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The Trojan War, in many versions
I first read the Greek myths, including those which are connected to the Trojan War, when I was eight or nine, and have read countless versions since then. So I don’t have the “one true story” in the back of my mind. Even the authors of the ancient world did not. Lest we forget, Vergil promoted a minor character to the forefront in the Aeneid, Ovid wrote splendid Iliad fanfic in the Heroides (a letter from Briseis to Achilles, a letter from Paris to Helen and vice versa, a letter from the wife of the first Greek to fall to her already dead husband), and his Roman sardonic take on the characters is quite different from Homer’s. (He even has a Latin version of “make love, not war” both in the letter of the unknowing widow and of Helen.) A lot of the story elements were added by later authors and aren’t in the Iliad - the Trojan horse, most notably (the Iliad ends with Hector’s burial), Agamemnon sacrificing Iphigenia for good wind so the Greeks can get to Troy, Odysseus playing ruthless advisor to Achilles’ son Neoptemeles so they can get Philoctetes to Troy for the final battles, the entire Amazon episode with Penthesilea.
As far as modern novels are concerned, my two favourites are probably Kassandra by Christa Wolf and Spielball der Götter by Rudolf Hagelstange. The former is on one level a feminist version and on another a timeless depiction on how a society transforms (NOT to its best, and very timely, that) under the pressure of war. A senseless war, since Wolf uses the Euripedean version of Helen never having arrived in Troy at all but being left in Egypt. Even the pretense of a reason for war is false, and both sides know it. The novel is narrated by Kassandra during the time she is waiting for her death in Myceneae (Wolf was inspired by Aischylos’ version of Cassandra.) And as opposed to, say, Marion Zimmer Bradley in Firebrand, Wolf doesn’t cop out – Kassandra’s tragedy is that she sees her and everyone else’s death and cannot avoid it. And so she dies.
Hagelstange, otoh, went for the guy who traditionally gets the worst press as the narrator, Paris, and uses him in a similar manner than Jacques Offenbach does in La Belle Helene; as a contrast and ironic commentator on the heroic ideal. The effect of inserting a voice sounding like an Oscar Wilde character into the grim narrative, without diminishing its grimness, is original and in its way as pointed a critique as Wolf’s take.
Bearing all this in mind, I went and watched Troy.
It’s a decent movie. Not great in the sense that epics like the LotR films or The Last Emperor are – all movies which have that indefinable something which makes them classics – but absolutely watchable. Petersen radically shortened the immense ensemble of characters, which is understandable, but after having read everywhere in advance that he cut out all the gods, I was quite pleased to see that actually, no, he didn’t. Or rather, he left it nicely ambiguous. Early in the movie, a boy asks Achilles whether it is true that his mother is a goddess, and Achilles doesn’t reply; two scenes later, we get a conversation between Achilles and his mother, Thetis, standing on the shores of the ocean with her feet in the water, an imagery very befitting a sea goddess, and she tells Achilles of the two possible fates awaiting him – glory and an early death, or a long happy life and no fame. However, if you don’t have the mythological background, you can just assume that Achilles’ mother is a strange lady evidentely into strolls on the shore of the ocean, since she does nothing supernatural here, save making those predictions.
Speaking of Achilles: frankly, in the Iliad I can’t stand him. I was rooting for Hector all the way. Didn’t like him much in any of the other versions, either, so it was somewhat surprising that Petersen’s take of Achillles as a tragic character worked here for me. And Petersen doesn’t downplay the butcher side, either, except for the fact he lets Achilles drag Hector’s dead body just back to the tents of the Greeks, not several times around the walls of Troy, as he does in the myths. The point, though, remains the same – it’s an enduring image of the dehumanisation of war, just as Priam’s ensuing visit and plea to the killer of his son – and I think this is where Petersen used actual quotes from the Iliad is a counterpoint and the one scene where humanity prevails (in Achilles and in war). It’s also, regretably, the only scene where Peter O’Toole can show off his acting skills – he’s more part of the noble scenery otherwise.
Brad Pitt as Achilles: as I said, works for me. And having rewatched Thelma and Louise recently, where he has this slight, boyish figure, I couldn’t help but being struck by the difference. He certainy worked out a lot for Troy, and Petersen shows it off all the way.
Eric Bana as Hector: has the less flashy part of the two leads, but is as compelling. Affectionate with his family, with a quiet dignity, and though a great fighter not enamored of war or immortality. The duel with Achilles aside, his best scenes are with Paris, and the mixture of exasperated anger and strong affection he has for his younger brother rang very real.
As Paris, Orlando Bloom looks pretty but hasn’t got a lot of range (sounds familiar, hm), nor does the part as written ask for it, with one scene excepted, and he does come through in a very good way with that one. It’s the end of the fight with Menelaos; Paris has been defeated, as everyone expected (with Menealos being a seasoned warrior, whereas this is Paris’ first real fight), and disarmed. Menealaos takes his time with the final deadly blow, enjoying the humiliation. In the Iliad, this is where Aphrodite intervenes and makes Paris invisible. In Troy, Paris looks up at the grinning Menealos, and you can see the realisation that fear of his life matters most happening in his eyes as he throws away the heroic code, and instead of waiting to be killed runs back to Hector. Bloom sells both the fear, the panic, the shame and the determination to stay alive inspite of it.
Sean Bean as Odysseus thankfully gets to be the narrator, which means we hear his voice in the beginning and the end. Thank you, Wolfgang Petersen. Otherwise, Odysseus is fairly presented, meaning he’s not dominant (he gets the sequel all to himself, after all*g*), just an important ensemble character, clearly the most intelligent of the Greeks and in the thankless position of running interference between Agamemnon and Achilles.
Speaking of Agamemnon, it’s Brian Cox, last seen (by me) as Stryker in X-Men 2 and in a very similar mode here, which fits. I wish Petersen hadn’t killed him off in the end, though, and that’s not the purist in me pointing out that this should be left to Clytemnestra, just the viewer who thinks that while Agamemnon as a ruthless dastardly villain works, it would underscore the point even more if he remained alive to reap the glory once again while both Hector and Achilles are dead, along with Priam who gets to be the noble king as opposed to Agamemnon’s greedy and powerhungry one.
One definite problem is Patroclos. No, not that he’s not Achilles’ lover; that’s a grand old tradition in literature, but it’s not a sine qua non if you want to tell the story. (And it’s not actually in Homer, either, for that matter.) But if you want the audience to understand why Achilles desecrates Hector’s body the way he does, you have to show why Patroclos’ death has such a huge impact on Achilles. And in order to do that, you have to show the emotional bond between them as being the strongest in Achilles’ life. Now as far as Troy for uniformed viewers is concerned, the guy who comes across as being best friends with Achilles is Odysseus, not Patroclos; Patroclos as hero-worshipping young cousin and protegé just doesn’t cut it as emotional justification for the way Achilles loses it after his death.
Now for the girls: Sadly, none of them has much to do beyond “love interest” designation. Andromache gets her “loving wife” scenes with Hector, but the film shies away from the final horror of her fate – seeing Achilles’ son kill her son Astynax, and take her as his concubine. Instead, this Andromache escapes with her child at the end. There is no Cassandra, but some of her character – the priestess of Apollon – went into Briseis, who got promoted from Achilles’ war prize (taken away by Agamemnon, the reason he sulks for a good deal of the Iliad) to his love interest. Of all the women, she has the most scenes, but the falling-in-love-with-her-captor bit never quite convinced me, despite the ample display of Mr. Pitt’s splendid physique on these occasions. Helen, played by newcomer Diane Kruger, does not deserve the catty comments about being less pretty than Orlando Bloom. She’s quite beautiful. Not the most beautiful woman of the world, but then, it’s almost impossible to fulfill expectations in this regard. (My own candidates among the present-day young actresses would probably be the Elvish ladies in LOTR, Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler.) But again, hers is not a big part – she’s not the femme fatale here, she is a love interest, with much less lines than Briseis.
Of interest to historians: the costumes seem to aim for vaguely hethitic as far as the
Trojans are concerned, and vaguely Mycenic for the Greeks, but there is no pretense at real accuracy in either department. The real scream, though, is this idea of Agamemnon as unifier of “the emerging Greek nation”. Ah well. At least here, as opposed to Hero, this isn’t presented as justifying Agamemnon’s politics.
As far as modern novels are concerned, my two favourites are probably Kassandra by Christa Wolf and Spielball der Götter by Rudolf Hagelstange. The former is on one level a feminist version and on another a timeless depiction on how a society transforms (NOT to its best, and very timely, that) under the pressure of war. A senseless war, since Wolf uses the Euripedean version of Helen never having arrived in Troy at all but being left in Egypt. Even the pretense of a reason for war is false, and both sides know it. The novel is narrated by Kassandra during the time she is waiting for her death in Myceneae (Wolf was inspired by Aischylos’ version of Cassandra.) And as opposed to, say, Marion Zimmer Bradley in Firebrand, Wolf doesn’t cop out – Kassandra’s tragedy is that she sees her and everyone else’s death and cannot avoid it. And so she dies.
Hagelstange, otoh, went for the guy who traditionally gets the worst press as the narrator, Paris, and uses him in a similar manner than Jacques Offenbach does in La Belle Helene; as a contrast and ironic commentator on the heroic ideal. The effect of inserting a voice sounding like an Oscar Wilde character into the grim narrative, without diminishing its grimness, is original and in its way as pointed a critique as Wolf’s take.
Bearing all this in mind, I went and watched Troy.
It’s a decent movie. Not great in the sense that epics like the LotR films or The Last Emperor are – all movies which have that indefinable something which makes them classics – but absolutely watchable. Petersen radically shortened the immense ensemble of characters, which is understandable, but after having read everywhere in advance that he cut out all the gods, I was quite pleased to see that actually, no, he didn’t. Or rather, he left it nicely ambiguous. Early in the movie, a boy asks Achilles whether it is true that his mother is a goddess, and Achilles doesn’t reply; two scenes later, we get a conversation between Achilles and his mother, Thetis, standing on the shores of the ocean with her feet in the water, an imagery very befitting a sea goddess, and she tells Achilles of the two possible fates awaiting him – glory and an early death, or a long happy life and no fame. However, if you don’t have the mythological background, you can just assume that Achilles’ mother is a strange lady evidentely into strolls on the shore of the ocean, since she does nothing supernatural here, save making those predictions.
Speaking of Achilles: frankly, in the Iliad I can’t stand him. I was rooting for Hector all the way. Didn’t like him much in any of the other versions, either, so it was somewhat surprising that Petersen’s take of Achillles as a tragic character worked here for me. And Petersen doesn’t downplay the butcher side, either, except for the fact he lets Achilles drag Hector’s dead body just back to the tents of the Greeks, not several times around the walls of Troy, as he does in the myths. The point, though, remains the same – it’s an enduring image of the dehumanisation of war, just as Priam’s ensuing visit and plea to the killer of his son – and I think this is where Petersen used actual quotes from the Iliad is a counterpoint and the one scene where humanity prevails (in Achilles and in war). It’s also, regretably, the only scene where Peter O’Toole can show off his acting skills – he’s more part of the noble scenery otherwise.
Brad Pitt as Achilles: as I said, works for me. And having rewatched Thelma and Louise recently, where he has this slight, boyish figure, I couldn’t help but being struck by the difference. He certainy worked out a lot for Troy, and Petersen shows it off all the way.
Eric Bana as Hector: has the less flashy part of the two leads, but is as compelling. Affectionate with his family, with a quiet dignity, and though a great fighter not enamored of war or immortality. The duel with Achilles aside, his best scenes are with Paris, and the mixture of exasperated anger and strong affection he has for his younger brother rang very real.
As Paris, Orlando Bloom looks pretty but hasn’t got a lot of range (sounds familiar, hm), nor does the part as written ask for it, with one scene excepted, and he does come through in a very good way with that one. It’s the end of the fight with Menelaos; Paris has been defeated, as everyone expected (with Menealos being a seasoned warrior, whereas this is Paris’ first real fight), and disarmed. Menealaos takes his time with the final deadly blow, enjoying the humiliation. In the Iliad, this is where Aphrodite intervenes and makes Paris invisible. In Troy, Paris looks up at the grinning Menealos, and you can see the realisation that fear of his life matters most happening in his eyes as he throws away the heroic code, and instead of waiting to be killed runs back to Hector. Bloom sells both the fear, the panic, the shame and the determination to stay alive inspite of it.
Sean Bean as Odysseus thankfully gets to be the narrator, which means we hear his voice in the beginning and the end. Thank you, Wolfgang Petersen. Otherwise, Odysseus is fairly presented, meaning he’s not dominant (he gets the sequel all to himself, after all*g*), just an important ensemble character, clearly the most intelligent of the Greeks and in the thankless position of running interference between Agamemnon and Achilles.
Speaking of Agamemnon, it’s Brian Cox, last seen (by me) as Stryker in X-Men 2 and in a very similar mode here, which fits. I wish Petersen hadn’t killed him off in the end, though, and that’s not the purist in me pointing out that this should be left to Clytemnestra, just the viewer who thinks that while Agamemnon as a ruthless dastardly villain works, it would underscore the point even more if he remained alive to reap the glory once again while both Hector and Achilles are dead, along with Priam who gets to be the noble king as opposed to Agamemnon’s greedy and powerhungry one.
One definite problem is Patroclos. No, not that he’s not Achilles’ lover; that’s a grand old tradition in literature, but it’s not a sine qua non if you want to tell the story. (And it’s not actually in Homer, either, for that matter.) But if you want the audience to understand why Achilles desecrates Hector’s body the way he does, you have to show why Patroclos’ death has such a huge impact on Achilles. And in order to do that, you have to show the emotional bond between them as being the strongest in Achilles’ life. Now as far as Troy for uniformed viewers is concerned, the guy who comes across as being best friends with Achilles is Odysseus, not Patroclos; Patroclos as hero-worshipping young cousin and protegé just doesn’t cut it as emotional justification for the way Achilles loses it after his death.
Now for the girls: Sadly, none of them has much to do beyond “love interest” designation. Andromache gets her “loving wife” scenes with Hector, but the film shies away from the final horror of her fate – seeing Achilles’ son kill her son Astynax, and take her as his concubine. Instead, this Andromache escapes with her child at the end. There is no Cassandra, but some of her character – the priestess of Apollon – went into Briseis, who got promoted from Achilles’ war prize (taken away by Agamemnon, the reason he sulks for a good deal of the Iliad) to his love interest. Of all the women, she has the most scenes, but the falling-in-love-with-her-captor bit never quite convinced me, despite the ample display of Mr. Pitt’s splendid physique on these occasions. Helen, played by newcomer Diane Kruger, does not deserve the catty comments about being less pretty than Orlando Bloom. She’s quite beautiful. Not the most beautiful woman of the world, but then, it’s almost impossible to fulfill expectations in this regard. (My own candidates among the present-day young actresses would probably be the Elvish ladies in LOTR, Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler.) But again, hers is not a big part – she’s not the femme fatale here, she is a love interest, with much less lines than Briseis.
Of interest to historians: the costumes seem to aim for vaguely hethitic as far as the
Trojans are concerned, and vaguely Mycenic for the Greeks, but there is no pretense at real accuracy in either department. The real scream, though, is this idea of Agamemnon as unifier of “the emerging Greek nation”. Ah well. At least here, as opposed to Hero, this isn’t presented as justifying Agamemnon’s politics.
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