Saturday, 20 April 2013

What Doth the Iliad?

Even though the film is heavily based on the Iliad, much like in the film ‘The Last Airbender’, many key points are missed making it feel as if you were ripped off. Below are a few minor differences in the film. 
• In the Iliad the war took 10 years (quote: "Already have nine years of great Zeus gone by"), whereas in the film Troy it only took 17 days 

• In the Iliad, Patroclus was not the cousin of Achilles, only a friend

• Achilles was dead before the Trojan Horse was built (described in Vergil's Aeneid, no mention of the horse in the Iliad)

• In the Iliad, Paris is killed, Hector’s baby is killed, and Hector’s wife is enslaved, however in the film Troy they escape safely.

• Ajax doesn’t die by the hand of Hector, he kills himself due to the shame of not receiving Achilles armour (this occurs in the poem Metamorphoses by Ovid)

• Agamemnon was killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, back in Greece, immediately after the war, not Briseies who kills him in the film

• Hector was too scared of Achilles to fight him, and so he ran away and ran round the walls of troy several times
Citations to http://isaacclassics.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/major-differences-between-homers-iliad.html 
But what both texts give us is a peek into ancient times, although the Iliad provides better insight, the film Troy gives an otherwise unknowledgeable audience a chance to understand Ancient Greek customs and values. For this reason, we must respect that many of the changes made by Wolfgang Peterson are justifiable and still give us a representation of the story. 

It is difficult to decide who the main character is in the movie or who the audience should be cheering for. The Iliad is mainly focused on the wrath of Achilles and the personal struggles between characters and the gods. There is a true fantasy feel for a modern reader that would leave the stories difficult to believe as history but engages them in a deeper level of thinking about humanity. From a modern perspective, it can lead to asking why the Greeks needed and believed so much in their gods and could even lead to some self-reflection of contemporary religion. 
The film, to me, is more of a visual recollection of what a real-life Trojan War would have looked like along with some generic action movie plot and dialogue. 

The one piece of dialogue in Troy I enjoyed was the first quote I mentioned, where Achilles is telling Briseis about his thoughts on the gods and mortality. I had already delved into this train of thought before watching the film but it did provide a well worded statement and definitely provoked thought on the subject. The rest of the films themes however, seemed like they had been done to many times before. This is not surprising seeing a majority of western film and literature is based on the Iliad in some way or another.
To sum up, the film has been adapted to suit a modern audience. Being a few thousand years apart means differences in the preferences of the audience will inevitably result in two very different retellings of the story. Both texts give insight to the values of Ancient Greek society. I believe it is important to keep stories such as the Iliad alive throughout history as there is much we can learn from the mistakes and triumphs of the Ancients. The best way to do this is in the form of film as it will reach a younger audience, even if it means we must change the story. 



Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war#Origins_of_the_war
http://isaacclassics.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/major-differences-between-homers-iliad.html 
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28339487/Comparison-of-Book-Iliad-and-the-Film-Troy 
http://www.shmoop.com/iliad/ 
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/the-iliad/critical-essays/themes.html 
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040514/REVIEWS/405140304 
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Troy_%28film%29 
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerIliad1.html 
http://www.camws.org/meeting/2006/abstracts/larkin.html 
http://www.anyclip.com/movies/troy/trojan-war-room/#!quotes/ 
http://www.youtube.com

Friday, 19 April 2013

Character Analysis: Briseis? Who's that?

The fact that Briseis is a minor character and in fact merely a symbol of honour in the Iliad and a shallow love interest in Troy, actually gives us a big insight into Ancient Greek culture. Depicting the story of The Iliad without attention to Briseis and her role as a slave is to miss a major cultural aspect present in the poem. The character of Briseis, in the world of Homer's epic poem, mainly follows the male perspective. From descriptions of her appearance and accounts of the events affecting Briseis, the likely male author/narrator as well as the male characters present and shape her into a mostly male dominated culture's idea of women, with its focus on her appearance, domestic skills, and sexuality as the main values concerning woman. Even though Homer sets high priority on both males and females physical appearances, male characters deliver far more dialogue than their female counter-parts, providing better opportunities for development of the male characters. In this quote, Homer describes her as little more to Agamemnon than a prize to claim, “But I will threaten you thus: as Phoebus Apollo takes from me the daughter of Chryses, her with my ship and my companions I will send back, but I will myself come to your tent and take the fair-cheeked Briseis, your prize, so that you will understand how much mightier I am than you, and another may shrink from declaring himself my equal and likening himself to me to my face." 

Although she seems unimportant, she has a large role in the outcome of the war in both texts. The best way to describe how she affects the war is by saying her influence is indirect. She doesn’t really affect the battlefield as she does Achilles. This is very important as Achilles is the best warrior the Achaeans possess and to have the power to change whether or not Achilles even partakes in the war is a large role to have. The reason she doesn’t directly affect the outcome of the war is that she’s merely a symbol of pride and honour amongst the men. The fact that she only has two pieces of dialogue, the second being Briseis expressing her sorrow over Patriclus’ death tells us that she does very little to influence how the soldiers think.

The Curious Case of the Missing Oracle

It all starts with Paris and his “accidental” affair with Helen. The film makes it seem as if they just met each other and have fallen and love. Greek Myth however would have you believe she was persuaded by Aphrodite in return for Paris declaring her fairest of all the goddess's. But this is quite minor so it’s easy to tell the story without it. The next big event ignored is the supplication of Agamemnon by Chryses. Without this event, I suppose, there is no need for Apollo to be angry –aside from the fact the Achaeans pillaged his temple- so I suppose it makes economic sense to cut out both that and Apollo’s plague. And so continues the film with only verbal references to the all mighty gods.

One could say that the film almost makes fun of the gods. Early in the film, as the Achaean armada approaches , there is a conversation between King Priam and Prince Hektor where Hektor questions the gods power. This also summerises a the rest of the films tone towards the gods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsbuxdVeW0


The next scene regarding the god’s role in the war occurs after the Greeks first strike at the walls. The leaders of Troy assemble to discuss their next move.
http://www.anyclip.com/movies/troy/trojan-war-room/#!quotes


It is at the end of the movie that Wolfgang Peterson’s ironic humour of their gods really shines through. The horse if found and a priest claims it to be a gift to the gods, it must therefore be taken inside the city. Paris objects and says they should burn it. King Priam however, takes the side of the priests and this simple act leads to the sacking and burning of the once great city.


Leaving the gods out probably wasn’t the best decision artistically, but history-wise Wolfgang Peterson can’t be criticised: it's relatively safe to say that the gods didn’t actually exist. He was trying to create a world that a modern audience can relate to, he succeeded, but at what cost? We lose a big part of the over-all feel of the Iliad and the people of that time. Economically, he manages to fit an epic poem of about 150,000 words into 196 minutes as well as adding extra background information before and after the happenings of the Iliad. Not to mention the Idea of a god coming down and having a conversation with someone mid-battle would be difficult to depict and wouldn’t make much sense to an audience of people who –for the most part- don’t care or know much about the Greek Gods or their influence on the ancient society.


In the Iliad, having the gods involved, has a significance that affects the affairs of both mortals and immortals for times to come. The story of the Trojan War itself can be seen as a lesson in human nature. It is a textbook in psychology, anthropology, cosmology, and metaphysics. All the myths have something important to say about human nature, because they are always about the interaction of men with the gods. A myth told without the gods is only half of the story, and not the better half at that.

In "Troy," the gods have become useless, foolish, and even the bringers of useless decisions; to put our confidence in them is to bring about ruin. Like our modern science and culture, which avoids the mysterious in favor of what we can see, hear, and measure, a story of Troy without the gods is only really about the arrogance of warriors and their strategies, which end in either victory or defeat. The story in the film told misses the opportunity to make us question our beliefs about the human heart and the human soul.



Thursday, 18 April 2013

Character Analysis: Achilles

Achilles plays a very important role in both the poem and the film. There are however many differences between the two depictions of Achilles. In the poem he is an over-emotional, irrational, inhuman Greek hero that only displays any sort of empathy near the end of the poem when King Priam asks for Hektors Body to be returned, a tool possibly used by 'Homer' to show the final development of Achilles in which his anger and hatred subsides into a human like quality of understanding. In the film he is a more human character, his actions are able to be rationalised by the audience, for example, his decision to stop participating in the siege of Troy are understandable in the film. He dislikes the corrupt reasoning behind Agamemnon’s decision to wage war and in turn refuses to partake in their attacks (similar to in the Iliad). It is only as Hektor mistakes Patroclus as being Achilles and kills him that Achilles is sent into any emotional rage and decides to lay waste to Hektor and Troy itself. This is justified as in the film Patroclus is his cousin and the most important person in his life.



In the Iliad, Achilles is angered early on in the text with Agamemnon’s decision not to return Chriseis to her father. He is even more enraged when he claims Achilles spoils of war, Briseis. He is actually quite close to killing him when all of a sudden divine intervention strikes. Athene descends from the heavens and tells Achilles his prize will be "I have come from heaven to stay your anger, if you will obey, The goddess white-armed Hera sent me forth, for in her heart she loves and cares for both of you. But come, cease from strife, and do not grasp the sword with your hand. With words indeed taunt him, telling him how it shall be. For thus will I speak, and this thing shall truly be brought to pass. Hereafter three times as many glorious gifts shall be yours on account of this arrogance. But refrain, and obey us.” [excerpt from the Iliad, www.theoi.com] Achilles immediately returns his sword to its scabbard. This begins his hatred for Agamemnon. He sits on the beach crying and pleading for help from his mother, the goddess Thetis. As well as displaying a large involvement of gods in the Iliad, this also shows that the Iliad’s Achilles doesn’t have the ability to make rational decisions without the help of the gods. It’s as if many of the heroes, especially Achilles, don't possess the ability to act within reason. This could explain why heroes of Greek Myth do and react to things the way they do, with raw emotion and without question. This is a large point that Wolfgang Peterson misses with his film adaptation, most likely for the reason of making characters relatable.

Achilles handles the situation quite differently in the film, this can be seen here as he is influenced by the dramatic dialogue of Briseis and left to decide by himself. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRlABnHYY68

Sunday, 14 April 2013

Pretend Gods and Ordinary Men

The film, Troy, ignores the existence of the Greek Gods and portrays it’s heroes as action movie clichés. Not only are the gods ignored, they are mocked. The very beginning of the Iliad, where Chryses is supplementing Agamemnon for Chriseis’ return, is ignored in the film. This means that Apollo doesn’t exact his revenge on the Achaeans, nor do any of the gods for that matter. It is as if Petersen wishes us to view the Trojan War without understanding their beliefs and values, instead he means to create relatable characters.

We see Petersen treating Achilles and the other heroes as humans, rather than ‘larger than life’ demi-gods of Greek myth. In the Iliad, the heroes are much more than humans and are far from relatable. They display huge extremes of emotion and do not question the will of the gods or even Mortality itself. In the film, however, we can see Achilles doing just that, “I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” This humanisation of an otherwise god-like Achilles is unseen in The Iliad and I will discuss it in my next post.

Thursday, 11 April 2013

Indroduction


In this blog I will be highlighting and analysing the key differences between the Epic poem, ‘The Iliad’ and the film adaptation, ‘Troy’. The Iliad is the epic poem based around the Achaeans 10 year siege on the city of Troy. The Iliad focuses mainly around the last few weeks of the siege rather than the whole 10 years and the conflict between King Agamemnon and Achilles. The Iliad starts near the end of the war when Chryses is asking for Chryseis' return after Agamemnon makes her his slave.

The film, however, starts much earlier and depicts the dinner of peace in which Menelaus of Sparta is discussing terms with Prince Hektor of Troy. Hektor’s brother, Paris, has sneaked upstairs to accompany Menelaus’s young wife and ask her to come back to Troy with him. She chooses to go and Paris smuggles her on the boat the following morning. This is a key in triggering the following war –along with Agamemnon’s desire to control Troy- as there is now an incentive to invade. Agamemnon prepares 1000 triremes for the voyage and the movie plays through to the fall of Troy.

There are many differences between the book and the film and we can learn a lot about Greek culture from both. I believe this blog will enable us to create connections between ancient and modern society and in turn assist our understanding of the Ancient World.