Troy | review by Rafe McGregor

Much more than sword and sandal.

The literal meaning of Iliad is ‘poem about a lion’, where the lion is Troy, an ancient city in what is now Çanakkale, a province in northwestern Turkey. The work is attributed to Homer, about whom very little is known except that he was Greek, probably born in the eighth century BCE, and inaugurated European literary heritage with the Iliad and its sequel, the Odyssey, a pair of epic poems about the Trojan War. Bearing in mind that the Iliad comes from an oral rather than written tradition, it was performed in twenty-four divisions of dactylic hexameter, which became twenty-four ‘books’ when it was translated from the Ancient Greek original and written down. There are multiple English translations, some of which are prose and others poems, and multiple adaptations of the narrative into a wide variety of art forms from plays to operettas to graphic novels. Given its epic scope, dramatic intensity, and historical significance, there is a sense in which it is very surprising that there have been only six cinematic adaptations (excluding three television series). The most notable of these are the first, The Fall of Troy (La caduta di Troia, 1911), a short, silent Italian film directed by Giovanni Pastrone and Luigi Romano Borgnettoof; The Fury of Achilles (L’ira di Achille, 1962), an Italian feature film directed by Marino Girolami; and Troy (2004), a Hollywood blockbuster directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

In another sense, however, the lack of cinematic adaptations compared to, for example, films about the Romans, is not so surprising. The Iliad is nearly three thousand years old, narrates events that may or may not have happened four to five hundred years before it was first performed, and depicts a culture that is not only remote from modern Europe but from Classical Greece itself (dated to the fifth and fourth centuries BCE). I remember my bitter disappointment on first reading it, which must have been about thirty years ago: every time there was a bit of excitement (or ‘peril’ as the British Board of Film Classification calls it), one of the gods stepped in and saved the hero from injury or death. In this respect, I found it very similar to contemporary superhero films, where everyone knows none of the protagonists are ever going to die (because Hollywood couldn’t afford it). I was expecting a recognisable narrative in an unrecognisable setting from a remote culture, but the agential element that is so crucial to story as we know it now is almost entirely absent. The actions of the heroes and other characters make almost no difference to the outcome, which is predetermined by the gods and by fate. Petersen, who is best known for The Boat (Das Boot, 1981) and The Never Ending Story (1984), made several very shrewd creative decisions before he began filming.

First, he removed all the divine interventions and all the supernatural elements. Strictly speaking this is a war film set three thousand years ago rather than a fantasy film, like Clash of the Titans (1981, 2010). The gods are, in fact, mocked, by Achilles (played by Brad Pitt) in particular, because although most people have absolute faith in them, they never intervene and battles are won by soldiers rather than priests. Various characters make various prophecies, but they are hit and miss, just like in reality. Petersen also ignored features of Ancient Greek culture that would be confusing for many contemporary audiences (and, sadly, offensive to some), such as bisexuality being the norm and Achilles being both Patroclus’ (played by Garrett Hedlund) lover and the junior partner in the relationship (in spite of his superior skill at arms). The removal of the supernatural elements and the cultural changes mean the film is not very true to the original poem, but it also opens the oldest surviving literary work in Europe to a broad audience and makes for a genuinely epic narrative that is as gripping as it is moving.

I’m not going to say much about the sequence of events of the film here because it follows the Iliad (which takes place in the last few weeks of a ten-year siege) and its precursors quite closely: Agamemnon, the Achaean (Greek) king, is set on conquering as much of the Mediterranean as he can and uses the elopement of Helen (played by Diane Kruger) with Paris (played by Orlando Bloom) as an excuse to invade Troy. The cinematic narrative condenses Helen’s elopement and the decade-long war into a few weeks or months, which is another shrewd choice by Petersen because very little happens in the first nine years of the war in the legend (the reason the Iliad takes place at its end). His version of the Iliad is very much the story of Achilles, who is the world’s greatest warrior but prone to vanity, rage, and an existential ennui that comes with having killed so many men without remorse or regret. There are at least two great aspects of this film as cinematic art, the first of which is casting. Pitt is perfect for the role of Achilles and so is almost everyone else for their own respective roles, from Eric Bana as Hector to Sean Bean as Odysseus, Rose Byrne as Briseis, Peter O’Toole as Priam, and even minor characters, such as Julie Christie as Thetis (Achilles’ mother). The second aspect is the action sequences. From the opening duel between Achilles and Boagrius (played by Nathan Jones) to a Saving-Private-Ryan-style amphibious landing to several large-scale battles and single combats that are either part of those battles or discrete duels, every scene with a sword or a bow is perfectly filmed.

I’d normally worry about over-egging the pudding after writing something like that, but it’s hard to find fault with either the cast or the action, even if you don’t enjoy the film as a whole. Troy is also unique in my experience in that I preferred the theatrical cut to the director’s cut, which was released in 2007 with an extra thirty-three minutes of footage. The Director’s Cut is still a very good film, but I thought the extra half hour slowed the pace too much and part of what I love about Troy is that it is such a lean, lithe narrative, with no scene or even shot wasted. Why the interest now, twenty-two years later? The Odyssey, which is directed by Christopher Nolan, is due for release next month. I must admit to having all sorts of reservations about it, including the casting, particularly but not exclusively Matt Damon as Odysseus. Bean was perfect as the wily warrior whose brain matches Achilles’ brawn, who can fight when he needs to, but prefers to win by guile rather than by strength. I just can’t see Damon bringing this subtlety to the role and what I’ve seen in the trailers hasn’t allayed any fears. Time, and Nolan’s predilection for playing with it, will tell.****