Manfredi in the Times

[Tre]

It's easier than you think Marcus!RIDLEY SCOTT really started something. Not only are GÇ£sword and sandalsGÇ¥ epics proliferating in the wake of Gladiator, but they include two rival films inspired by Alexander the Great GÇö one directed by Baz Luhrmann, the other by Oliver Stone. Both hope the true story of the handsome youth from Macedonia, who conquered the known world in the fourth century BC only to die of drink and despair at 33, will work the same magic at the box office and the Oscars as ScottGÇÖs fictional tale of Maximus Decimus Meridus, the unjustly disgraced Roman general. The wisdom in the film business, however, is that there is room for only one Alexander, and the race is on to be first to finish. Stone has said little about his version, except that it is to star the hot and happening Colin (Minority Report) Farrell. But Luhrmann GÇö who has signed up Leonardo DiCaprio to play Alexander, with Nicole Kidman as his empress mother GÇö has let slip that he sees his Alexander as GÇ£a kind of rock starGÇ¥ (and a gay one at that), who achieves meteoric fame only to burn out tragically early. The producer of Alexander, Dino De Laurentiis (who approached Ridley Scott before turning to Luhrmann), is convinced that as cinemagoers tire of science fiction, gangster movies and the Second World War, ancient heroes are back in vogue, half a century after Spartacus and Ben-Hur.
The thought of rippling muscles and set-piece battles has also inspired Warner Brothers to make Troy, an adaptation of HomerGÇÖs Iliad, with Brad Pitt as Achilles; Universal to contemplate George Clooney as leader of the small band of Spartans who took on the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae; and Sony Pictures to invest in Vin Diesel starring as Hannibal.

[Tre]

De Laurentiis, who has the backing of DreamWorks and Universal, is also sustained by the vision of his friend, the author and archaeologist Valerio Massimo Manfredi. For it is ManfrediGÇÖs best-selling trilogy on the life of Alexander GÇö Child of a Dream, The Sands of Ammon and The Ends of the Earth GÇö that forms the basis of the script. The trilogy has brought Alexander alive for modern audiences for the first time since Mary RenaultGÇÖs novels (and Richard BurtonGÇÖs film portrayal). I met Manfredi GÇö who, when not writing bestsellers, teaches archaeology at Bocconi University in Milan GÇö on the island of Capri, the setting for his latest novel The Last Legion (also to be filmed shortly). He disclosed that, ironically, he is also the inspiration for the rival Oliver Stone film, since he was the original script consultant. GÇ£There was even a third project by Warner Brothers. They wanted to buy the rights to my trilogy, but then they said they already had a screenplay, so I pulled out.GÇ¥ Manfredi, a craggily handsome man with a trim white beard whose archaeological exploits in dodgy parts of the world such as Iraq have earned him the title GÇ£the Indiana Jones of ItalyGÇ¥, admits that he sometimes comes under fire from academic colleagues for lending his expertise to the film world, which is more interested in impact than scholarship. GÇ£But then a minority read books, while millions go to the cinema. You have to simplify, condense.GÇ¥
DreamWorks and Universal are investing GÇ£at least $150 millionGÇ¥ in Alexander, so GÇ£they need people to flood the movie theatres. Obviously this means bringing the level down.GÇ¥ But, he says, the simplified version of history you present should at least be historically accurate and avoid anachronisms. GÇ£Take Gladiator: a great film, but some of the Latin is wrong, even though they had consultants. And the inscription you see round the edge of the Colosseum predicting that when Rome falls so will the world dates from the sixth century, whereas the film takes place at the time of Marcus Aurelius, in the second century.GÇ¥

[Tre]

But Gladiator brought back the classical epic, which after its Spartacus heyday petered out in second-rate films starring bodybuilders. Manfredi agrees. GÇ£Before Gladiator nobody would have dreamt of making a sword and sandals film.GÇ¥ Summoned to Los Angeles after Gladiator became a huge hit, Manfredi wrote the treatment for Alexander at De LaurentiisGÇÖs Beverly Hills villa (the resulting screenplay is by Ted Tally, who wrote the script for The Silence of the Lambs). And Luhrmann? GÇ£I spent a lot of time talking to him here in Capri. I was impressed: he had read up on Alexander, he knew what questions to ask. An intelligent man, and a brilliant director.GÇ¥ Yes, but what about LuhrmannGÇÖs breathless pace, the verve, the camp and knowing style? GÇ£Well, Baz is fascinated by the idea of this boy who became king at 19 and lord of the world at 23, but was then destroyed by power, which changed him into something he could not cope with. After winning the battle of Gaugamela against the Persians in 331 BC he was unstoppable, master of an empire from the Danube to the Indus. But then he started drinking heavily, and murdered his own commander, Cleitus, in a drunken quarrel. He died after a drinking bout.GÇ¥ To Luhrmann, this sounds like GÇ£one of those gigantic rock stars who in the end are trashed by their own success because they are too young,GÇ¥ Manfredi says. GÇ£When you have power you have to deal with terrible things. Alexander had a dual personality: a compassionate, civilised young man on the one hand and a ruthless warrior on the other. GÇ£Tradition says this duality was reflected in his eyes GÇö one blue, one black.GÇ¥ Alexander was also deeply attached, not only to his tutor, the great philosopher Aristotle (a role earmarked for Anthony Hopkins) but also to his mother Olympias (Kidman). He took her side when his father, Philip II of Macedon, divorced her. He also saw his father assassinated before his eyes. GÇ£No wonder we are fascinated by the story. ItGÇÖs a fable of our times. Take DiCaprio himself GÇö he too has had to cope with sudden fame when very youngGÇ¥. What is being kept under wraps is how Luhrmann GÇö or Stone, for that matter GÇö intends to deal with the fact that Alexander was bisexual. GÇ£I didnGÇÖt deal too explicitly with AlexanderGÇÖs homosexuality in either my books or the film treatment,GÇ¥ Manfredi admits. GÇ£But both Dino and Baz think it has to be in there, it has to be shown in some way.

[Tre]

RIDLEY SCOTT really started something. Not only are GÇ£sword and sandalsGÇ¥ epics proliferating in the wake of Gladiator, but they include two rival films inspired by Alexander the Great GÇö one directed by Baz Luhrmann, the other by Oliver Stone. Both hope the true story of the handsome youth from Macedonia, who conquered the known world in the fourth century BC only to die of drink and despair at 33, will work the same magic at the box office and the Oscars as ScottGÇÖs fictional tale of Maximus Decimus Meridus, the unjustly disgraced Roman general. The wisdom in the film business, however, is that there is room for only one Alexander, and the race is on to be first to finish. Stone has said little about his version, except that it is to star the hot and happening Colin (Minority Report) Farrell. But Luhrmann GÇö who has signed up Leonardo DiCaprio to play Alexander, with Nicole Kidman as his empress mother GÇö has let slip that he sees his Alexander as GÇ£a kind of rock starGÇ¥ (and a gay one at that), who achieves meteoric fame only to burn out tragically early. The producer of Alexander, Dino De Laurentiis (who approached Ridley Scott before turning to Luhrmann), is convinced that as cinemagoers tire of science fiction, gangster movies and the Second World War, ancient heroes are back in vogue, half a century after Spartacus and Ben-Hur. The thought of rippling muscles and set-piece battles has also inspired Warner Brothers to make Troy, an adaptation of HomerGÇÖs Iliad, with Brad Pitt as Achilles; Universal to contemplate George Clooney as leader of the small band of Spartans who took on the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae; and Sony Pictures to invest in Vin Diesel starring as Hannibal. De Laurentiis, who has the backing of DreamWorks and Universal, is also sustained by the vision of his friend, the author and archaeologist Valerio Massimo Manfredi. For it is ManfrediGÇÖs best-selling trilogy on the life of Alexander GÇö Child of a Dream, The Sands of Ammon and The Ends of the Earth GÇö that forms the basis of the script. The trilogy has brought Alexander alive for modern audiences for the first time since Mary RenaultGÇÖs novels (and Richard BurtonGÇÖs film portrayal). I met Manfredi GÇö who, when not writing bestsellers, teaches archaeology at Bocconi University in Milan GÇö on the island of Capri, the setting for his latest novel The Last Legion (also to be filmed shortly). He disclosed that, ironically, he is also the inspiration for the rival Oliver Stone film, since he

[Tre]

The problem is that people thought quite differently about sex in antiquity GÇö it is we who have created these categories. Alexander had a male lover, but he also had a wife and children. Perhaps the time has come to portray these things as they really were.GÇ¥ Shooting is due to start shortly in Morocco, but GÇ£it is a complicated business. You need a lot of extras. You can multiply them digitally, as in Gladiator, but there were probably a million men on the battlefield at Gaugamela, so you still need thousands of real people to start with.GÇ¥ Meanwhile a screenplay is being polished up for the film version of The Last Legion. The story is set at the end of the Roman Empire, in the fifth century AD, with a band of diehard Roman soldiers defying the barbarian hordes to rescue the young Romulus Augustus, the last emperor, from imprisonment at the Villa of Tiberius on Capri. They then take him to safety in Britain, where he takes on a new identity as Pendragon, the father of King Arthur. Thus the world of ancient Rome merges into the mystical world of Arthurian legend. A bit far-fetched? GÇ£Well, it is true that as one empire dies it gives birth to another,GÇ¥ Manfredi says. GÇ£It is also true that the story of the Knights of the Round Table had its origins in the fifth century AD, even though it was written up in the Middle Ages. And Excalibur was almost certainly a Roman sword.GÇ¥ So far there is no film version planned of his next novel, The Tyrant, but it can be only a matter of time. The novel, Manfredi says, will revolve around Dionysius, the first Tyrant of Syracuse in the fifth century BC, who defeated Carthage and controlled most of the eastern Mediterranean. GÇ£The novel deals with the risks of entrusting a country to the command of a single brutal but efficient man rather than an inefficient democracy,GÇ¥ he says. Once again, the classical world turns out to be not so far away from our own after all.

[Tre]

Article tried to print from beginning again.Sorry!

[susan]

I found that I needed to add several blank lines to get the paragraph gaps in.Susan

[Tre]

Fortunately, this is not a test so I'm not being graded

[Kate]

Hi everyone,Hope Manfredi is better at writing screenplays than he is at writing novels! He may be very knowledgeable about facts, but I found his version of Alexander's life so boring I couldn't even finish the first book in the trilogy. Cheers,

Kate

[Tre]

You thought book one was a snorer (and I agree) book three is comatose inducing. I didn't even finish that one.Book two had some hilarious sex scenes, but they were not intended to be so.If this is what passes for a 'scholar' writing fiction, I think he should stick to his day job.

[marcus]

Tre,That is the best and most succinct critique I've heard yet. The only reason I managed to finish Book 2 was because I had so enjoyed the incredibly silly sex scenes (that one at Persepolis had me hooting!) that I hoped there would be more. I never bothered finishing Book 3 - I think I had some paint to watch dry, which was more exciting.Marcus

[jan]

That is a shame. You must give it a second chance. I am into the third book now and find it most interesting to discuss. I am glad that it is the source for the screenplay as Manfredi's interpretation is very interesting, and pertinent to today's current events as well.Jan

[jan]

different strokes for different folks. I like the way manfredi's mind works, always thinking of Alexander as a planner and actor. His reasoning for the destruction of the Palace of Darius is thoughtful. And his description of the fight between the giant and the Macedonian to win the city is quite dramatic as well. I could see it in a movie easily. I can see that he has written the book for screenrights. Glad he got them.

[jan]

Very amusing. I do not think that either Alexander and Hephaestion did a menage trois at all, but at least we know what turns you on.

[susan]

I usually regret getting involved in exchanges about sex on this forum, but here goes.... We know so little about Hephaestion that we have no idea of what his habits were, we don't even really know what he looked like. There certainly isn't enough to tell about his sexual habits. The same is true to a lesser extent of Alexander. So your belief in what they did or didn't do is based on your view of their likely characters, and not on the evidence which doesn't really address the subject. If the sources were to say that they were both virgins until married it would be one extreme, or if they said that they both took part in nightly orgies it would be another - the truth is somewhere in between and each generation and culture interprets it differently; plus we're talking about a period of up to twenty years, from boyhood to early thirties and a lot can happen to young men with ample opportunities and temptations in that time. I think Manfredi wanted to write best-sellers and followed the established tradition of adding lots of sex, the more lurid the better, to what is basically historical hokum. I can't imagine anyone reading it in two thousand years time, as we read Arrian. I think the main conclusion that can be drawn from the sources is that Alexander and Hephaestion loved each other for most of their adult lives, the mechanics seem less relevant. Susan