly fare. That’s what Americans want to see nowadays. That’s why Sharon Stone whined that social conservatism prevented the filmmakers from approving a lesbian kiss between her and Halle Berry in “Catwoman”: “Halle’s so beautiful, and I wanted to kiss her. I said, ‘How can you have us in the movie and not have us kiss? It's such a waste.’ But that’s what you get for having George Bush as president.” That’s why Wayne Llewellyn, president of distribution at Paramount, blamed “Alfie”’s flop on President Bush’s re-election: “It seems to be the result of the election. Maybe they didn't want to see a guy that slept around.”
With the shift in social values currently underway, here are a few predictions: “Brokeback Mountain”(2005), starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as gay cowboys, will be a critical favorite but a box office dud. So will “Brideshead Revisited”(2005) starring Jude Law and Paul Bettany as love interests. Meanwhile, anything Pixar puts out will do big business. Note to Hollywood: welcome to the backlash you inspired. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
The novel was about finding redemption in the key scene where Lord Marchmont (who lost his faith) accepts The Lord at the hour of his death.
I read campaigns of Alexander by Arrian who was a 3rd century Roman general. The book didn't talk at all about Alexander's sexuality. It mostly talked in detail about the nature of his war tactics and fighting and how he was never quite able to overcome the split between Persian (arab) and Helenic (greek) culture. I think that would have made powerful subject matter for the movie if they focused on that. To a Roman general being gay wasn't important. If he were a modern day general he would think about it in the way that we think about someone liking watching old westerns or something like that. It's just not that important, the focus on homosexuality says far more about our time than Alexander's.
One wonders why.
I totally agree with you. Many in my family complain about it being shoved in their face all the time.
Precisely. Despite having no real hope or comfort left that could materially justify his faith, he returns to the faith anyway with a finally clarified inner vision.
The problem with the movie isn't the homosexuality, it's only showing two battles and Alexander whining and crying all the time and being a totally unsympathetic character (which is a completely separate issue from the homosexuality.)
This is another example where people basically try to squeeze reality to fit the axe they want to grind ("Americans reject movie with homosexuality") when it's really "Americans reject movie with horrible script."
There are basically 4 ancient ources for Alexander, all of which unfortunately lived a considerable amount of time after Alexander and based their histories on other primary sources which are now lost. It's one of the other 4 (I forget which) which implies Alexander's bisexuality. It's not like Stone invented the whole business recently.
My family liked this movie, although after a while the homosexuality got too much. The scene with Dawson was avoidable for me, although my husband, predictably, thought it the best part of the movie. But I thought that the movie did a pretty good job of showing how Alexander's conquests changed the world of his time.
The problem is that what was once called "the love that dare not speak its name" now has no idea when to shut the f*** up!
How strongly does it imply that Alexander was Bi? or do people just infer that he was because thats what they want to believe?
I haven't read any of these sources so I am really curious.
I remember the bond with his troops scenes more than I do the whiny ones, but I agree about the battles. I would have preferred that the ones they showed were shorter. Then they could have added at least one more. I would also have liked more details on the battle plans for that first battle since I understand that his strategy was brilliant. There was one scene of planning, but it was so fast that I found it hard to follow. I liked this better than other OS movies.
It was very explicit. There were too many scenes of him kissing and hugging other men. And on his wedding night, his lover shows up and after his bride sees him and figures out what is happening, she, hmm, doesn't react too well. Like I said, my husband's favorite scene. I didn't care for it, but I suppose that's the difference in men and women.
One problem with battle scenes in movies these days is it's all this fast-cut jiggly camera stuff with extreme closeups on individual soldiers in hand-to-hand combat (in many cases, when actually hand-to-hand combat was incredibly rare, like in the Revolutionary War or Civil War.....there were almost no bayonet wounds in either war) instead of a distant or overhead view showing actual tactics. Oddly enough the Lord of the Rings movies probably did the best job of this.
Stone SORT of tried to do this with Gaugamela with the view from the Eagle overhead, but it was still too hard to follow.
Yes, I liked the overhead shots with the Eagle.
OS said on PBS interview that he wanted to show the 'manic depression' of Alexander.....guess that was not all that appealing to movie-goers...LOL!!!!
The lead in the movie just does not fit the profile of Alexander. I mean .. just looking at him does not portray the character .. and then when he opened his mouth and started speaking .. it was sort of weak and whimpy.
I'm gaging it against Gibson's portrayal of Wallace in "Braveheart".
This is a "gay" movie with any amount of homosexual scenes.
It is exactly a HUGE problem with this Oliver Stone hack job. It is the homosexual advocates who are trying to blame the bad script as they are trying to blame kerry for loosing 11 out of 11 marriage amendments.
It remains to be sceene which studio heads roll over approving this fiasco. It also is far more likely that the suits will not be so quick to approve financing for a homo-movie.
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