The life of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC). His father, king Philip II of Macedon, brings Alexander on his campaign to invade and unite all the warring Greek city-states. Alexander is influenced by his mother Olympias, who fears that Philip II will leave his throne to a new heir with his new wife Eurydice, since he divorced Olympias. When Pausanias assassinates Philip II, Alexander is conveniently left as the new king and in charge of the army. In 334 BC Alexander and 30,000 Macedon soldiers cross into Anatolia, where they defeat the Persian army at the battle of Granicus. They liberate the Greek cities along Ionia. After the battle of Issus, the Persian king Darius III flees and is assassinated by his own men. The Achaemenid Empire dissolves and is replaced by Alexander’s empire. In 323 BC, Alexander dies in Babylon from unknown causes, leaving his generals in a scramble for power.
The American cinema was for some reason always more interested in the era of ancient Rome than in the ancient Hellenistic era, and thus Alexander the Great was the subject of only one US film adaptation in the 20th century, this one from 1956 directed by Robert Rossen—while it took 48 years until another one was made, by O. Stone. As with many history films, this one also struggles from trying to translate the dry events from the past and make them feel genuine, alive to the modern audiences, whereas Richard Burton is an unusual choice to play the title role, equipped with a strange blonde wigg (he is too “burly” to be playing the swift, athletic lad Alexander) though it is an overall very solid film that manages to at least show some episodes from that time. The wars of Alexander were so grand that it would take a 4-hour film, at a minimum, to try to give these events justice, and thus this film spends too much time on its prologue—Alexander does not cross into Anatolia all until 74 minutes into the film. The story also simply lacks pathos, and it shows only three of Alexander’s battles (Chaerona, Granicus, Issus). However, Rossen refused to present Alexander’s life as a hagiography, and was realistic about some of his tyranic treatments, whereas there are some good moments here (Alexander standing on a cliff, promising victories to Zeus the world has not seen yet, while his cape is blown in the wind; when Darius III sends him a golden toy to play with to leave him alone, noting his empire has a lot of gold, Alexander writes him a response: “You shouldn’t have mentioned the gold, because now we will fight twice as hard to get it!”; the quote: “We were outnumbered in everything except courage and discipline”). While a good film, “Alexander the Great” is only a rump version of what this material could have been at its best.
Grade:++
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