6:34PM: There’s lots of generic “Eastern-Style” music.
Generally, this would connote terrorists, although here I think it means that
“Gladiator” had come out a couple of years ago.
6:35: Brian Cox looks really silly dressed as Ming
the Merciless.
6:37: Given the fruit salad of ridiculousness that
is this movie’s accents, I don’t know why Brad Pitt sounding like a skate punk and
dressed like Kevin Sorbo strikes me as silly. But it does.
6:40: Good for them for emphasizing Achilles as
swift-running. I think this thing was written by one of the guys who directs
“Game of Thrones,” and it looks as though he at least read the Iliad. (And he
identifies himself as “Son of Peleus.” A sort-of Homeric epithet, only ten
minutes in!)
6:41: Menelaus has a broad Irish accent. Naturally.
6:42: Dancing wenches! And it looks as though the
set-dresser for Game of Thrones has
been at work. I am confident that soon there will be nipples.
6:43: Helen of Troy’s “you shouldn’t be here” is
the single greatest understatement in the history of cinema.
6:44: Weird movie device: Helen of Troy is topless,
but the bottom of the screen cuts off anything interesting. I grow less
confident of nipples.
6:45: I note that all of the characters pronounce
each others’ names differently than I’ve been taught to say them—clearly Warner
Brothers doesn’t respect the antepenultimate accent.
6:46: So it’s love that brings Helen and Paris
together in this version. Ahem.
6:46: Eric Bana sounds Australian.
6:47: Dialogue sample: “I swear by the father of
the gods, I will gut you here…” I can’t tell whether this is stupid or
brilliant.
6:49: Hector says there’s “nothing glorious” about
combat, neatly overturning the entire point of glory in the Greek world.
6:50: On the other hand, at least Brian Cox looks
like he’s having a good time. That makes one of us.
6:51: “He thinks the Sun God will protect him.” So,
one of the things that actually is interesting is the entire displacement of
the gods from this production. Agamemnon says that he wants to “control the
Aegean.” “I created a nation,” he continues. Is it weird to start noting
anachronisms?
6:53: Achilles’ off-season tunic is very “gay
Jedi.”
6:54: Achilles notes that the Trojans never harmed
him—I think he’s quoting Muhammad Ali?
6:55: Patroclus is very firmly Achilles’ “cousin.”
6:56: Achilles’ Mom gives him the prophecy—fight
and earn “glory,” or stay here and have a family—that he receives in the epic.
A little bit odd that she says that he’ll “never come home” if he fights, but I
guess she’s just supposed to be a bit weird as opposed to, you know, prophetic.
6:58: Troy looks a lot like the set for Intolerance, which—if it’s deliberate—is
awesome. I think the soundtrack is quoting Korngold.
7:01: Priam says that “everything is in the Gods’
hands,” or somesuch—he actually seems to welcome Helen as a daughter-in-law.
The movie is really pitting this as a battle of realpolitik against
overconfidence and religion: “How many battalions does the sun-god command?”
7:03: So much dialogue. I’m seriously bored. Helen
of Troy is very in touch with her feelings.
7:05: Somehow I never picture the Trojan War
happening on a nice beach, but this one is really lovely.
7:08: I’m starting to grudgingly respect this
movie, actually—it’s doing a workmanlike job with the materials. (And then
Achilles tells Patroclus “you’re not a Myrmidon yet,” and that sort of washes
away.)
7:09: I don’t know what I want these people to
sound like—but maybe not like this? Hector tells his soldiers to “Honor the
gods, love your woman, and defend your country”; Achilles yells “Immortality!
Take it! It’s yours!” It’s John Wayne vs. Tony Robbins.
7:11: Someone gets a spear right through the
head—just like in the Iliad, actually.
7:13: The entire Greek army in the ships is
cheering him on, just as in the prologue scene. I think the movie needs to do
this to establish why Achilles is such a big deal to the Greeks later on.
7:15: Aaand Achilles cuts off Apollo’s head.
7:16: One thing they do very well is Achilles’
being eerily calm in the face of fighting people. There’s much to be said for
an actor with limited emotive range in the right part.
7:17: So much discussion of “a thousand years from
now.”
7:18: “It’s too early in the day for killing
princes.” Dude, killing princes is the “Miller Time” of the Iliad. It’s five
o’clock somewhere.
7:19: Ajax to Achilles: “I love your work,”
basically.
7:20: We know this is an adaptation because Briseis
is talking and has a personality.
7:22: “I want what all men want. I just want it
more.” There’s something awesome about the compression of the dialogue.
7:25: Briseis stops Achilles from killing everyone,
which is narratively convenient and only mildly
out of keeping with the historical context.
7:28: Aaaand Paris just sort of veers off of
Homer’s script—he’s going to challenge Menelaus, and then all of the Greeks
will go home.
7:29: So, the main issue in the war so far, on the
Trojan side, is whether or not Paris really loves Helen. Oh, and the Sword of
Troy (!) makes an appearance.
7:40: Blah blah blah—dutiful boring dialogue. Troy
will never submit, Freedom!, etc.
7:42: It’s great how movie swords make noise just
moving through the air.
7:43: Paris fighting Menelaus really, really,
really doesn’t happen in the book.
7:46: And Hector kills Menelaus, just ‘cuz.
7:49: Hector kills Ajax.
7:50: It’s kind of jarring to hear “Apollonians:
now!” These are I guess the palace guard? But to me, this suggests an elite
guard of French playwrights (onward, Parnassians.)
7:54: Helen remains in touch with her feelings: “I
don’t want a hero, my love; I want a man I can grow old with.”
7:55: One consequence of retreating: “How long
before the Hittites invade?”
8:00: Briseis tries to kill Achilles in his sleep,
another in our list of things that Didn’t Happen in the Iliad.
8:01: And now they’re, um, making love. Brad Pitt’s
ass has received about as much screen time as Odysseus.
8:09: Achilles returns to combat during a general
rout of the Greeks, thereby missing something like the entire point of chis
character…
8:11: Oh snap it’s actually Patroclus. Actually,
that was pretty well done. And now the weird fact that he and Achilles look
alike makes more sense. And now Hector’s killed him.
8:12: People on both sides keep saying “enough for one
day”—apparently this is flag football.
8:17: I’m really, really sort of enjoying this
pragmatic, dickheaded Agamemnon.
8:21: A daft, original, and really quite commanding
moment: Achilles shows up outside of Troy and just starts screaming for Hector.
8:24: The movie does a lot of things with stillness,
which is effective in parts, as in the lull before the fight between Hector and
Achilles. On the other hand, this movie is also eighteen hours long.
8:27: Hector trips; Achilles lets him up, saying “I
won’t let a stone take my glory.” Sort of interesting in light of the Homeric
gods’ repeated seizings of glory from characters—they’ve really thought about
where the gods enter this story, and what their purposes are.
8:30: Interesting that the Achilles/Briseis “love
story” has taken the place of Achilles’ alone-ness. She’s his interiority, I guess.
8:32: Priam and Achilles happens very suddenly, and
the hand-kissing is genuinely shocking.
8:34: Here Priam
says that one can’t change the will of the gods.
8:36: Achilles breaks down crying over Hector’s
corpse—I think, again, they needed to add these moments of emotion to make
sense of his character. He calls Hector “brother,” which reflects how they’re
generally trying to make these characters seem like equals.
8:37: “If I hurt you, it’s not what I wanted.” Achilles goes all Ryan Gosling for a second.
8:40: Odysseus sees someone carving a horse, and…
8:43: The Greeks fake their departure via plague,
so we’ve taken care of that element of the story.
8:44: “It’s an offering for the gods” is used to
explain why no-one burns the horse.
8:47: Nothing glorious in the final battle—it’s
just a slaughter.
8:48: Achilles spares someone because they have a
son, and is going after Briseis. Even my students are giggling.
8:50: Aeneas receiving the Sword of Troy is like
getting fist-bumped by history, when history's been drinking a little bit. On the one hand, that's one more Aeneid reference than appears in, oh, the remainder of cinema; on the other hand--well, fine, it's just awesome.
8:51: Helen of Troy escapes because, why not?
8:53: Agamemnon kills Priam in the sanctuary. My
inner twelve-year-old acknowledges this as bad-assed.
8:54: Briseis stabs Agamemnon, which also doesn’t
happen.
8:54: Paris shoots Achilles through the heel. And
then through a number of other places.
8:58: Odysseus at the end—“let them say that I
walked with giants.” This is actually super-intelligent: c'est a dire, there were no real giants, and the Odyssey is actually just an inflation of things he did. I'm sort of giggling in appreciation at this.
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