Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Assignment for Thursday, 12-01-16

Dear Mythologists,

For Thursday, December 1, please do the following:

(1) Watch Troy (Wolfgang Peterson, 2004), taking notes as you see fit. In addition to the DVD being reserved at the library, the film is also streaming on Amazon. Remember as you watch that this movie was conceived in the full fervor of post-Gladiator fever.

(2) Read the second half of Looking at Movies Chapter 5 ("Mise-en-Scene") (pp. 187–210).

(3) Read Monica Cyrino's essay, "Helen of Troy" (2007), a pivotal piece in a scholarly volume specifically conceived in response to the film (one of several such volumes edited by the prolific Martin L. Winkler).

(4) Remember by noon on Thursday to comment on this post with your choice of a sequence from Troy to view in class.

DC

13 comments:

  1. I'd like to see the first scene from 00:01:30 - 00:09:15 because it does a really good job of establish the characters as well as the tone for the rest of the film. In particular I liked Achilles sleeping in and the dynamic between the kings.

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  2. I'd like to look back at the sequence that runs from 2:03:03-2:07:00ish (or at least talk about part of this since the sequence is a bit on the longer side). In the beginning the audience takes on the perspective of the Greeks. We see the vast numbers of the Trojan army, hear them beat on their shields, and the light and color of the film gives us a sense of grim despair. Then, as "Achilles" nears, everything gets brighter, both in the sense of the Greeks' morale and the coloring of the movie itself. It's a great example of how filmmakers use costuming and camera work to immerse the audience in the film. The Greeks think that Achilles has come to save the day and, if they don't know the traditional story, the audience has a similar reaction.
    (I think I watched the director's cut so my time-stamp might be a bit off)

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  3. I would like to watch the scene of Achilles death (2:57:34-3:02:33). Contrary to Homer’s Iliad, this film is not about Achilles’ anger but rather Achilles love to Briseis. In my opinion ideas about heteronormativity once again manifest themselves and cover any indication of homo erotic activity that the myth presents. In this case we may not have the bodybuilder-like hero, but we still get Brad Pitt a sex symbol of his era through whom the director reassures us about the heteronormative nature of the paly.

    -Frini

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  4. I'd like to watch the scene of Achilles' death, focusing on when he is shot through the heel. I was personally very surprised that Achilles was able to move a little afterwards. In other versions I've seen or read the moment Achilles' heel is wounded he dies immediately.

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    1. Sorry I forgot the time stamp 02:28:24 - 02:29:23 I hope I watched the correct version.

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  5. Hector and Achilles fight. Not just cause I love fight and all that jazz, but also because I think they REALLY get it right. I think that their depiction of violence is given a lot of importance in this film because of how front ant center it is with the Iliad.

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    1. I also wanted to watch this scene (the time code is 1:57:17-2:03:00). I'm most interested in the dialogue before the fight, actually. It does a good job of explaining Achilles' and Hector's motivation, and I really like the line 'There are no pacts between men and lions.' However, I feel like some of the changes really removes some of the scene's oomph. Particularly the decision to make Patroclus Hector's cousin.

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  6. I'd like to watch Achilles' pep talk with the Myrmidons before they disembark at T-Day, beginning at 52:00 and ends at 54:50. This scene is reminiscent of modern sports culture: Achilles leads them in a pre-game huddle, like a football coach or captain, and the Greeks still on their ships chant his name like spectators at a game. Is this an example of modern conventions anachronistically finding their way into adaptations of myth, or of a longer masculine martial legacy which has now become what we know was sports culture? The scene also drives home for audience members that the other Greek generals were not exaggerating about Achilles: he is great, but he's so cavalier in the face of death that he seems crazy. This scene also has one of the funniest line deliveries in the film: "Do you know what's waiting there, beyond that beach? Immortality! TAKE IT, IT'S YOURS!!!!!!"

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  7. I would like to watch the scene from 1:01:50 - 1:03:20 (ish) where we see Helen lamenting the war and the loss of Trojan men. She cries on Hector's shoulders and says that everything is her fault. Although she doesn't call herself a whore, this draws very close to the depiction of Helen in Homer's poem. I also found it particularly interesting that, even though it humanizes her in a lot of ways, the movie focuses on her role only in relation to Paris. She is not independent or her own woman in many ways, and she is definitely less powerful of a character than the previous Helen we watched.

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  8. I would like to view the scene when Achilles is dragged around the city by Hector. I think that this scene would be really interesting to view especially in comparison to the movie Helen of Troy, especially since this is such an common scene across Troy-related stories.

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    1. I'd like to see this too, likely in conjunction with the fight just before (around the 2 hour mark). We saw just before the fight that Hector wanted to respect the body of the loser, but Achilles' rage gets the best of him. The reactions in the castle (?) help drive home what a heinous act this is.

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  9. I would like to watch the scene where Hector kills Patrocles around 1:44:17. I thought this scene was interesting because it shows an important characteristic of Hector. He thinks that he is fighting Achilles and so the audience gets the idea that we talked about in class that Hector would be elevated in status by defeating a worthy opponent. However, Eric Bana also does a pretty good job in portraying Hector's hope and desperation in this scene - maybe if he kills Achilles then the war will end. There is shock and despair on his face when he realizes that the man he has been fighting is not Achilles. In this reaction, I saw a sense of doom as well. It's almost like Hector realizes he lost his chance to beat Achilles and now has to become resigned to his fate. Lastly, the audience sees more of Hector's heroic qualities when he puts Patrocles out of his misery rather than letting him bleed out and also when he tells Odysseus the greeks can have a day for the funeral. There is no fight over Patrocles' body like there is in the Iliad.

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  10. I'd like to look at the scene from about 33:30 when Achilles speaks to his mother. I thought it was interesting that while the gods are mentioned often in the movie, they are never shown, and Thetis appears to be a normal human woman, although she predicts Achilles's fate. I think this scene humanizes Achilles very much, as we see his relationship to his mother and how her own values of fame and glory affect Achilles. By removing the gods from the screen, this movie, like some of the peplum films, focuses entirely on human interaction and conflict, as the war is driven not by the affairs of the gods, but the characters' different motivations for war.

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