free variable

Andrea and I saw Troy, Wolfgang Petersen’s current “unendliche Geschichte,” last night. It was entertaining overall (especially for $4 at the inexpensive cinema we attended — $8 at the local googolplex would have been too much). However, it was overlong (nearly 2:45!) and had some critical problems preventing it from being as good as it could have been.

note to cut-to-the-chase-savvy readers: If you want to “experience” Troy in 150 fewer minutes than it would take to do so in the theater, check out this amusing abridged version. Unfortunately, it will probably be amusing only if you’ve already seen the movie.

The first and most crucial problem is that the movie was emotionally uncompelling. None of the characters were worth caring about, with the possible exceptions of Hector and Priam. There was nothing heroic about Achilles — a cocky meathead who couldn’t make it through twelve lines of dialogue without mentioning that he was fighting for his place in the history books. I was wholly unconvinced that anyone would be willing to die because this Achilles fought with him. Paris and Helen are obnoxious adolescents, à la “Troy, 90210.” Why adolescence — perhaps the most tiresome, worthless, and deleterious aspect of industrial Western society — is constantly projected by our media on to societies that, blissfully, never knew it is beyond me. Tragic heroes are bound by duty to something external, but for the adolescent, “tragedy” is the conflict of two momentary whims — hardly a basis for mythology.

In trying to cram over a decade of war into a commercially viable movie, the mythic aspects suffered greatly. Hector is established as a legendary hero by the continued presence of cheers from the rabble. Achilles is established as a legendary hero by kicking so much ass. Unfortunately, that’s not all it takes, or Homer would have also written “Bon Jovi, Live from Budokan” or “Die Hard” (in which a wisecracking Odysseus rescues the estranged Penelope from an office building full of barbarians). While the Iliad explored the complexities of the mythical, larger-than-life personalities of the mythical, larger-than-life players, this movie followed a standard recitative-aria structure designed apparently to appeal to violence-crazed men and their fingernail-buffing significant others: emotionless but superbly filmed battle scenes sandwiched between scenes of pointless character development, sex, or spousal nagging. (Fortunately, at no point did Orlando Bloom — as Paris — “surf” down a staircase on a shield, spraying a stream of arrows at invading Greeks.) There is no “legend” in this movie, but how could there be, when there is barely any human interest, or even adult characters?

Darrell Hartman has a letter from Athens in the Christian Science Monitor today, which describes the disappointment that some contemporary Greeks have expressed at the portrayal of their ancestors; it is worth reading. As I sat in the theater, in front of several young women excitedly speaking Greek to one another, I wondered: how does this make them feel to see, for example, Agamemnon “downsize[d]…into a petty imperialist,” as Hartman puts it? (I was reminded of the news reports of Somali Americans watching bootleg copies of Black Hawk Down and cheering, for some reason.)

The score, by talentless hack James Horner, is an horrific embarrassment: almost three hours of chewing over one motive stolen from the fourth movement of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony (perhaps Horner should “reply” to “just criticism” himself!), with occasional reversion to “ominous string sounds” and clichéd microtonal feminine Mediterranean wailing. I swear I could have done at least as well myself as a 2d-year undergraduate music major. Seriously, introducing a Falco impersonator in order to sing “Rock me, Menelaus” would have constituted an improvement.

One might assume that such a movie might have a clear, heavy-handed set of foreign policy recommendations, but one would be wrong. There are a number of clear jabs at war in general and at various situations that arise in wars (the example of a “king who is too far from combat to know we’ve won” comes up frequently in the first reel). However, this movie may serve as a foreign-policy Rorshach test. Who do you see as America? The isolationist “they’ll never breach our walls” Trojans or the colonizing “must rape the world” Spartans? Did the downfall of Troy (in the movie) result from ignoring Hector’s advice not to attack the retreating army, or from ignoring Paris’ advice to burn the horse? For the Trojans, was the abduction of Helen really “why they hate us?” Maybe these are interesting questions, but it is perhaps best that this film didn’t raise them; I can’t imagine it would have a coherent answer.

I’m currently listening to 59. Rezitativ from the album “J.S. Bach – Matthäus Passion BWV 244″ by Masaaki Suzuki/Bach Collegium Japan