S.A.S.H.A.

Arts

Sasha

nikola1tesla

Oliver came to my school tonight

http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_2603577


I went to this tonight & Oliver was WONDERFUL!!! He went over the filmmaking process in great detail, & described some of the major changes he's made to the DVD. He said somethiung about it coming out "June....July 5th"... but later in the interview... it seemed it may be coming out sooner, so I don't know if I misunderstood something he said. Does anyone know?

Here's some tidbits from the interview-- which was filmed & should be online soon at Berkeley's "ETA" edu website.

For one, the film will go from the last scene of Alexander as a child straight into Alexander at Gaugamela, instead of having the scene with the adolescent Alexander & Olympias at that point. He explains how that tightens up the film & solves several structural problems while opening up opportunitues later for him to delve deeper into the psychological & philsophical connection Alexander has with his mother in his final thoughts right before he dies. There are some major & profound changes to his origional film-- and the way Oliver described them-- they sound breathtakingly intense.


He talked about reactions to the film in different countries, & analyzed what went wrong & what went right in various places. America ripped it the shreds, but the British were even crueller. Surprisingly, the rest of the non-English speaking world embraced it. The film has made to date 150 million just in overseas sales to date, and has made more money than the five Academy Awards winners did overseas put together.

He talked a lot about his choice of Colin Farrell and why he felt he was amazing in the role, taking on a very difficult & complex challenge which whould bring him more recognition in later years as more people come to appreciate what the film accomplished.

The interviewer, Ralph Hexter, (the Dean of the College of Letters & Science & professor of classsics) asked him about how he felt about Troy. They both actually liked Troy-- & appreciated that just like Homer did in his own time-- the scriptwriter was able to rearrange the story a bit & tell a slightly different version to suit his audience, like the Bible does. Oliver didn't have the luxury to re-write history, and explained that it would have been easier to simply make Alexander a hero who kills Darious & marries Statira & wins in the end to live happily forever, but that's not the whole story or the real story. He couldn't make up a story like Gladiator because Alexander was a real person. They talked about Alexander compared to the Passion too, & unfortuntely, when they asked for a show of hands for who liked the Passion-- I raised mine on accident-- I thought they meant Alexander. I haven't seen the Passion-- not my kinda thing.

He explained that he left out the Oracle at Siwa partly because it was on the way between journeys from here to there, & even though it would have looked beautiful onscreen to film it, it would give a kind of "Carlos Castaneda" fated element to the story when he was trying to show Alexander as a human man influnced by his mother that he was a God. He didn't want the film to give the impression that Alexander was a genuinely supernatural figure-- he was bringing in the human drama. I'm totally paraphrasing, & I hope I understood what he said correctly.

He was asked about whether the film was implying anything about the US involvement in Iraq, & he said that while it was strange to have the US follow his Alexander plans-- the film had already been in the works in one form or anoither since the 80s, so no, he wasn't implying anything about Bush. He did bring up poignant parallels between Alexander & JFK many many times-- the men and the films.

He said it was a mistake for him to emphasize Alexander's sexuality as much as he did in the film-- as it wasn't neccessary to dwell on it so much for people to get the idea. He said there's enough film representations of gay relationships such as in Guy Van Sant that people could get the idea of what he was saying in Alexander without being hit over the head with too much of it for their tastes. At the start of the interview, he had promised never again to make a film including both the military and bisexuality, laughingly, chastised, hanging his head in mock contrition. He went into some of the historical descriptions of sexual instruction-- how men before 19 learned from men, but after marriage neede to produce heirs, and the changes to social & sexual expectations that happened as men aged through their lives. He explained that in those days, people thought sperm contained knowledge, so it was almost *beep* worshipped, as the human body in those days was worshipped, for its creative powers & powers of imparting wisdom, while females were not thought to have any creative power at all (ovum not having been understood.)


He had GREAT things to say about Colin, and said he was looking for someone who could play a man who was both intensely masculine & capable of being vulnerable & feminine, a dual nature kind of guy, wheras Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe would have been total brawny men. He said he was talking with him just 2 days ago. He said Colin said he did his best for Alexander. I totally agree with him. The changes that Oliver are adding should really tighten up the film, but they are going to cut out the scenes where the anxious adolescent Alexander is being counseleed by his mom to be distrust everyone. I think its a good idea to take those scenes out-- but I'd like to see them on the DVD as extras because Angelina is amazingly vicious & cool in them, & even though Colin doesn't look young enough to play a teen there-- I still love the scene. The film overall will work much better without it though, as the first time you see Colin as Alexander he'll be the strong, tough leader at Gaugamela rather than a Hamlet-like conflicted overgrown boy hanging from his mother's apron strings, upset about being torn between loving both his mother & his father when they hate each other

Oliver had SAID..., though I'm not sure if I heard it completely right... that he was going to have the film jump straight from Alexander as a child in the caves to the scene at Guagamela.... but later on he was still discussing the scene at Phillip's wedding being somewhere in the film... so perhaps that's just been moved somewhere elkse in the film? I'm not sure about that... but I hope it'll be there on the DVD somewhere. Oliver said that at the END of the film, as Alexander is dying, his last thoughts will be of his MOTHER, and he will stregthen the point that that's what's been driving Alexander-- the fact that his mother likely killed his father & the intense pain & guilt & grief it brings him, because of the way people thought 2 thousand years ago. He brought up the Orestia triolgy & the way that un-avenged crimes against your father would curse the son, and about how what happened between Olympias & Phillip weighed heavily on his mind and drove him further & further to fulfill his father's dreams without returning home.

He recommended Alexander books by Tarn, Robin Lane Fox, and Guy Rodgers (The Ambiguity of Power.) He held up a copy of Robin Lane Fox's "The making of Alexander" and said it's availble online. I LOVE my copy
He also reccommended reading the origional sources, Plutarch, Arrian, etc etc.

The cameramen told me the entire interview should be avialable online at ETA Berkeley edu.com in a day or two.

Silversun

Oh wow, thanks for all that nikola1tesla, that was so interesting. It was so cool that you got to go to the talk!

I don't quite understand the cut either. So does that mean the DVD version will be different from the cinema version? I wouldn't mind if all they cut out was the scene between adolescent Alexander and Olympias, but Phillip's wedding night scene was so crucial and I don't know how they could justify not having it in there.

I always thought that his dying thoughts were of his mother, anyway. I mean, in the film. Personally I didn't think Stone needed to drive that point home more in the DVD.

nikola1tesla

I'm not sure if the wedding scene will be there somewhere else in the film or not-- but he clearly said he cut everything between the cave scene with Philip & Alex as an adult Gaugamela, shortening the film He explained he wanted to go straight from him as a child to him as a leader into battle. it's a great idea I think-- because now the young kid in the caves who is so precocious & so much a leader matches the leader at Gaugemela--- but I still want to see those same scenes with Olympias SOMEWHERE in the film-- and the wedding scene too. He seemed to imply that he was going to do something major near the end this time to explain more about Alexander & his mother, but it was just wrong pacing to go from the outgoing boy to the cowed young man back to the military leader. The flow should make more sense & have greater impact this way, & give a greater dramatic surprise later on when Alexander asks his mother if she murdered Philip-- because it won't have been ploddingly & unneccessarily foreshdowed this time around.

It's hard for me to be objective about the compaint of the film. i find the whole thing incredibly beautiful & exciting & I'd hate to see anything cut-- but I'm excited that Oliver's excited, & I'm looking forward to seeing how his changes will work. They sound like they'll solve many problems well, & I'm hoping they don't create any new ones. Oliver seems fairly confident that these chnages are exactly what he wants, & he seems happy, so I'm happy. he's such an artist-- he comes across as very senstivive & exteremely thoughtful & focused. I loved hearing him talk!

Silversun

double post

Silversun

I'm glad the interview is going to be available online.

I am really not sure what to think at this point about this shuffling of scenes. One of the things I really loved about the cinema version was how they flashed back to Philip's murder after Alexander killed Cleitus; but it sounds like he's proposing more of the same, and I don't know... if it's done well it'll be great. If it's not... well, we'll see, won't we?

The change from Philip's wedding and Gaugamela was already pretty pronounced. But I guess in some ways, it would actually be less jarring to go from the cave scene to Gaugemela; because we won't get that awkward intermediary step where, essentially, Alexander has a fight with his father --- and then suddenly his father is dead and he's now 25 and preparing to fight the big fight. That was a really big jolt when I saw the film for the first time and I didn't know what to make of it. Now that I think about it, I definitely see the appeal of going straight from the cave scene to Gaugamela. As long as the wedding banquet scene remains somewhere in the film. As much as anything else, I thought it was great showing Alexander's friends and how they'd all grown up with each other and were so familiar.

Hybrid-Angel

Thats awsome that Oliver is tighten up the movie and making a few changes. It's like he said, it'll be appreciated more over time and i so thought that too.

I think what killed 'Alexander' the most was the editing, making transitions so drastically that leave u unengaged to the scene and the over telling of whats happening. But it totally has potiental and i'm stoked Oliver changing things. Can't wait!

Thanks heaps Nik for filling us in hun.

I loved that scene where Alexander walking through the sea of dead soliders crying...i wish that scene was prolonged. It was awsome

S.A.S.H.A.

DVD Release

Sasha

Silversun

Ooh! I hope New Zealand (R4) isn't too far behind!

S.A.S.H.A.

Entering Babylon Scene

Sasha

Salogel

Hi all

I see you have found my Alexander site!

I've seen links here to all the caps that I have posted.

Hope you are enjoying them.

Found Colin through Alexander so I guess I shall hunt around this forum and see what's going on!

Salogel

Silversun

Welcome Salogel! Thanks for all the beautiful screencaps, you really did a wonderful job with them, and with the rest of your site as well. Where did you get a copy of the film so fast?

Salogel

Unfotunately it is not the whole film... and it's dubbed in Italian, but it will do until the real thing comes out!

Hybrid-Angel

U lucky thing!

I hope the release date is soon. What was the rumor of release again, May?

ROCKSTAR

I came here to ask for DVD news and I see the date is July 4th! That's SO far! I'm so mad at myself for not watching it when it was in theaters... I guess I'll watch Alexander while I enjoy delicious BBQ and lovely fireworks.