Troy Vey

I'm generally a good two years behind on watching movies.

So last night I decided to take advantage of the On Demand feature on our cable and watch Troy, which I hadn't yet seen. It does seem ridiculous that a former Classics major, a guy who makes part of his living performing a folk opera based on Homer's Odyssey, would wait over a year to see a movie ostensibly based on The Iliad.

In my defense, recent movie adaptations of classical subjects have, well, sucked donkey balls, (vid. Armand Asante's made-for-TV Odyssey) and I was scared that Troy would be no different.

I decided to set aside my dork credentials and give the movie every benefit of the doubt. I swore to myself I would judge it on its spirit rather than how faithfully it stuck to the exact conventions of The Iliad. I noted it was called "Troy," and not The Iliad, reminding myself that a key part of the cannon of Greek myth is the freedom of interpretation it gives the artist.

So I took a deep breath and started watching...

My verdict? Troy does not suck donkey balls.

It sucks goat balls.

Let me try to briefly explain how big these goat balls are.

A big part of the brilliance of The Odyssey and The Iliad is found not in what the author has left in the stories... it's in what the author has cut out. It's in the use of a big historical setting (e.g. The Trojan War) as a frame for the smaller stories of Odysseus' homecoming and Achilles' anger, respectively.

Actually, that's backwards: these works frame a huge historical event in smaller, personal stories. Which is how most historical events are lived and experienced. The Iliad, the entire epic poem, is centered around a few weeks in the ninth year of the ten year Trojan War.

There's no mention of the Trojan Horse or of Paris killing Achilles. The Iliad is a story about the tragedy of war, and the struggles of a brilliant warrior within this tragedy, and by limiting the story the reader experiences more depth and weight.

The movie?

Tries to tell the story of the war from beginning to end.

So the audience loses a good portion of the pathos the book so brilliantly conveys. Okay... maybe this is inevitable. The Greek audience would have know the entire back and front story for the Trojan War. The modern movie audience, not so much.

But... setting that aside, certain decisions that were made in the writing really took away from what I think should be the essence of any story about the Trojan War.

So... before my disgust gets the best of me and I start dissertating on the flaws of Troy, I'm going to go find a used copy of season three of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

There's nothing a little Kevin Sorbo action can't cure.

jbg