Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son ... - Historia Antigua

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“And Your Father Sees You”
Paternity in Alexander (2004)
Gideon Nisbet
Pay attention, lad. Your father still watches over you.
—Cleitus at Gaugamela, Alexander (2004)
What a great story. Why hasn’t it been told?
—Oliver Stone, Resurrecting Alexander (DVD feature)
Introduction: Alexander’s Paternity
T his chapter explores the narrative functions of the relationship
between father and son in Oliver Stone’s recent epic fi lm,
Alexander (2004). I limit my remarks to the cinematic release, rather
than the director’s two extended and revised versions (thus far) on
DVD, the Director’s (2005) and Final (2007) Cuts—the latter also
known as Alexander Revisited. These attempts to reposition Alexander
as a neglected modern classic refl ect Stone’s own carefully publicized
identifi cation with the hero’s character arc, but were even more poorly
received by critics and audiences than the version originally released
in cinemas worldwide in 2004 and written off at the time as “Olly’s
Folly.” This chapter does not address the reception of Stone’s fi lm in
fan and critical discourse (a potentially rich topic), and is not concerned
with developing a critical account of its fl aws as a piece of
cinema. Nor does it set out to recuperate Alexander by arguing that it
has been misunderstood or unjustly maligned, along the lines
attempted by Martin Winkler and his academic collaborators in
defense of Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy (2004), another recent classical
epic poorly received by critics on its release. Alexander’s cinematic
shortcomings and postrelease misfortunes have been addressed elsewhere,
by me among others. 1
It is certainly the case that more exciting things could have been
done with Alexander’s story. A proposed version by Moulin Rouge
director Baz Luhrmann starring Leonardo DiCaprio is merely the
most famous of numerous, ultimately unsuccessful rival fi lm projects
of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Indeed, for several years the
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