No, that’s not it, the king is wrong: the warriors don’t die because the guardian gods turn away from them. In his adaptation of Homer’s Iliad, Wolfgang Petersen deletes from history all the Allfathers behind which those doomed to die can hide. No Zeus in a white robe moving them around his Acropolis like chess pieces. People make their mistakes all alone.
The absence of gods in “Troy” is a sensation. As if the Bible had been made into a film and God had been left out. The script was written by David Benioff, who later directed the TV adaptation of George RR Martin’s “Game Of Thrones” novels with a similar focus: on a mystical world, but without its world creator.
Box office grossed $497 million. That was good, not phenomenal. The meetings were devastating. Many accused director Petersen of disrespectful handling of the material of an ancient poet. In Homer’s 24 Troy books, the gods are manipulators of the course of war – but Petersen was concerned with the tragedy that people can cause. The conflict between Trojans and Greeks plus Spartans begins when Trojan fool Paris (Orlando Bloom) falls in love with the naive Helena (Diane Kruger), who belongs to Sparta. Pure cynicism that in the end it is precisely this pair of curls that survives. Tens of thousands die because of them.
In Homer, the goddess Aphrodite supports the prince in his approach to Helena. Petersen portrays Paris as a self-centered weakling. He shoots an arrow into Achilles’ heel from a distance and seals his downfall – Homer at least had Apollo wield the bow.
“Troy” is a Hollywood project that does not offer any identifying characters. Peter O’Toole (Priamos) cursed “Kraut” Petersen and his adaptation of the Iliad during filming. To date, the German has not made a film of this size. The fact that he was allowed to bring a “Director’s Cut” to cinemas in 2007 – that at least seemed like the grace of God.
It’s amazing how poorly “Troy” performed compared to the critics’ favorite “Gladiator,” which had been released four years earlier. Ridley Scott’s revenge drama with Russell Crowe delivered a clear good/evil pattern. Slave Maximus kills Emperor Commodus because he had his family executed.
Achilles climbs into the air
If only it had been so easy in “Troy”, here the hero, there the villain. It’s impossible to choose a side. But that’s the appeal. The Trojans present Priam, who appears stunned, and Hector (Eric Bana), an heir to the throne who is ruined by his sense of duty. The Greeks bring in the greedy Agamemnon (Brian Cox), a pretending Odysseus (Sean Bean) and the mercenary Achilles (Brad Pitt), who doesn’t care whose side he is on, as long as it is in the biggest battle of all time. This anti-hero kills Hektor, the only one who is almost equal, and he knows that in doing so he is promoting the extinction of his own species.
Oh yes, the fights! Choreographer Stuart Crane had Brad Pitt practice a style you’ve never seen before and will never see again: Achilles as a dancer, holding his spear where Hector will run. As an Olympic statue, holding out the weapon and shield and posing in the middle of a duel. And, this didn’t look like a computer effect, but rather as if it had been trained: Pitt’s Achilles climbs up in the air to ram the sword vertically into the neck of an opponent.
Achilles was the greatest fairytale warrior of all time. In any case, Wolfgang Petersen took the Iliad seriously.