.jpeg)
Troy (2004)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
In a sense, the film is a retelling of the Iliad with some modifications. In the Iliad, there was no single hero; everyone played their part and was a hero in their own right. However, in this film, the story revolves around Achilles and his prowess, transforming him into a love-struck lover boy. Nevertheless, Brad Pitt, who portrayed Achilles, excelled in this role. Almost prophetically, Brad Pitt sustained an injury to the same vulnerable part of the Greek warrior.
The film also emphasised that Achilles' weakest point was indeed the tendon bearing his name, where his mother, Thetis — an immortal goddess — held him to dip into the River Styx to make him invulnerable. Achilles was born from the union of an immortal nymph and a mortal father, which made him mortal. Therefore, Thetis aimed to make her son invincible.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are considered the only surviving poems of the ancient Greek epic tradition. There were at least ten to twelve other poems from antiquity that have been lost over time. These epics may constitute different chapters of a larger corpus, but their details are lost to history. The good thing about these poems was that, in each chapter, there was a kind of recap of the chapters before, just like the events at the beginning of the Odyssey overlap with the end of the Iliad. The lost chapters, known as Epic Cycles, tell events happening before the Trojan War: the origins of characters like Achilles, his parents' wedding, Helena's abduction, the mid-war madness, and the tragic events occurring in the aftermath of the War.
In the haste to preserve what was lost, many versions and folklore began to be associated with the myth surrounding the heroes and the sequence of what truly happened. For example, the story of Achilles being dipped is not part of the original Greek myth but a Roman addition.
The theme prevailing in the Iliad is anger. Other books talk about homecoming, betrayal, longing, hospitality and cunning intelligence. Anger caused the Trojan War; anger at having his captive girl (Briseis) taken away made Achilles withdraw from the War halfway; anger at losing Patroclus made Achilles go on a rampage to kill Hector (Patroclus' killer and Paris' brother, who abducted Helen) and drag him all around tied to his chariot. It warns us how wrath can destroy an entire civilisation. Troy was never the same again after the War. Nevertheless, some areas showed compassion and high-level thinking. When rage cooled down, Achilles had an emotional meltdown, looking back at his actions during his meeting with Hector's father, King Priam.
The poem shows how anger reaches a zenith, extends beyond human rage, plateaus, and resolves with an emotional avalanche. By then, its destruction would have reached a point of no return for the rest to pick up the pieces. Everyone finds peace in shared grief.
Farouk Gulsara (asokansham@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
