The best epic movies in the eyes of history buffs are not like "Gladiator", with the help of a fictional character (there is no one like Maxime nor a similar prototype), strung together a piece of history that is not wonderful (compared to Commodus's perversion and mental obstacles, the guards who auctioned off the throne of the emperor on the streets of Rome after his death, and the German emperor Severus who won the civil war by virtue of the combination of vertical and horizontal and the iron-blooded army seem to be even more so. Fascinating), but not timidly centering on important historical figures, depicting important historical events, and giving reasonable explanations for the motives of the characters and the logic of the events (the real situation may have long since drifted away in time and cannot be obtained) .
Alexander the Great is such a film. However, the delicacy in the eyes of history lovers may not be to the taste of the public. Most people have no intention of taking a history lesson by watching three or four hours of movies. Therefore, it is not enough that the box office reputation of the original "Alexander the Great", which has been compromised and deleted several times, is cold. strange. Oliver Stone himself cared about the work very much, and it was re-cut three times in a row. The film also had an unprecedented four versions: a 175-minute public release version, a 167-minute director's cut version, a 207-minute final cut version, and The 214-minute final cut fourth edition. In the review of the fourth edition, he bluntly stated that it was difficult for him to put down and improve the work until he used up all the shooting lenses. Maazel's Wagner is better than Furtwängler's Strauss, although he is not the top director. What's more, Fox, the biographer of Alexander as a historical consultant, was only paid for playing a cavalry charge under Alexander's command on the front line in the battle of Gaugamela in the film. This group of persistent and lovely people forged the soul of this movie.
Plutarch of the first century AD wrote in his biography of Alexander: Sometimes a trivial matter, a mere expression or a joke, is more than the most famous siege, the greatest armament, and the most tragic war It is our ability to better understand a person's style and habits. This is also where the film is based. Although two of the big battle scenes - the Battle of Gaugamela and the final battle in India are emotionally exciting enough, the best part of the film is the simple dialogue. Almost every sentence is in the style of Plutarch's line drawing. At the strategic discussion before the Battle of Gaugamela, Alexander said "I didn't cross Asia to steal this victory" in response to Cassandra's suggestion for the night attack. has shown his character that he would rather give up practical benefits for the sake of honor; then a flashback to the teachings of his father Philip as a teenager to him again in a Nietzschean tone with the emphasis on "A king isn't born, Alexander, he is made." By steel and by suffering. A king must know how to hurt those he loves. It's lonely."; his mother's comments in his youth eventually became prophecy "You're like Achilles; cursed by your greatness."; Alexander's words "and you, as well as I, know, that as the year decline and the memories stale and all your great victories fade it will always be remembered, you left your king in Asia" have shown that he Complete the hysteria that reaches the world shot.
The elderly Ptolemy, who finally narrates, sums up Alexander's greatness and demise in two classic quotations, on the one hand he affirms Alexander's dreamer nature and excellent execution and leadership: "How can I tell you what it was like to be young; to dream big dreams? And to believe when Alexander looked you in the eye you could do anything. In his presence, by the light of Apollo, we were better than ourselves." On the other hand he candid the ordinary and the great is fundamentally different: "The truth is we did kill him. By silence we consented... because we couldn't go on... I never believe in his dream. None of us did. That's the truth of his life. The dreamers exhaust us. They must die before they kill us with their blasted dreams.”
If it weren't for this paranoid idealism, Alexander would not have achieved such a great cause, but greatness stands out from the crowd and is not understood by all living beings, and paranoid idealism itself has violated the so-called sensible logic of the world's so-called realism, such as He only wanted to get to the end of the world, he didn't take a Macedonian wife or leave a Macedonian child, so he died. However, if he is really so scheming and scheming, and conforms to the image of a secular hero, I am afraid that he will also lose people's pure admiration. As the old Ptolemy said in the film: "Alexander used to say that we are most alone when we are with the myths." Because legend and greatness are destined to walk alone. About 200 years after Alexander's death, Caesar at the age of 30 was alone in his shrine complaining about why others had conquered the whole world at the age of 30, and 20 years later Caesar himself died alone after conquering the whole world.
If so, the film establishes such a complete and interesting and believable logic: "Alexander's childhood trauma of parental discord led to his subconscious extreme narcissism and self-exile, which eventually sublimated into a dream-chasing journey to conquer the end of the world, and With his astonishing military talent, he came closer to this dream than anyone in history, and was eventually turned away by ordinary people, who killed him before being engulfed by his dream, and quarrelled for worldly interests after his death. , forgetting his pure glory and dreams, like Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" at the end of the commoners singing and dancing in front of the samurai graves."
However, this logic of the film is likely to be wrong.
First, the marriage of Alexander's mother Olympia, although political, was by no means unhappy. In the film, Angelina Jolie was deliberately used Russian-accented English to show the American audience that Olympia came from a hostile country, but in fact the union of Philip and Olympia symbolized the marriage of the Macedonian lowland region and the mountain region. , which was an indispensable backing in the process of Macedonia's conquest of Greece. At least before Philip conquered Greece, the marriage was generally happy, and Alexander was also highly valued as a heir. Alexander also showed his military talent as the most important cavalry commander in the crucial battle of the Macedonian conquest of Greece. However, when Philip surrendered Greece and prepared to expedition to Persia, the political situation had changed. At this time, the Macedonian lowland area, which was more pro-Greek, was also the basic foundation of Macedonia. It needed to be consolidated before he went out. The second marriage was not a whim. As for the murderer of Philip, Plutarch thought it was Olympia or even Alexander himself as early as 2,000 years ago. The cruelty of this kind of power struggle is not uncommon in history, and it is not difficult to understand from a logical point of view.
Second, Alexander's military conquest was not a complete pursuit of a dream at the end of the world, although Alexander himself did have extraordinary ambitions. Macedonia and even the whole of Greece were hostile to him (the former because of Philip's death, the latter because of Alexander's massacre of Thebes in the process of conquering Greece), and his non-stop military conquest was to establish and consolidate his own power base, so he Prefer to make Babylon the capital of his empire and never return to Greece or Macedonia. The film describes the execution of Parmenion and his son without giving the complicated relationship between the characters before and after, as if it was the madness of the suspicious Alexander, but in fact Parmenion is a representative of the political forces in the Macedonian lowlands. Fighting alongside the father of Philip's second wife, Alexander's purge was a deliberate decision after his position had been established. As for the deaths of Alexander himself and his most trusted Hefels, they were apparently poisoned because the two were so close in time and had exactly the same symptoms. The mastermind points to Cassandra (also the man who killed Olympia and Alexander's disciples), played by Jonathan Meyers of "The Tudors" (and a great performance in "Match Point", really The spokesperson of the black-bellied conspirator), he actually did not have a lot of time in the expedition, and his more responsibility was to stay in Macedonia, and he was also the spokesperson for the political forces in the lowlands of Macedonia. Alexander's death can be seen as a revenge for the factions of Philip and Parmenion.
The real history is more cold-blooded and uninteresting, like Bucefilus (Alexander's dark horse from twelve years old) didn't die in battle at the last leg in India as in the film but died of natural illness, at the end of India. World War I (Battle of Hydaspes) was not the tragic victory depicted in the film, but an easy victory. The reason why Alexander withdrew from India was not that he was swallowed up by his own dreams, but that he realized that the map of the world that the Greeks knew before was very flawed (the map of Aristotle's lectures in the film does not contain the Indian subcontinent, let alone the say East Asia) and thus cannot guide military operations. But the handling in the film is obviously more sensational, with a kind of destined sadness that a legendary hero is destined to end.
Loved the movie and re-read it while rereading Peter Green's biography of Alexander. The best historical films are always romantic, but history is always realistic, that's all.
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