Alexander DVD -- Stone's Comments -- Unbelievable, Disturbing

Rating: Null/10 (5 January 2005)

I don't know if anyone else has heard the remarks made by Stone to the British press in the last couple days, where he has been alternately "apologizing" for and defending his film. He discusses the rabid controversy in the U.S. about Alexander's sexuality and what he calls a "raging fundamentalism in morality" that's going on here, attributing that partially to the failure of the film which became known as "Alexander the Gay" -- a death knell at the box office. He then, SHOCKINGLY comments on the upcoming DVD release, and I'm quoting the article, by Sherna Noah, PA Showbusiness Correspondent, here:
"The acclaimed director behind hits like Natural Born Killers, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July suggested he would make changes to the DVD version. He said of the homosexual scene: 'The bond can be suggested in different ways...we have choices still and we can go in several different directions without altering the fundamental score. We have created something that will last in many forms."
EXCUSE ME, MR. STONE, BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???? EDITING YOUR FILM TO COWTOW TO THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION OF THE MASSES?
After spending the interview railing about the conservative climate of America right now, (rightfully)deriding those who couldn't handle what is already a subtle and almost under the radar screen relationship, he is now saying that in order to satisfy the home video market, he's going to TWEAK (READ: SANITIZE, DE-GAY, RE-EDIT, CLEAN UP, CAVE IN) the theatrical version for home video???? There are so many things wrong with this sentiment I don't know where to begin. First of all, a director of Stone's caliber who has weathered every known cinematic controversy is going to do a reversal and issue a more subtle version of his distinctly personal vision? We certainly didn't see this with the director's cuts of any of his other films, which wound up on DVD (Ashley Judd's pencil in the neck extra on the NBK DVD not withstanding) in their unexpurgated forms.
Mr. Stone, after spending nearly 30 years to make this film which is, as you have described, "the epic of your life," please tell me you're not saying that you're compromising your (flawed) work to satisfy critical reception and the concerns of the home video consumer? Are you being studio pressured to make changes to the film for the DVD? I understand there was already a cut of the film approximately 45 minutes LONGER than your 173 minute cut, shown to an LA journalist prior to your trims that were made for Warner Bros. in November (discussed by you in Entertinment Weekly, and supposedly containing gay kissing scenes shot but unable to be used).
There can be nothing else deduced here than Stone has completely lost his mind (he appeared on The View to promote the film, for crying out loud)if he, as one of the few radical remaining American filmmakers, can't take the heat for this film and let it lie. Every great filmmaker has one misfire. His Alexander is a grand, lurid, feverish, decadent piece of convoluted and silly mishmash that has a lot more going for it than anyone wants to admit -- it's a movie about the sum of its parts, not the coherent whole. But I can't stomach that Stone is second-guessing his vision to satisfy the tastes of critics and audiences. Alexander is what it is -- or what it is not -- leave it alone, or if you're going to make changes, go back and edit the film you wanted prior to Warner tinkering just before release. For heaven's sake (or Zeus', as it were), don't put your tail between your legs and scissor the film at this point, removing the essence of the few intimate scenes that actually work.
Gravely concerned in Chicago.