Troy

 | Movie | Book | Author | Director & cast |

Book: The Illiad (800 BC)
Movie: Troy (2004)

Official movie site: http://troymovie.warnerbros.com/

Premise movie:
"Throughout time, men have waged war. Some for power, some for glory, some for honor – and some for love. In ancient Greece, the passion of two of literature’s most notorious lovers, Paris, Prince of Troy (ORLANDO BLOOM) and Helen (DIANE KRUGER), Queen of Sparta, ignites a war that will devastate a civilization. When Paris spirits Helen away from her husband, King Menelaus (BRENDAN GLEESON), it is an insult that cannot be suffered. Familial pride dictates that an affront to Menelaus is an affront to his brother Agamemnon (BRIAN COX), powerful King of the Mycenaeans, who soon unites all the massive tribes of Greece to steal Helen back from Troy in defense of his brother’s honor. In truth, Agamemnon’s pursuit of honor is corrupted by his overwhelming greed – he needs to conquer Troy to seize control of the Aegean, thus ensuring the supremacy of his already vast empire. The walled city, under the leadership of King Priam (PETER O’TOOLE) and defended by mighty Prince Hector (ERIC BANA), is a citadel that no army has ever been able to breach. One man alone stands as the key to victory or defeat over Troy – Achilles (BRAD PITT), believed to be the greatest warrior alive. Arrogant, rebellious and seemingly invincible, Achilles has allegiance to nothing and no one, save his own glory. It is his insatiable hunger for eternal renown that leads him to attack the gates of Troy under Agamemnon’s banner – but it will be love that ultimately decides his fate. Two worlds will go to war for honor and power. Thousands will fall in pursuit of glory. And for love, a nation will burn to the ground. Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Radiant production, in association with PLAN B, a Wolfgang Petersen film, Troy, starring BRAD PITT and ERIC BANA. The film also stars ORLANDO BLOOM, DIANE KRUGER, BRIAN COX, SEAN BEAN, BRENDAN GLEESON and PETER O’TOOLE. A UK/MALTA Co-Production, Troy is directed by WOLFGANG PETERSEN, produced by WOLFGANG PETERSEN, DIANA RATHBUN and COLIN WILSON; the screenplay is by DAVID BENIOFF; the cinematographer is ROGER PRATT BSC; the production designer is NIGEL PHELPS; and PETER HONESS A.C.E. is the editor. Music by JAMES HORNER." 

from: http://troymovie.warnerbros.com/

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Premise book: 
"The `Iliad' is a summary in verse of what was apparently a very long war conducted against Troy by the Greeks. As in much myth, there is a kernel of reality behind it. That there was such a war is quite likely. It would have made sense for predecessors of the ancient Greeks to conduct a war against the city in order to gain control of the Dardanelles, the water passage between the Mediterranean and Black seas. Had Troy, located near this waterway, been a hostile power, the destruction of it might have enabled the Greeks to colonize the west coast of Asia Minor. The war probably took place sometime between 1250 and 1185 BC. For many centuries it was believed that the `Iliad' was a piece of imaginative and inventive fiction. In 1870, however, the German scholar Heinrich Schliemann began excavations at the place where Troy was believed to have stood. He satisfied himself, and eventually the rest of the world, that there had actually been a war fought there. The excavations revealed that several cities had stood on the spot before the one Homer celebrated. Altogether, Schliemann and his successors found the ruins of nine cities built atop one another over a period of 3,500 years. Homer's Troy was the seventh city. Ruins of its great walls, 16 feet (5 meters) thick, and flanking towers still remained." 

from: http://www.crystalinks.com/homer.html

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Author:
"Homer was traditionally credited with authorship of the major Greek epics Iliad and Odyssey, the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog-Mouse War"), the corpus of Homeric Hymns, and various other lost or fragmentary works such as Margites. A few ancient authors credited him with the entire Epic Cycle, which included further poems on the Trojan War as well as the Theban poems about Oedipus and his sons. Tradition held that Homer was blind, and various Ionian cities claimed to be his birthplace, but otherwise his biography is a blank slate. It is generally agreed among scholars that the Iliad and Odyssey underwent a process of standardization and refinement out of older material beginning in the 8th century BC. An important role in this standardization appears to have been played by the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival. Many classicists hold that this reform must have involved the production of a canonical written text. An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems consist of regular, repeating phrases; even entire verses repeat. Could the Iliad and Odyssey have been oral-formulaic poems, composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized traditional verses and phases? Milman Parry and Albert Lord pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures, is typical of epic poetry in an exclusively oral culture. Exactly when these oral poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis", wherein a non-literate "Homer" dictates his poem to a literate scribe in the 6th century BC or earlier. More radical Homerists, such as Gregory Nagy, contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems as "scripture" did not exist until the Hellenistic period. Other scholars, however, maintain their belief in the reality of an actual "Homer". So little is known or even guessed of his actual life, that scholars joke the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name," and the classicist Richmond Lattimore, author of a good poetic translation to English of both epics, once called a paper "Homer: Who Was She?" Similarly, Robert Graves speculated on a female Homer. Samuel Butler was more specific, theorizing a young Sicilian woman as author of the Odyssey (but not the Iliad)." 

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

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Director: Wolgang Petersen

Cast: Brad Pitt (Achilles), Eric Bana (Hector), Orlando Bloom (Paris), Diane Kruger, (Helen), Brian Cox (Agammenon), Brendan Gleeson (Meneslaus) and others.

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