An Evening with Oliver Stone: Dialogue on Classic Filmmaking

good evening and thank you for coming I'm Ralph Hexter executive Dean and Dean of Arts & Humanities in the College of Letters and science it's a pleasure to welcome you tonight to this edition of the college presents this is a series of public lectures that we put on to really showcase the whole range of what we're engaged with at Berkeley in the College of Letters and science and to address issues that are vital and relevant to the entire community I'm delighted that we have tonight with us Oliver Stone for those of you who as I have seen his recent movie Alexander you know what a compelling story teller he is and you're aware of the epic scale on which Oliver has created that film as well as so many of his earlier movies filmmakers and particularly all Oliver are really skilled at transporting us into other worlds the worlds of the imagination and they allow us to to glimpse cultures that we really have only dreamt of of before Oliver in particular has has put himself in the role of grappling with serious historical issues and and legendary characters I think of JFK Nixon and of course Alexander if we add some of his screenwriting credits Evita and Conan the Barbarian we see the mythic proportions of the characters even more clearly now I was talking to Oliver before this event and talking about some of his experiences I mean he's been very very clear that some of his personal experiences particularly in in Vietnam have really shaped his view of the world and also of course of the films that he wants to bring us as few filmmakers have he really asks us to grapple with the issues of the society and himself as a filmmaker he is he's made film history as you know there many of his fans here he's been nominated for of an Academy Awards winning three times twice for directing born in the fourth of July and platoon and once for writing midnight express he's also received multiple Golden Globe Awards he's a fun producer essayist and novelist Thank You Oliver for visiting us tonight the third visit to Berkley and talking with us about Alexander in classic filmmaking Oliver Stone Oliver thank you very much this is a rich rich subject tonight this is I think one of the most original perhaps the most unique individual history that I have run across very few men our women have lived a life like this and it's a great story and I have always wondered why hasn't it been done more that was one of the first I saw the 1956 or five film with Richard Burton written and directed by a very fine writer director Rob Robert Lawson and in that movie those of you who might have seen it on DVD Richard Burton they expend so much of the energy in the movie in the Greek the Fertile Greek opening which is rife with conspiracy and with marriage and politics and how Alexander achieves the throne over these over the dead body of his father but by the time you're exhausted by the time he finishes with Persia in act 2 which is essentially the close of the movie and they don't go beyond Persia which leaves out the last seven years of his life which are fascinating and and crucial to understanding him that is to say Afghanistan India and the return to Babylon seven crucial years because they're not the easy side they're not the victorious and simpler side of the rise of the man it's the fall of the man that we could that we could talk later and I'm gonna suggest topics of conversation about you know the Hollywood biographies wide as a Muhammad Ali biography stop when the man is at a certain age of his life rather than when he's a broken hardly broken Parkinson's victim or why the aviator stops at a certain point you know these are issues but by ending the film in Persia you get the satisfaction of a revenge drama with Alexander of course revenge in the murder of his father supposedly done by Darius by beating the king and becoming and fulfilling his father's dream but it's a conveyor a conventional revenge drama and that I don't think is just does justice to the complexity of Alexander's life in the script that we undertook in 1989 1995 2000 or many drafts we saw and particularly I saw to find a way to tell this all the man's life now this is very ambitious from for me I knew it was the highest ambition of all it's a 5 act play Shakespearean it's near the Greek dramas it could be five acts if it long Long's it could be very long American or let's say modern attention spans have come down to about at most two and a half hours I'm told and you have to deal with that you cannot do a five act play unless so I was saying when I was asking some friends of mine have you ever heard of a good for act play and there are a few I think some o'neill plays or four but it was a tremendous struggle for me in those three full-time full years that we made the film to somehow squeezes four acts I knew was not going to work on film to squeeze these four acts into three and there was what I wrestled with because by writing on the film continued all the way through the editing the idea I thought to solve it and I think it is the correct idea is to go with a parallel story of Alexander as a young man in Greece where his formation of his character and the subsoil the main subsoil of this movie is but don't overdo Greece in the beginning take the mother in the father the true unfolding to that story of him as an older adolescent and put that into the third act and do parallel scenes with what happens in the third act of his life looking for the ironic echoes that occurred throughout his life because everything that he did when young was to some degree repeated when old we acted out his mother and his father's fantasies and their wishes as children often do and all the seeds that were laid for him to be great all the tensions that were given to him that made him torn came to bear full fruit in the third act and that was the intention and that was the script I think it sometimes somewhere during the hurried seventh month seven months edit of this film and I say hurried because this is a huge film with a lot of special effects shots and it could easily could easily be done in the year ten months to a year but in that hurried period compromises and pressures as in every film were made and I moved things around because I was worried that I was not being clear enough with this parallel story so if you saw the movie you see a father you see the intrigue begin to develop an act one the intrigue over the throne with a mother and the oh and Colin Farrell and the father and Colin Farrell and I think I made a mistake I think we should have left the boy in the cave when he was young and never see Colin Farrell you go right to the Battle of Gaugamela and you leave it as a mystery and then only you go back to these wonderful actors Angelina Jolie and Val comer and you deliver the payoff of what really happened because the central thesis of the movie was intended to be and rows field about the murder of his father as in any Greek tragedy especially the arrestees trilogy and if they call it that but before the murder of patricide is the charge of exercise is a serious disgrace should alexander have killed his mother should his mother should he have suspected his mother should you put her on trial these are issues he had to face as a king and he could not face them I say because he had to leave Greece and he never saw her again and he stayed away for 11 years and that is something they don't bring up in the history books but it does raise a very profound philosophical aaja bill implication why did he avoid his mother why did he marry a Bactrian princess of no political significance ten years after a Greek man is supposed to marry to have an heir to be king and what was his relationship finally to his father's death these are three dramatic questions that I addressed and wrestled with through the whole show I'm going to release this version in DVD in July and I think frankly I speak from my feelings tonight I think the puzzle was solved and is now solved on film the puzzle of how to do Alexander's life in less than two and a half four to two hours and 40 minutes and I say this as humbly as I think some scientists might talk about working on a puzzle that has intrigued them for so many years I've been over and over this story over again and I've tried so many different variations I'll try the linear approach as Rossum did and didn't work and I've tried variations on a parallel approach but this is my happiest I've ever been and I called that we called it the final cut so I'll come out in ten months that's ten months of editing and it will be released shortly and shortly after the film was released and that shows you that there's another medium it's called video DVD and I don't know why it seems to me the rules are changing composers or playwrights rewrite we do restructure so we can talk about that if you'd like and then we could talk about the world reactions to Alexander because in the United States we did very poorly the understanding of Alexander was limited there was issues of frankly sexuality because there is a certain immaturity about true discussions of homosexuality and I found out much to my grief that you never mix bisexuality with military affairs ever again I can't imagine general Schwarzkopf would have appreciated this for the on the other and the reactions were horrible in the UK harm was worse than American crueler and in Australia so those are the english-speaking countries aren't they and yet it's so bizarre isn't it because we did the enormous business enormous business in all non-english speaking countries and you may not know it because it wasn't well reported here because we're they can see they call this a disaster but the film recouped a hundred and thirty million dollars up-to-date informed in non in foreign countries so the film will were will work its way back from this disastrous American beginning to to get itself back in the black with the DVDs and the cables and stuff so all the stories here by being a turkey and a disaster it's just media hype and and horror show gossip that they love they love destruction but the reactions Alexander were enormous in Turkey Spain Russia Poland Hungary econ cavalry countries maybe the Mediterranean countries and above all and in Korea in Korea was amazing and the Far East was pretty good Taiwan Hong Kong you know it held up it held up far better in fact you could the truth of the matter is after all is said and done on all the publicity our film will gross more foreign than the five Academy Award nominees will gross all five so it shows that there is a definite the cultural deficit or gap between America the english-speaking countries and the rest of the world we could talk in the same vein about the reaction stylings Anders is a the growth of his story and how that was misinterpreted and destroyed all most destroyed by guess who the Greeks the Greeks did more damage to Alexander's reputation than anybody and it was a the Romans the Persians the Indians even the Afghani and the Egyptians who made Alexander much of the legend that he became so again you see Alexander at his birth and his death was controversial to begin with and when he died they fought over his body like they did Kennedy's body I mean and it soon disappeared as we know but Alexander was never a church role or to go I mean it was hard for him even him to but they called him the great in many different countries so I'm glad that the truth in some way won out over the official line which was the Greek line which was that he was a monster and I noticed him when the film came out in America Americans behaved very much like the Greeks calling him a monster but they were seeing this film for the 21st century eyes and I think that is a subject if you'd like that it's well worth discussing tonight during a film through 21st century eyes or trying to do it through the pureed in which the film took place it's a big issue certainly Robin Lane Fox at Oxford was my historian my main historian was in his book written about Alexander 1973 he went out of his way to separate the tabloid Alexander with much of which many of whose stories ever still believed with from the real Alexander that we know it's a very valuable book to me we could talk about accents if you want if you talk about hair I don't care about anything I mean if you think about Spartacus I was thinking this odd looking at that the other night because and now they love it but you know at the time there was the all the all the slaves were spoke Jewish New York and or cooked or American actually they spoke American and all the upper class the state was represented by haughty English accents and I think lastly we could talk if you would like about my feelings my true feelings about Alexander I don't want to you know hit you over the head with my feelings about him but they certainly motivated the movie and have motivated me to continue to work on it after this release is the most important project of my life and well worth it was a privilege to do it it was on it was a privilege to do it for three years and no matter the present results I would do it again do it maybe differently what I would do it again I learned a lot from Alexander so now we should turn oh well why don't we we start with Alexander um maybe not hair but you know clearly what you're telling us this is a figure a life that you've been thinking about for a very long time how did you first come to Alexander and and and and why did he become such a passion for you that you wanted to do I didn't know him well but it was always the the children's books the youth the idealism the blog the beauty the physical beauty the fact that he died young because when you're in your you know Jim Morrison for the same reason John Kennedy and that's important the fact that a young man or woman dying young it's always it goes to your heart and then mary renault of course gave I felt was brought very interesting psychological insights in her novels about I read The Herald lamb but an interesting book about I was under he was 1947 very interesting and then warmish east in France Ulrich Wilkin in Germany Tarn in William Turin in England and of course you have to read the naysayers the people like Peter Green and Ernst Padian and there are there's idea but yeah I mean we don't just ignore it and we talk I'd be willing to talk about the slaughters or whatever you'd like to but when actually did the idea of making a film about Alexander emerged for you or was that something that was really a project that you've been had in the back of your mind for years no I you know it was a dream a fantasy I don't think it was ever gonna happen because we didn't have digital back in those days you see so would have been a very limited film but certainly the idea was broached other people developed until Spielberg was working on something Lucas was working on something I'd heard rumors and Alexander was always yeah there and in 1979 a German producer called Tom shuli came to me and he was he'd done Baron Munchausen which is a another fantasy film about you know a guy who believes in anything so he'd loved that idea and he sold me on it but it we couldn't raise the money it took ten more years and we developed it and I got older you know older you get you know now I'm more like potala me in the movie looking back at the young man and I see the positive and the negative I see that where idealism can drive people crazy you know well I want to ask you about Ptolemy because that was that's such a structuring feature of the of the film that you have him coming in and narrating and reflecting on and it's certainly for me framed in the the political significance of Alexander's career and the way it we shaped the whole Mediterranean world when in your process of developing the story you actually filmed did Ptolemy in that that narrative structure enter into your thinking we've hit a very sore point and I think it's a good question because many people criticized it is too much history and I understand the American point of view then I can make the film simpler and I have so we cut a lot of the descriptions of history because frankly they can go read it and I and I'm okay with that I don't mind a simpler approach the movie the movie won't make money if only classicists see it you see but but in other words I went back and I examined it but they see Battaglini is a very important that character and the studio said to me at one point caught him out of the movie you know and make it an first person point of view voiceover what a disaster I'm not telling you the story for the swimming pool where I'm lying yeah I'm not answering it from that question because I am for my sins I classes I'm not the onion I'm sorry no I want to go further though yeah I want to say that it wait a sense what did you what did you what was your dream with that it's a crucial role because it's not conventional they missed the point in the first scene he says everything that's positive about Alexander in the most beautiful way which is normally what is said in the end of the movie at the epilogue this is done in the prologue which is different for this prologue it was he praises Alexander and then as the movie develops you begin to sense the disassociation by the end of the movie in the epilogue what is the first thing he says the truth is never simple pause we did kill him by silence we consented by silence alone we consented and then he goes on to say the dreamers must die they exhaust us in the end why because Alexander these guys were all millionaires every general around him was a millionaire they disguise wanted to be mini kings they wanted to go back to Macedonia rule their provinces and be Kings they were ready they were in the 30's Batangas 44 the motive was there in fact the ptolemy wanted Egypt because Egypt was apparently the richest and the easiest to rule so and also at that time because Philip test had been in this house executed because he was a chief of the Rose Security you know he thought the royal security was was potala me which leads us to believe many people to believe that Ptolemy was in on it with Cassandra and Anna Potter and maybe others those two though that two families though makes the biggest Jake the most sense and then in the movie but it's a very subtle look when you and Alexander drinks the wine I know if you've noticed with a bearskin on his head he looks right at two Ptolemy and Ptolemy is like a little bit nervous you know here is his buddy Ptolemy his buddy to the movie lets him down those ten days before he was you know you can go to those ten days before he died the very strange days the parties the resumption of the drinking of the wine after he'd been sick the second poisoning I would call the wake is sander the way it was done I don't know just listen people will say he wasn't killed he died of a weakened condition that's what I said it is the official story but I cannot believe these generals would go on with Alexander he was leaving for Arabia I think in five days leaving for Arabia you know what that means it's another year out there then he wants to go to Carthage and Sicily in Rome and he wants to fight his way through Spain and out the gates of Herakles what are you gonna go home and spend your dough these guys I mean they went a long way with him eleven years mobile empire but the Asians were encroaching on them the army was mostly Asian they were getting the posts the wealth was being divided what better time to strike than now before he started on his new truck if I should best security and his best friend was dead also under very mysterious circumstances because it was the second time the or if I should ate the chicken the cold chicken and drank the wine which was it was interest rate at just everything seems to repeat itself and if you remember the story Alexander tells if I should I will follow you down to the house of the death echoing Achilles and Patroclus and he did I do believe that Alexander whether he was poisoned or not died somewhere of a broken heart he dreamed of going to Arabia and but without her function was his soulmate it would have it it was not conceivable so his end was clear but the timing the motive and I go back to JFK cui bono who benefits don't get distracted by all the scenery who benefits all the generals benefited they may have got engaged in civil wars and some of them or most of them were murdered but Cassandra came out I had an ptolemy came out of hat those were the two most successful when I think of Alexander not only the historical figure that we we know from various historical accounts and you were working closely with Robin Lane Fox on the movie but then all of the myths as you say that really go back to the very age he lived in it's almost as if there's too much story too many possibilities it was interesting to hear your account of of still shaping it and trying to and trying to make major narrative decisions as you were working on the on the film is that is that normally been the way you've been able to work with material or was was so exciting because I was dealing with huge stuff I mean you know you know when you're making an edit in the movie in seven months and you have to spend so much time showing it to people and of course it's not ready and you're getting criticisms and it's a big release and oh it's so much of a gigantic pressure point you try to make people happy and you can't it requires ruthlessness I don't know if I'm capable of that ruthlessness I wish I had more time but I don't we blame myself because it's my job to communicate and I think I got carried away with the homosexuality because I wanted to reinforce the relationship but I think the relationship is clear with less emphasis I really do and I'll show you in the DVD ow but the most important thing is truly to understand that I made if you allow your imagination to roam if he gets to Babylon and he meets he gets the Babylon after Yaga Mela and he works his way through the Northeast meets Roxanne marries her has a relationship and then you after he's married or an after he's had the relationship who had the mother writing letters now you bring the mother in full blast parallel because she's telling them how to get the throne and how to be smart and how do sorry and he does everything wrong everything that opposite than what his mother says so at that point the movie reaches another level so you're beginning to see the young Alexander side-by-side with the older Alexander he's in the mutiny at the same time as he's perhaps involved with the murder of his father he's kilink Linus and you see the young Alexander at the feast when he's when his father banishes him and all these things and then the greatest moment of all which I think I blew which is in the DVD is when he it's so mortally wounded and in yet his greatest moment what's the last thing he thinks about there's always in the script I didn't do it it's when he rises for the trees he sees the last scene of himself and his mother which is a powerful scene when the mother doesn't deny or doesn't accept the guilt but says it doesn't matter taken take the power of the world it's yours you are like me you have the same drive for the will to power and Alexander knows he does when he walks out of that room it's a highlight for me he never saw his mother again because he know he recognizes their right then and there how much like his mother he really is and that's something most men deny that's what I love about Alexander because he's masculine feminine he was most action heroes you know let's forget I mean we all love Russell Crowe and we all love Brad Pitt but there of all masculine and Alexander is his blend of his mother and his father and it's I think Colin had the guts to go to the feminine and you don't see that movies not since I don't think since Peter O'Toole and Lawrence of Arabia and goddammit I hope the kids can see that a man can be also feminine you know it doesn't have to always be so straight and simple you know this conversation is it's going in in in so many surprising directions for me I I haven't feeling actually a clue you're still working on this film I mean well I finished I finished now now it's into the technological finish where they're distributing it no June July 5th you mean you're telling me that you're not going to start thinking about I said then I said this once and I still believe it I don't we shot a mountain of material it is a tall mountain we did a seventh month a seven month cut The North Face approached it was fast as we could we got to the top not everybody came with us and made it out alive okay okay I got the ten months count that's a south slope mm-hmm we we took a little bit more Sun more people made it out are gonna make it up and who knows five 10 years if people are interested in I'm interested there might be an East approached or west of I see well that that's one in which I was actually I hope you'll like this I was actually thinking you want to be Homer so that you can keep singing the Iliad again and again slightly different for different audiences where Wilson I didn't think about that Homer changes the story the whole time and the Bible and we were talking about this before do you think there's a special relationship with with the Iliad and Homer in the Alexander story absolutely absolutely if you know Alexander's greatest hero without his Achilles and here it references him on the cave walls as he does a for other myths and you should talk about that separately cuz it's very important to understand that Alexander believes those stories on the walls the way you and I believe that the mists of Babe Ruth or Abe Lincoln or George Washington you know these are these are things he was related to activities his mother told them I how do we not to know that I'm related to Achilles I could be related to George Washington my mother told me his mother is totally out there she's telling them you are going to be famous in twenty three hundred centuries you're gonna be famous now you will live forever I mean we all know the mom which says you're gonna be a great man Sonny your mother's saying you're gonna exist for 20 centuries this woman has vision and ambition but she did it she put this idea in this boy's head and then I think she put it in his head strongly and I think at the same time she also put the idea of Achilles because he was a relative you will die young my son but she would chief great glory or you can live forever live long and you will be like Ptolemy in there mm-hmm I think that his mother who drove the bargain mothers can drive children and father don't underestimate the father who's the beauty of alexander's yet too strong pirates and val kilmer doesn't give an inch he is a noble father and you're tough father and I contracted what some people detractors said there is a true love between the two which is why Alexander's so torn when his father is assassinated he worries he think he fears assassinated by his mother's money assassination is a classic classic JFK stories you know there's so many enemies against Philip from the Greeks the Persians Olympius and the lover of the sexual lover that the to this day remains one of the great mysteries well you know and in the Iliad its Achilles relationship with his mother I mean you don't really see his relationship with his father but his mother is that recurrent if you don't see the ledge above the nail you know you talked a little bit of do they know that Achilles was found by was it Odysseus in women's clothes hiding when the hurly-burly tell them about that because it has a lot to do a woman's clothes achilles there's a lot male-female moon Achilles was you know going to be fated to die there so tried to disguise he was tried to disguise as a girl and Odysseus found him out by throwing a ball at him which he caught as if as a young man would and so his disguise was blown in any event that's a pretty minor story that Achilles my to avoid the war because he knew he died that's that's the reverse side and every myth always comes in nature with a reverse version of course there's the one who chooses the early death and the glory but it has its its reverse side it's it's comic version but you know you related to the fact that during this period of the editing you were under there were so many audiences but what is it like to work in in the industry today I mean how do you bring a story like that you know scream you don't you know this is a you freak a freak event we happen to I had a wonderful partner German partner who raised his money really internationally Moritz Forman live in a media and he did this by hook and crook and he was I think like Sam Spiegel back in the old days I mean literally he was he he was on them he was in the bankruptcy law in any moment and we basically got our us distribution deal which was a key to the whole thing I used to say about 25% of the total budget on the basis that you know we basically sold ourselves to them it's the son of Achilles and I said you know you're making the popcorn picture it's gonna be it's gonna make a fortune Brad Pitt just imagine if you had a follow up picture with the guy who loved the kitties the most you mean that were even if you make a half of what the original makes you never gonna make money you know it wasn't any particular interest in Alexander Alexander but that was fiction you know in fact a lot of the critics unfortunately don't know that he's real I mean I I'm I did get a lot of criticism for it not being gladiator huh don't you think I wish I could have killed him in India don't you think I wish he could have killed Darius at the Battle of Gaugamela and and married cetera or it would have been nice for the movie purposes for than two hours and 20 minutes so should I ask what do you think of Troy I enjoyed it but I didn't for one second see it as Homer's movie I saw parts of it and I thought I was very clever foot by the way the script is very clever I disagree with the critics written by a guy named Benioff very good but the you know the central idea of Achilles becoming in love with this woman Brice's and changing his nature of his personality finding compassion in war is a brilliant 21st century idea but it's not what happened well of course about the wrath of Achilles the rabid that's Homer's version but you really have you were dealing with history and not even a traditional narrative we had the right to change it you know they had the right to change you know that was actually they don't have the right to change the Alexander because that is history Homer is we don't know it's a as you said they changed it all the time right yeah I mean myself I expected coming with the prejudice of a classicist to not like Troy but I actually did like it because I think they made very smart narrative choices the way Homer himself did when he was facing an audience but you had really a much tougher Road a different road yeah we sold ourselves is this son of a ghillie so of course our advertising campaign did go weird because you know the company is selling gladiator and what you called that the other one Braveheart was a typically strong picture William Wallace but you know William Wallace romanticized you know mm-hmm so that you know when the audience's come in and these are very my kid my son is 19 at Princeton and he saw it with a bunch of friends and you know the guy said when the moment they hug the moment these guys kind of look at each other Wow you know matter then there's not comfortable with her I'm not comfortable with that look I had no idea because I was out of the country for three years practically that homophobe you had reached these levels in this country of really strong levels I'm nothing compared to the rest of the world except possibly English in Australia well in Australia that and New Zealand let's throw them into but in Korea for example which is a taboo I was I was called by the Korean distributor three weeks before we up and he said mister stone he had a lot of money in the movie he really helped us a lot and I really felt sorry for him we have a big problem in Korea taboo so I said look I'll do this this this I did some fast stuff for him I said go ahead do it for Korea we'll take a shot and he came back to me at the end he said we've wrestled and at the end we went with your version and you know what Korea did like 10 million dollars which is enormous so sometimes you do break taboos I was hoping to break a taboo here but I didn't figure on the emotionalism of that gay marriage issue of November 204 I mean that was a big issue much more and I felt it all throughout not all throughout the system from left and right from left and right and I see more of it I'm sorry I mean I'm coming back and I'm an outsider I looked at sad and I live the jokes they're much more homophobic than ever and it's just like you know it's like there's a whole reaction to it but they mistake the the homophobia the mistake what they call the homosexuality Alexander with their own with their own version present-day version of it and it's not similar and you know that's another discussion we gonna have a good luck well on that point I mean watching that very carefully because it had become such an issue and that was in the press beforehand Alex the game yeah what's the game is the game I guess they're sort of like two questions about that I mean you raised the you raised the question yourself about how how do you get people with 2001 or 2023 should be 21st century eyes to see this in a sense this was a fact of his life don't you don't you feel that you have an obligation to keep that as part of the story how do you resist even kind of homophobia or did it and I put it in yeah but I you know the facts are we do not know that he had a man in Greece at the age of maybe when he entered the public arena he became King at 19 you gave up your male lover so you had them quietly you had a wife you had a public position a private person in in Greece correct me if I'm wrong was called an idiot ah yeah yeah you get this because he only cared about private concern the policy the city-state demanded public involvement so you had the official front and children and that relationship and often older men would mentor younger men still while married and vice and I think that Alexander cry gave up his relationship with the flesh if he had one which I think he did by that time by the time they were in the field I don't think they were simply soul Knights they were they were they were lovers in the in the platonic sense of the word as Aristotle laid out in the movie earlier on to love the other to bring out the best in the other not for any self gain which is a beautiful philosophic concept that's what I got hooked on unfortunately perhaps too much for the American audience and maybe the world audience I mean I think like I could be a little bit more subtle there but it's an important point and I just didn't want to lose it because the Greeks were very outside the Roman philosophy the Greeks were sensual the Greeks worshiped the body and in the most positive sense as you know their first Olympiads were naked and they worship they had oil on that they had the best oils on their body they they they ritualized effective fetishize the body there and in Homer you have a true appreciation of the body because when you die you go to the blackest pit know in the world you just died and his deaths are gruesome it's the end of the body you know the soma I thought that scene where Aristotle was speaking to Alexander and his friends about proper relationships including relationships same sex relationship was actually one of the most daring in the film because that's where it became the most explicit and I'm not sure we will ever know the degree the way in which Alexander defy Stein carried on their their life beyond their their youth but it seemed to me that let me try this on you the the depiction of the wedding night with Roxanne was how should I put it rather wild this and it almost seemed to me to actually describe that platonic or Aristotelian view that the proper relationships with with one's fellow male peers was very ordered and calm but that the relationship with a woman was for the beginning and children and was actually almost animalistic is that a well I I don't have all the answers that I did read texts and you probably know far more about it that the Greeks did have a ritualized patterns with male I mean we've even read that in many males believe that the sperm contained knowledge and that's the way knowledge was transmitted between men whereas women they did not understand ovulation they did not have any concept of it that was not discovered under the microscope lie until a Dutch Dutch biologist studying pregnant rabbits in 1816 30 in Leyden so if that's why Olympius is able to believe that Zeus impregnated you know it's an inch it's quite and in fact there's a Boleyn there's a line in the new DVD version when the son photo says that half the women in Greece believe such a thing it's social mobility but honestly a crack of thunder her diagnose and rights animals there's you could be impregnated by a snake she kept snakes in her bed by the way to keep Philip out and it worked although I do believe they loved and hated each other at the same time that your question I'm sorry I got off the case there well let me try it something totally different you know also a lot of people in discussed the movie in terms of current politics what was that on your mind and all by that I mean the the war in Iraq going to the Middle East was anything so direct on your mind as you were developing this film no we started in 1989 then this is so ironic of course to be trailed by the American invasions of course we did it all wrong but certainly you see Alexander was a great conqueror but he was an include er the first thing he did was make a deal with the fur with the Persian army he kept them best he could he took their best everywhere he went he included he made treaties he paved the way with the least amount of bloodshed when he was betrayed which was the case occasionally he took particular pains to go back and really deal with the betrayer and wipe them out he was ruthless in that regard and many people hated him for it but that was the way he enforced the reality of his mobile empire which was he may have fought wars but he was from he promoted peace and prosperity because he was the only one for 11 years that kept this thing relatively without warrants he tracked down every tribe every bandits he went up into mountain fortresses in the northeast of Persia for three years tracking down all kinds of wild men you know the present Afghani Hillsman and he won every single one you see he could not lose he could not lose a battle that's why he fought for 10 months it's higher it requires enormous patience 10 months for a young man he didn't rush into the final battle with Gaugamela he took his time he was a very wily military man and he knew that if he one thing the pressures would start to mount that's why in the battle in India if you paid close attention and I think it would be helped by the new DVD better because of what it means in India he cannot lose that battle that's why he has to ride alone into the maw of death and it's mortally wounded as he was at the Battle of Malta and there as a result of his near sacrifice his entire army came to life for a change and and won that battle he so his record was intact he never lost the battle Napoleon would share would shed tears over that and as you know because he lost two key valves but Julius Caesar Marcus Aurelius paid him homage and in the highest and Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher and recognized that Alexander had a intellectual curiosity that was far beyond most golfers he was a conqueror and a generous in victory giving lands back in India in Persia including the army and at the end of course he's faced with the epic problem of creating a new army what he called Alexander's army he needed Asians to stack that army didn't have enough people from Macedonia so basically his army but when he went to India was 85% Asian so that's what people understand the pressure that he was under to have a multicultural command that's why into where more and more Persian and Indian clothes that's why he took the trouble over the prosthesis the Nunis of course that's another you know there's so much to discuss I don't know what you want to do you think do you think he believed that he was the son of the god or it was that just something he he put on I mean how did this affect his character I don't know I think it's a red herring I did not do the scene at sea well it's a beautiful scene it's a great movie scene certainly could be done because I think it would make him into a more of a carlos castaneda character and i I don't understand it was very orderly very organized he never took credit unless it was offered and he never demanded it the scene with cleitus is the closest he ever came to in my mind to losing it and he did lose it but certainly any Greek could be semi-divine an Olympic runners Hercules Heracles would become something divine a man could work his way gods were like men and women they were had the foibles of human beings they were but they were ruthless in their power so a man could strive to be a gone and could achieve those proportions but they're all new Alexander knew he was mortally knew he was going to die he didn't have any illusions that he would live forever but I mean I I think it's a red herring because the idea is that the soldiers loved him and respected him as they would a god he meant so much to them so I never the issues of Alexander's to eat ism don't apply to his divinity they apply to his vision he lost contact he was ahead of his time he lost contact with his men because I believe he was trying to fuse Greek and barbarian Rican and East East oxidant and Orient and it's a very ambitious thing and he succeeded in the sense that no one gives him credit he married Asian he stayed in Asia he is not it's the only so-called imperialists and then I he's not in Imperioli who did not go home all the Greeks in history Achilles Jason Theseus purchase so they're back they take the fleece the woman the fame the fortunately of a back to Greece now exactly he stayed in the East and he became more and more Asian he married three Asian women he had two half Asian children he had a fabulous fabulous Lee interesting the Asian lover and Yoona and in the eunuch pagolis who must have taught him the mysteries of I guess the third gender he didn't have much interest in going to him why didn't he go he didn't wants his mom maybe Babylon was a temporary center but I really think he had a vision of a mobile universe mobile center with laws peace security Commerce trade inflation currency with his name on it with himself as king and yet a benevolent ruler philosopher King and I think the world that he saw developed as he went I don't think that he had a master plan III think William Tarun's a little idealistic yes I don't think he ever used those words do you think he had a plan for a succession and there's an issue isn't it it's a big issue why well in my dramatization he kills his son in a sense like Hercules if you remember in the cave that's one of the myths destroys his three children after the twelve labors and I was surprised in Greek mythology that always bothered me how can you how can you do that you know how you could say well stress right a lot of subjet non-veterans right 12 labors you come back you you get pissed off but no he was driven mad by the gods that day and then of course Alexander when he turns his marriage to Roxane for me looking from there's a dramatist as a disaster he's ten years too late he's married an insignificant hilltribe princess and who doesn't give him an heir for at least three years there's nothing worth it's embarrassing and as a result you know he I imply that she had something to do perhaps with if I should instead that's a dramatic license no question about it although I base it on the fact that after he died after Alexander died she didn't waste any time bumping off cetera she poisoned her within 48 hours I was as in a second wife so she was not exactly a sentimental woman either so you know these people were tough so I'm saying you know by allowing the idea that Roxanne in a sense through her jealousy or possessiveness which is not what was known but not much is known about it but that was known Alexander would have been turned off to that because he flashed in was the Platonic ideal Roxanne was the female possessive idea and that's why I perhaps over indulged but the idea was when he went to bed with Roxanne in the movie terms it was his first time in bed with the other species so that's why I wanted to show the relationships it was less interesting if you'd been in bed with the male species because we've seen that and much better in war home movies in various stress Van Sant movie tell you that hey what am I gonna do it's not ready takes time to do too but it wasn't my intention i me assume that there'd been something I really didn't believe there was something that was ongoing in the battlefield I really didn't thank you all so much for joining

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

Views: 25,363

Rating: 4.6744184 out of 5

Keywords: Oliver, Stone, film, making, Alexander, movies

Id: Tk57e6IUUHs

Length: 55min 5sec (3305 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 24 2008