Little Alex

[poliphilo]

Do I want to see a film about Alexander the Great?

Not really.

I had the same problem with Troy. Man-killing Achilles, even when airbrushed to suit Brad Pitt's image and sensibilities, is not someone I want to spend much time with.

The 20th century's experience of war and empire has revolutionized our taste in heroes. We no longer favour aggressors like Alexander. We identify instead with the resistance. We want to see Russell Crowe take on the Roman Empire or Viggo Mortensen fight his way to a crown that is justly his.

Being asked to cheer for Alexander is a bit like being asked to cheer for Mordor.

Comments

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Unless you look at it as the plucky can-do Macedonia sticking it to the stuffy Greeks. Which is something America loves, because we feel it reflects our relationship with Britain. But I'm sure that's not how the movie shows Alex--in all our rush to trumpet his homosexuality, we usually forget he wasn't even Greek.

And of course, Alex loved Achilles, was obsessed with him. Typical--and thus his life cycle is fairly predictable. Life imitates art.

But I don't like the American fetish for the underdog either. It's dishonest, because the reason most like it is because it is how America sees itself. Its psyche has not grown up yet to see that we are no longer plucky or can-do in the face of adversity--we're the ones on top.

I prefer to hear about Breseis than Achilles, Roxann than Alexander. I want the apocrypha.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

And also, I refuse to see either Troy or Alexander.

I can be pissed off right here in my living room. I don't need to pay someone else to piss me off.

It takes so little effort to just get the damn story right. It's not like it's a secret--go to your library! It's right there!

Who killed Agamemnon?

*buzz*

I'm sorry, would you like to try again?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think there has ever been a swords and sandals romp that has satisfied me. There are always compromises to be made when you're spending that much money.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they always make them by fucking up the story as it has stood and satisfied for hundreds upon hundreds of years. That's spelled D-U-M-B.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We Brits have always loved the under-dog. Our national myths are all about being sore oppressed . We dwell on defeats like Dunkirk and Arnhem, celebrating them as if they were victories. Winning is much less important to us than showing pluck.

But perhaps we can indulge this odd taste because we have always triumphed in the final round.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

And of course, with Britain, that goes back to the times when you were underdogs in the European parade--it seems like that's a hard conceit for any nation to give up.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In the end it turns into rank sentimentality. It's getting to be pathological how we can't put WWII behind us.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started. At least in Europe it's acknowledged that WWI happened--we don't even do that much. We fetishize WWII because we want all our conflicts to be so black and white, so that no one will question the necessity of war. Except it wasn't actually so easy then.

Greatest generation my ass. I want to stop hearing that. Now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I liked Private Ryan- but then Spielberg got a bad case of ancestor worship and just wouldn't let the subject drop.

All those little boys my age who feel they can't consider themselves to be really men because they weren't there to participate in the storming of Omaha Beach.....

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

First 28 minutes were horrifying and brilliant. The rest was a stock WWII movie that might as well have starred John Wayne. Every stereotype nicely represented. Stupid cameos, stilted dialogue, silly heroics in a movie that started out saying how insane war is, and then fell into the same pattern as every war movie ever made. The movie was a wash, except for its opening sequence.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid you're right.....

Spielberg is a huge talent, but his sentimentality undermines film after film.

And women are all but absent from his world. If it's not about fathers and sons he really doesn't have a clue....

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course.

Women are there to betray you or welcome you home after a hard day's heroing. That's all. Spielberg is a joke when it comes to representing the human condition--maybe that's why our perception is so fucked up these days. He's the one that's writing it large.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It saddens me.

I think he's a great artist.

And I increasingly hate what he stands for.

He's the boy who never grew up. It seems to me that a lot of American artists conform to this arche/stereotype.