When Oliver Stone began preparing his new film he turned to Oxford don and Alexander the Great expert Robin Lane Fox for historical advice. However, the horse-mad scholar only agreed on one condition - the director must let him join Colin Farrell and the charge of the Macedonian cavalry in his epic movie...
Interview: Robin Lane Fox
BBC Four: Was your experience on the film set what you expected?
Robin Lane Fox: No. I had a vision of one vast cavalry charge involving a whole army that might be repeated two or three times. I hadn't realised the relatively short chunks of action into which filmmakers have to break down each scene. I certainly didn't understand the extreme skill in intercutting and arranging all the various pieces in Oliver's jigsaw.
Secondly, I had confidence in my ability to sit on a horse but I found the initial riding taxing in ways I hadn't anticipated. The lances we were using, which were all historically researched and based on war paintings of the Macedonian cavalrymen, were initially a bit heavier and trickier than I had expected. I also had not really thought of such basic problems that if one's helmet is made in standard size, rather than the customised ones the stars had, and you are galloping flat out, it is quite likely that first time round it will fall in front of your eyes so you can't really see where you're going. However, by the time I got used to it, I was unstoppable!
BBC Four: How did the professional riders in Oliver Stone's cavalry react to the presence of an Oxford don in their ranks?
RLF: They were thrilled. The expert stunt riders were willing to take me on sufferance. Stunt riders sit on horses and treat them like motor bikes. The stuntmen on the ground are pathological about horse accidents because they don't ride themselves. The really wonderful riders were the Spanish riders and many of the Moroccan Main Cavalry. It was assumed that if you were in the film you were up to their level.
BBC Four: As an academic, what were your impressions of the blockbuster movie making process?
RLF: Films have to be compromises. Everything has to be told rapidly and you can't go into extreme detail. But we had teams of armourers and textile makers all around the world. Unbelievably they were doing it from 1 June to 1 September. If any university in Britain or America had been asked to coordinate the making of historically-based replicas for over 2,000 people in four months they would have got as far as the initial paperwork empowering the health and safety officers to come and see it. Given that, I now understand the speed and commitment and love with which everybody works and it is tremendous.
BBC Four: What were the hardest questions that Stone asked you as an historian?
RLF: The most difficult questions concerned Aristotle. He was determined to try to represent Alexander's tutor, the great Aristotle, as accurately as possible. Oliver was keen to know Aristotle's views on the gods and the myths. I was certainly stretched by that and he did a lot to improve my understanding of Aristotle, which was pretty limited before. Otherwise, the most difficult things were the everyday things like how do Greeks blow their noses. Historians work with the evidence they have and they observe where there are gaps and sometimes they may guess beyond them. But their questioning is guided by the evidence. A filmmaker is guided by the need to visualise, whether there is direct evidence or not.
