A conclusion of sorts

So far I’ve blogged about intentions, I’ve blogged about money, and I’ve blogged about religion – romance – violence – culture - social mores.

So now I come to wrap up this little venture – I only have one small point left to mention.

Limitation of Sources. It’s a curious thing to discuss because we’re only comparing two texts – we’re pretty much as ‘limited’ as we can possibly get – but one thing I haven’t mentioned is the reliability of the Iliad itself, as Troy is basically a watered down dramatization of The Iliad and The Aeneid. The Iliad is an ‘epic poem’ something told orally that lasted perhaps thirty hours, with only rhythm to aid the teller in recalling it, called a dactylic hexameter. The fact is, The Iliad is probably very far off what ‘actually’ happened at the battle of troy – especially considering just about no one on earth believes that the gods of Mt. Olympus actually exist, and considering one was Achilles mother, Apollo plagued the Greek troops, Aphrodite saved Paris, Achilles even battles the river god – if none of these gods existed, then there are some gaping holes in the ‘historical’ record of the battle of Troy.

Like I’ve mentioned in the past, It may have been that the rape of Helen was used by the Greeks as an opportunity to justify them uniting and attacking Troy to reap the territorial rewards. The location of Troy in relation to Greece barred Greece from access to particularly fertile land surrounding the black sea – defeating Troy would not only gain them access to that, but establish their military dominance and secure more land for themselves.

As Yale university said on the Iliad, ‘The story combines the history, legends, and religion of the ancient Greeks with the imagination, invention, and lively story-telling abilities of a great poet.’ It seems the most likely argument is the Trojan war was taken advantage of by poets and entertainers for its size and scale, and dramatized, molded to excite their audience, curiously, just as Petersen did again with the Iliad itself.

That’s all from me folks, hope you’re not dead yet.

Bibliography:

www.toshistation.com/troy/
classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_(film)

www.imdb.com/title/tt0332452/
www.imdb.com/title/tt0332452/quotes
www.bookrags.com/essay-2004/8/21/21632/5877/
www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1984/2/84.02.09.x.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/iliad/summary.html
http://www.theoi.com/ (What's wrong..?)
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/classtud/troy/keen-troy.htm)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080427135521AADfrh2
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040514/REVIEWS/405140304/1023

Girls wearing jeans? Men cooking and cleaning? What has the world come too!?

The final major point I want to address in my analysis is one of cultural expectations and codes of behaviour. As I mentioned in my introduction, both Homer’s Iliad and Petersen’s Troy were created to serve a purpose – entertainment, and to best do that they must pander to their very different audiences.

 As we’ve already established, violence, even in excessive doses is not something unfamiliar to the Greeks or modern day people – but perhaps only because we’ve become desensitized to it from watching numerous others, as violent, films. The real divisions between populations pop out of the woodwork when things like Pederasty come up – something widely accepted in Greek culture but what looks to us contemporary viewers as a form of paedophilia. It’s curious that our society can be ok with grievous bodily harm if it’s a decapitation or a well armed spear through the head courtesy of Achilles – but not rape, which is surely no better or worse than a painful death?

Petersen’s adaptation in Troy reflects this, especially in the later scenes of the sacking of Troy itself. Petersen preserves as much gruesome violence as he can involving Greek soldier and Trojan citizen extras – but no rape, although it is implied when a soldier ties up a woman but does not kill her, no killing of young children, except in one instance when a baby is thrown offscreen, only those of the figurative ‘age of majority.’ Curiously, or not so curiously, Petersen also adapts the Iliad to save many of his more important characters from their deaths or indignities to preserve his blockbuster conforming Hollywood film.

Examples of this begin with the fact that Achilles dies long before the Trojan horse enters Troy, the fact that Hektor loses his nerve in his fight with Achilles and runs from him in terror until Achilles catches him, and ends with the sacking of Troy – not only is Paris killed – Hektor’s wife is captured and enslaved, and his child has his brains bashed out by Odysseus before the newborn is thrown from the balcony. If that wasn’t enough, Helen actually shacks up with some random Trojan after Paris dies as well – so much for true love. This isn’t exactly relevant to codes of behaviour, but in a sense it is – the fact that the good guys have to win, at least in part, is just plain expected in all of our forms of storytelling. The ‘true’ ending of the Iliad just straight up isn’t suitable for a modern audience – it would leave a bitter taste in most people’s mouths, and if Petersen instead tried to be realistic, the idea that a war was fought over desirable land and military positioning is a bit more boring than a war forged from true love and drama.

In contrast, the notion of the ‘good guy winning’ wasn’t really present in Greek society, in fact, the idea that the good guy always loses was much more common – just look at Sophocles’ tragedies. However, this doesn’t really apply specifically to the Iliad – unlike Petersen’s Troy, the Trojans really aren’t the ‘good guys’, there really isn’t much of a concept of moral right and wrong in the Iliad at all. 

By Zeus, get me out of here already!

Now that we have (finally) finished addressing the topic of Romance, let us move on to the other bull in the china shop – religion. As I’ve mentioned numerous times before in my previous posts, reference to the Greek gods is possibly the most defining difference between Petersen’s Troy and Homer’s Iliad.  

Homer’s Iliad portrays the Gods as not only sowing the seeds of war with the tale of the apple of discord, but being involved in every twist and turn – Denizens of mount Olympus taking sides such as Poseidon with the Greeks and Apollo with the Trojans leads to scenes described in the poem where the gods are literally fighting in the sand side by side the men.

In comparison, the gods are completely absent – although mentioned numerous times. The only god that physically appears is Achilles’ mother Thetis – though she is only seen in one scene and is portrayed as mundane as possible – so much so that the average viewer probably isn’t aware that she is a god at all. Despite all of this – the gods still eat up their fair share of the film, mostly Apollo as the Trojans devoutly worship him, especially their king Priam. The film dramatizes certain aspects of Greek culture such as hubris and respect to the gods – without the gods actually appearing to have a physical presence in the war like they do in Homer’s Iliad. This comes into play after Achilles’ first battle and victory against the Trojans – he allows his myrmidons to sack the temple of Apollo and kill the priests on the shore. Eudorus cautions Achilles against angering the gods, to which Achilles responds sharply by decapitating the golden statue of Apollo – ‘that is what I think of your gods’ his voiced filled with contempt.

The contrast of respect and lack of respect for the gods plays well into the undercurrent of morality Petersen presents in troy – the Trojans are cast in in a more humane and honourable light, which goes hand in hand with their correct(?) tribute to the gods. This is not a perfect division however, as respect for the gods also clashes with practicality – this is seen in a scene where the high priest of Apollo urges King Priam to make decisions based off signs from Apollo – which Hektor feels are un-agreeable with the war effort. Priam’s decision to trust his priest over his accomplished son shows the strength of his faith in Apollo. Petersen returns to this when the trojans discover the Horse 'left' by the Greeks - Paris and Priam's top military advisor both want to burn it, but Priam's priest of Apollo claims that doing so would anger the gods, and that Hektor's blasphemy earlier is what lead to his death - Priam makes his decision by saying 'I will not see another son of mine die.' By laying heavy scenes at the end of the film when troy is being ransacked and Greeks are tearing down the temple of Apollo with Priam wandering between them, with the look of a broken man – his faith shattered. This is further reinforced when Priam, again a broken man, comes to Achilles to plead him to return his son's body, seen here in the film:

 

This is fairly different to the Iliad’s take on things – where each of the denizens of Mt. Olympus are seen to favour one side of the war effort and physically step in to help their favourites – most notably with Apollo’s spreading of a plague through the Greek army and Aphrodite’s saving of Paris. The film could be considering misleading as it suggests that the Trojans had the gods on their side – Homer’s account shows they merely had some, the Greeks had the rest.

And then there were three.

What!? Still going? Surely not –

Well, of course we are. Romance is not a simple affair – perhaps in ‘fifty shades of grey’, but not for the greeks – we haven’t even touched on Patroclus or Patroklos, depending on which you prefer.

‘What!?’ you may be saying, again – ‘I thought we were talking about romance?’ - well, put your homophobia aside for a second because, yes, we are. In many ways the Greeks were more liberal than we are today. This brings us to another thing Petersen transformed heavily to fit into his mainstream film Troy – the character of Patroclus. In the film Patroclus is the Minnie-me of Achilles – the doted on younger cousin who looks like him, talks like him, fights like him, but just isn’t quite him. This is highlighted in the scene where Odysseus attempts to recruit Achilles for the war, where Achilles manages a whole conversation with Odysseus while easily fending off Patroclus in a sparring match. This clip in the movie can be seen here:

 

 

This is odd considering in the Iliad, Patroclus is not only older than Achilles himself but isn’t his cousin at all. What’s odder is that Patroclus’ appearance in the Iliad is actually very similar to his appearance In Troy, at least during the war – In both Troy and the Iliad, Patroclus dons Achilles’ armour and leads the myrmidons into battle with the Greeks, although in Troy he does this without Achilles’ knowledge or permission, and in both texts he is subsequently killed by Hektor – although in the Iliad Hektor is helped by Apollo.

So why is Patroclus altered in this way by Petersen? Well for one it adds an emotional pull to the audience – mostly those unfamiliar with Patroclus’ relationship prior to the war with Achilles – the fact that he is Achilles’ young cousin allows Petersen to cast Achilles in a doting mentor light, or even a father son relationship, something easily related to the audience. The other, more controversial reason, is something called Pederasty – mostly due to Achilles’ tendency to change his persona around Patroclus as opposed to his other men – described as ‘tender’ on Wikipedia – Classical commentators have generally considered Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship to be paederastic.

Pederasty is, essentially, a homoerotic relationship, usually between males differing in ages. Obviously such a thing is not so accepted in today’s society – but Greek law did not recognise such things as age of consent or sexual orientation, and the phenomenon was mostly accepted. Petersen’s changing of Patroclus to Achilles’ cousin, and the relationship becoming more of a father/son than that of two equal friends helps the audience to lose the erotic undertone and makes the relationship appear platonic.  

Mills & Boons : Electric Boogalo

But wait! There’s more! (Hi, Billy Mays here..)

We’re not done yet on the steamy romance children! We haven’t even begun to look at Achilles’ rather interesting affairs between Homer’s Iliad and Petersen’s Troy, mostly concerning the characters of Patroclus and Briseis.

The Iliad and Troy build two inherently different Achilles characters – The Iliad is focused entirely on his battle prowess and his unending, undying rage and thirst for battle. Troy features a bit more character development on the whole – expanding on his morality especially. In the Iliad, Briseis’ family had been captured by the Greeks, the rest of them killed except for her – Achilles keeps her as a concubine, as a war prize. Agamemnon also takes a prize for himself in the form of a beautiful girl Chriseis – and refuses to give her up. A plague caused by Apollo in retaliation forces Agamemnon to release her, but demands Briseis in compensation. Achilles, said to be in love with Briseis and her with him, referring to her as his wife and lover many times in the Iliad – refuses to fight because of this.

Troy follows a similar plotline at this point – but injects a large dose of drama at every turn. Briseis is now a priestess of Apollo, and a cousin of Hektor – loved by both him and Paris. Instead of in revenge for the loss of Chriseis, who doesn’t even exist in Petersen’s Troy – Briseis is snatched from Achilles by Agamemnon just to taunt him, reinforcing his character as vile and womanizing. Achilles refuses to fight as in the Iliad.

The duel between Paris and Menelaus occurs in Troy after, Menelaus beating Paris easily as in the Iliad, but instead of Aphrodite saving him, it is his brother Hektor, who kills Menelaus, and, in the battle that ensues because of it, also kills the Greek Hero Ajax. Neither of these characters die during the Iliad, and it can be seen as an effort by Petersen to 1) Save Paris without introducing the physical presence of Gods into the plot, and 2) To intensify an action scene nestled between more dialogue heavy portions of the film, which is primarily one of action.

                        Here's the clip of Hektor killing Menelaus in the film for contrasting purposes

Petersen drops some heavy Hollywood fluff into the film here when Agamemnon gives Briseis to his men as amusement after the battle. Achilles saves her from being raped and sex ensues after some bad dialogue and body language. Although Achilles and Briseis share a loving relation in the Iliad, Petersen moulds her into a major character that acts as a character foil for Achilles hidden ‘moral man’ under his bloodthirsty husk – in the Iliad she is merely property of Achilles, causing him to become indignant when she is taken from him. This is extrapolated with her relationship and dialogue scenes with Priam, Hektor and Paris. 

What is Love? Baby Don’t Hurt Me

Don’t hurt me, no more.

Romance plays a big part in both the Iliad and Petersen’s Troy. In both texts – the rape of Helen (stealing) by Paris is the cause of the war. Helen was Menelaus’ wife – brother to Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. In Greek mythology, which the Iliad appears to follow although not directly commenting on it, Zeus charges Paris, prince of troy with judging a beauty contest between the goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite. Paris names Aphrodite as the fairest and in return Aphrodite makes Helen, deemed the fairest of all women fall in love with him. Paris abducts her and takes her back to troy.

In Petersen’s Troy, the romance happens very similarly – just without the mythology. Paris and Helen fall in love with each other of their own accord – without Aphrodite’s input. Lack of input from the gods is recurring in Petersen’s Troy, likely because complex Greek mythology isn’t easily digested by people today. In any case, romance is at the forefront of the conflict, it is the entire reason for the war, sympathies grow in the audience for both Menelaus – whose wife was stolen from him, and Paris & Helen, throwing away their lives in the name of love.

In the Iliad, Paris’ brother Hector urges him to challenge Menelaus to a duel and settle the matter of Helen honourably. Both sides agree. Menelaus wins but Aphrodite intervenes and prevents him from killing Paris, as seen in this quote from the Iliad -

"Flashing forward laid hold of the horse-haired helmet [of Paris] and spun him about, and dragged him away toward the strong-grieved Akhaians, for the broidered strap under the softness of his throat strangled Paris, fastened under his chin to hold on the horned helmet. Now he would have dragged him away and won glory forever had not Aphrodite daughter of Zeus watched sharply. She broke the chinstrap, made from the hide of a slaughtered bullock, and the helmet came away empty in the heavy hand of Atreides. The hero [Menelaus] whirled the helmet about and sent it flying among the strong-greaved Akhaians, and his staunch companions retrieved it. He turned and made again for his man, determined to kill him with the bronze spear. But Aphrodite caught up Paris easily, since she was divine, and wrapped him in a thick mist and set him down again in his own perfumed bedchamber." - Homer, Iliad 3. 369 - 4. 13

 Afterwards, in The Aeneid, the Greeks win the war, Menelaus returns home with both Helen and his victorious brother Agamemnon. This heavily contrasts the ending of Petersen’s Troy, where not only is Menelaus portrayed as a fat, loathsome man as opposed to the legendary warrior he is in the Iliad, but he is also killed in battle by Hector in place of his brother Paris.  Agamemnon is also cast in a dark hue in Troy, goading Achilles by making sexual advances on Briseis, a captured priest of Apollo. During the sacking of Troy, Achilles finds Agamemnon attempting to rape Briseis, who kills him with a concealed blade. Achilles comes to her aid, slaying Agamemnon's soldiers before embracing her.

This is one of the strongest divergences between the texts. Petersen’s Troy blatantly favours the Trojans, at least morally, portraying Paris as a man made brave by love, Hector, a warrior that loves his brother so much he is willing to go into battle for his welfare, and their father Priam, also willing to put his city on the line for his son’s happiness, contrasted with Menelaus and Agamemnon – chauvinistic, bloodthirsty pigs. The redesigned plot reflects this, with Paris and Helen inaccurately escaping together, and Agamemnon and Menelaus both meeting undignified ends. Petersen clearly favours the happier 'love-prevails' ending scenario to The Iliad's and The Aeneid's perhaps more realistic conclusion.

An Introduction: Serving a Purpose

An Introduction: Serving a Purpose

Let’s begin our analysis by making a simple statement – both Homer’s Iliad and Petersen’s Troy were created to a serve a purpose – entertainment. However, how entertaining something is relies on a viewer – and further still, is the film or poem created for entertainment’s sake, or an ulterior motive?

The key factor is, as always, money. Petersen’s Troy is supposed to be entertaining so people will pay their money to watch it – it’s a job, a source of income. Similarly with the Iliad, most people who managed to memorize the entirety of the epic poem were travelling bards – earning their living off telling stories to small populaces. So, if your livelihood relies on your film or poem being entertaining, how are you going to ensure that it...entertains?

Since time began, things that excite us as sentient beings are new. Something we haven’t yet seen is going to pique our interest – the flipside is that something we continue to see, do or listen to will eventually become boring to us – So how does the $175,000,000 budgeted film, and the poem that is thousands of years old manage to excite their audience?

Technology of course plays a part. The film is a film – it operates in both visual and audial mediums, whereas the poem, being told orally, only engages the ears. Coupled with modern technology and a ridiculous budget, the film enters the realms of blockbuster FX, allowing it to re-enact battles of ridiculous size – giving a distinct air of what can only be described as ‘epic’ – something both the film and the poem strive hard to achieve.

The contrast exists in how the texts achieve this – both are excessively violent, but that wasn’t much of a shocker in greek society, however, blood, sweat and gore, decapitations and intense sword fights are eaten up by our relatively sheltered modern society. The film misrepresents the Trojan War as only lasting seventeen days – where the poem gives it its full credit of ten years, although only going into detail in the last few weeks. The awe that comes from the poem comes from the fact that, to the greeks, a war has never been fought on that scale or size. While a fleet of a thousand ships doesn’t raise any eyebrows for anyone schooled on 20^th century history, to the nine year old Greek farm boy, such a number is simply uncountable.

In this way, both the film and the poem seek to entertain by wow-ing the crowd, the poem reinforcing the size and scale of the conflict whereas the film centres on the medieval violence, with both texts propping up the conflict, perhaps not accurately, with seeds of romance.