solitary_summer | (no subject) (Reply)

It'd be pointless to even start nitpicking about fidelity to canon and historical accuracy, or rather the lack thereof (llamas in Troy? llamas?!), not only because I wouldn't know where to stop, but more importantly because the Iliad itself is far from consistent or homogenous in this regard, rather an amalgam of elements from the Bronze Age to the eighth century and later, and Homer's Troy probably as much fantasy as Petersen's. So it doesn't really matter if Agamemnon is presented with a red-figured lekythos, or if the gilded statue of Apollo in front of the temple in Troy is derived from one of the sculptures from the pediment of the sixth/fifth century temple of Aphaia in Aigina. Not much use, either, complaining about the changes of 'canon' (Briseis killing Agamemnon perhaps the worst slip, since, oops, there goes a good part of Greek mythology, even if Klytaimnestra would probably have thanked her); after all the story had to be adapted for movie format, and it's a myth, not history, and has been changed for centuries before it became canon. Some artistic licence should be permissible.

The decision to leave the gods out entirely is problematic in some instances and leads to a couple of slightly awkward moments (Priamos getting into the camp of the Greeks without the help of Hermes; Paris fleeing from combat with Menelaos, rather than being saved by Aphrodite), but does not hurt the movie as such IMO. Again, it's a matter of perception and interpretation, which had already been changing throughout antiquity. An audience of the Dark Ages would most likely have believed in the the homeric pantheon, but the Iliad's anthropomorphic gods were already under criticism as early as the sixth century by philosophers like Xenophanes, and an educated reader of the fifth century and later would most likely have seen the them more as metaphors for the workings of the human mind than real beings, or at least been aware of the possibility of such an interpretation. Most readers of Thukydides would have shared the movie's rather more cynical conviction that Helen was merely a pretext for Agamemnon's political ambitions.

When it comes to a work of literature that stems from oral poetry, and as such has been subject to change before its ‘canonisation' by being cast into writing, and to various interpretations afterwards, ‘canon' is a rather slippery concept.

More importantly, perhaps, I've learned that in some instances having a too distinct image in one's mind of how something ‘is supposed to be' can be rather limiting, because it won't allow you to appreciate another's vision. And whatever changes there were made in Troy, I never had the feeling of the essence, the spirit of the original being violated quite as much as was the case with e.g. the LotR trilogy.

IMO, whoever wrote the script knew what they were doing, and had a more than superficial grasp of the original; there are adaptations, obviously, to make it more accessible to a modern audience (though to what extent they succeeded remains questionable, given the amount of comments I read about almost every character being more or less unpleasant and the movie only being saved by naked!Brad Pitt), but in my eyes it never degenerates to a mere historical pastiche, a thin disguise for your average action movie.

The main problem with transforming this eighth century B.C. epic into a twenty-first century movie probably would have been the difficulty of conveying to a modern audience the way war is represented in the original text, as something at once grievous and harmful, but also unquestionably an integral, central part of life, especially a man's life. So if there is less heroism in the movie, or heroism of a different quality, and more apparent cynical imperialism, this change of angle does not seem to be such a great violation to me, because Homer, all of whose audience one way or the other would have been familiar from personal experience with the painful consequences of war, is far from mindlessly glorifying it.

Or again, the stronger emphasis on social issues in Achilles' criticism of Agamemnon's leadership is nothing altogether alien to the epos, even if the Iliad, court poetry in the time of its creation, ultimately sides with the ruling class and established hierarchies.

Something I thought was quite skilfully executed and an interesting aspect to pick from the original text, was the way the movie was built around the contrasting characters of Hector and Achilles; the juxtaposition between Hector's sense of responsibility for his town, his wife and son, and Achilles’ pronounced individualism, whose only concern is his glory and honour, which even in the Iliad seems to make him something of an anachronism, a man outside the norms and rules of his society.

But on the other hand I think this extreme, conflicted individualism is part of what has constituted the Iliad’s appeal to audiences across the ages, and in some respects makes it so modern. The Trojan war, Helen, Paris, Agamemnon, are just the setting: Menin aeide thea... the Iliad, in essentials, is the story of a man struggling with fate, his mortality and the meaning of his life.

Troy’s Achilles in some respects is perhaps a little darker than the Iliad's (whereas in other instances he's shown quite a lot more moderate) in keeping with the rest of the movie, but they nevertheless captured something of the ambiguities of his character, essentially refusing to explain or apologise: "This is what I am."

Brad Pitt isn't perfect, but he has his moments, capturing the force of nature that his character is, a law onto himself: the brutality, the cynicism, also the quieter, gentler moments.

And frankly that is a lot more than I expected. Most modern historical novels make Achilles nothing but a one-dimensional mindless killer (M. Zimmer Bradley's Firebrand comes to mind), which may be politically/pacifistically/feministically correct, but is also exceedingly dull. Troy IMO strikes quite a good balance, neither resorting to the glorification of rampart militarism, nor entirely embracing the modern pacifist angle, which inevitably destroys the story and the character.

... on to the things I'm rather less happy about.

While I can't even dislike the Briseis romance as much as I would like to (though Achilles running through the burning Troy in search of her... *sighheadshakegulp*), the blatant, preemptive, and all too obviously blockbuster-friendly heterosexualisation does take away from the story.

Actually I have no problem with the movie not explicitly making Achilles and Patroklos lovers, because, unlike post-fifth century tradition at the latest, neither does Homer, but you need to know the strength of their friendship, relationship, whatever you want to make it, and this is barely established at all. Does a viewer unaware of the mythological tradition understand the excess of Achilles grief and his killing rage (even if it is accordingly toned down quite a bit in the movie)? Or the dread on everyone's face when they see who it was Hector killed?

Hearing that ’he was his cousin' for the nth time falls a little flat IMO. In fact introducing him as such every. bloody. single. time the poor boy appears on screen, just in case anyone forgot, or had second thoughts in the meantime, considering his somewhat suggestively clichéd feminine looks, is perfectly ridiculous.

Other than that... the Briseis plot even did make sense kind of, loath as I am to admit it and as much as my mind struggles with it. It had moments.

On the down-downside of the movie... Helen who, quite apart from not being beautiful enough to fight a war over, was horrible, though that may (or not, from all the comments I read) be partly due to the German dubbing. Helen, in fact has a lot more character in the Iliad than poor-abused-woe-is-me movie!Helen. Orlando Bloom and his exactly one-point-five facial expressions. Paris and Helen together. The whole tacky sword-of-Troy storyline, though then again, points for slipping Aeneas in at the end, even if at a random guess this went over the head of at least eighty percent of the audience.

Liked Hector, liked Odysseus, liked the scenes of Priamos and the court sitting on the walls, watching the battle, just like I always imagined reading the Iliad.

Actually I'm amazed (and pleasantly surprised) that the special effects and computer animation were relatively restrained. The movie did capture something of the brutal, gritty archaic power and simplicity, a little of the mythical quality.

Could have been better, but could also have been a lot worse.

yesterday...

Yet more strawberries.

Visited the new Liechtenstein museum which I'm not convinced lives up to the hype around its opening, or the € 10.- entrance fee, for that matter. Then again, I'm not much a fan of Rubens. A couple of interesting portraits, beautiful garden.

*shrug*

Henna-dyed my hair, in between too much bored TV watching; Smallville, Prodigal, which despite the squeeing of fangirls a year ago when it was aired on US television mostly strikes me as extremely sad, because with the sheer level of familial dysfunctionality it clearly shows that Lex, as much as he may want to believe this, doesn’t stand the slightest chance of getting out of this undamaged.

Alien, the last part, loved Sigourney Weaver there.

Unsurprisingly, it being Sunday, it's raining again...