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Troy (directed by Wolfgang Peterson)

Summary: This film recounts the story of the Trojan War from its romantic beginning to its tragic end. The director made a strong attempt to portray the story realistically, without any supernatural or divine elements, despite the strong presence of the Olympians gods in the original source material.

Evaluation: The problem when it comes to creating a film version of the story of the Iliad, is that the story focuses upon the Greek champion Achilles, a bloodthirsty, lustful and selfish man. In order for him to be remotely likable to an audience, he has to be made into a better person by the end of the film, redeemed by love. The original Achilles in the Iliad is known mainly by his lack of shame, he never ever feels badly for anything he does, no matter how many people suffer or die from his actions. Other characters are similarly altered to make them more palatable to a modern audience, which makes them less interesting to watch.

The other great flaw in this adaptation is that the story of Troy becomes one of hope rather then tragedy. Homer foreshadows the fate of every major character in the Iliad within his work, and nobody lives happily ever after. Tragedy befalls every major character in the story usually through death or enslavement. The entire point of the story of Troy, is that it is an unavoidable disaster that creating suffering for everyone involved, Greek and Trojan alike. There are dozens of causes for the Trojan War in Greek mythology, all of which are touched upon at one time or another by Homer in the original text, impressing upon any reader how impossible it is that anyone will make it out of the conflict unscathed.

The strongest point of the film is probably the fighting style of Achilles, which seems appropriately superhuman. He is the divine son of a goddess and a legendary warrior, and he moves with the graceful ease of someone built for war.

Rating: C+ ; See it for the fighting, ignore everything else.

Resources:

Homer, Iliad. Translated by Samuel Butler. Perseus Project.

An excellent online translation taken from the a classic translation, includes in text hyperlinks to standard commentaries on the work. All text used is from out of copyright materials.

Homer, Iliad. Translated. by Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997.

This translation is done in colloquial English and is considered the most popular and accessible of the current print translations.

Quintus of Smyrna, The Fall of Troy. Translated by Arthur S. Way. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005.

Written in 3^rd century C.E., based off of texts we no longer have access to, and thus a valuable resource regarding how the Trojan War ended.