Myth in Film: Troy (2004)
Examining the legacy of Helen of Troy
Often illustrated as the ‘temptress’ or ‘seductress queen’ archetype, Helen is one of the most recognizable and divisive characters within Homer’s Iliad. Characterized as the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, coveted by kings and gods alike, Homer’s description of Helen frames her beauty as a curse- one that places her within the eye of the storm that is the Trojan War. Her abduction by Paris and persecution by Aphrodite likewise detail her ultimate place as a victim within the greater context of the story. However, contemporary accounts of the Trojan War, especially Hollywood retellings, purposefully reframe Helen of Troy in order to excuse the actions of male characters such as Paris or Menelaus. Specifically, Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 film, Troy, which will provide the secondary basis for this comparative analysis.
HELEN OF TROY:
Between both texts, Helen’s defining attributes remain much the same: all-alluring beauty that generates the initial conflict between Paris and Menelaus. However, there is a core difference in the origin story that separates the ‘Petersen’ Helen apart from the Homeric Helen. In Troy, Helen escapes from Sparta by hiding in the Trojan envoy ship after she and Paris decide to run away together because of ‘true love’ and Helen’s dissatisfaction with Menelaus. It is both her decision and agency to run away with the Trojans knowing full-well about the inherent consequences. This represents a stark contrast from the Homeric version of events started by Aphrodite and Paris, in which he traded the Apple of Discord to the Goddess of Beauty in exchange for Helen’s hand. In the Iliad, Helen’s fate is not her own rather she is an instrument of desire to be exchanged and won. Her frustrations with Aphrodite are specifically noted in Book 3, Lines 427–430.
“Where are you taking me now? Phrygia? Beautiful Maeonia? Another city where you have some other boyfriend for me?”
To connect the two interpretations, the film attempts to combine both Helen and Aphrodite into the same ‘temptress’ character- though not necessarily cruel or ill-intentioned but short-sighted and self-centered. This is due to Troy’s adherence to the concept of the classic Hollywood style and the popular elements that dominated ‘epic’ films throughout the twentieth century.
CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD STYLE:
Informed by the 1950’s and 60’s stylized epic films, Troy is a contemporary revival of works like Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, and Spartacus. These are films that drew upon concepts that film theorist David Bordwell defined as classic Hollywood style.
“Classic Hollywood narration focuses on an individual or small group of individuals who early on encounter discrete and specific goals that are either clearly attained or clearly unattained by the film’s end. The goals tend to exist in two spheres, and their pursuit is developed along parallel and often interdependent plot lines. One sphere is private, generally a heterosexual romance; the second is public — a career advance, the obliteration of an enemy, a mission, a discovery, and the like.” — William Luhr
Using this definition provided by fellow film-theorist William Luhr, one can trace the influence of this style within Petersen’s Troy. For example in the film, Paris’ narcissism is justified by his sense of ‘true love’ for Helen. Their relationship represents a celebration of heterosexuality and the ‘wrongness’ of their actions is justified by the merit of their love. In the Iliad, Homer makes zero justification for Paris’ character or their relationship- in fact, there’s little attraction to be found, per Helen after Paris’ cowardice on the battlefield,
“Back from the war? You should have died out there, Beaten by a real hero, my former husband.” Book 3, Lines 456–457.
Troy’s use of classic Hollywood style shifts the character of Helen away from a victim of abduction and sexual objectification to a tragic, star-crossed lover attempting to escape the perils of a forced marriage.
THE HUSBANDS: PARIS AND MENELAUS
As further evidence of this point, Helen is not the only character to undergo serious modifications to appease movie-going audiences. Both of the other members of Homer’s love-triangle, Paris and Menelaus, are reshaped to fit contemporary standards of romantic drama. The film attempts to contrast Menelaus and Paris as rival opposites. The former, the King of Sparta, as an older, unfaithful and unloving husband to Helen, and portrayed by Brendan Gleeson who was around 49 years old when Troy was filmed and released. Alternatively and more controversially, Paris is played by Orlando Bloom who was 27-years old. This idealization of masculine and feminine youth and beauty standards works to portray Paris as an empathetic, attractive character while also demonizing Menelaus as the ‘scorned husband.’
This is the first of many ahistorical liberties that the film takes to rewrite Paris’ character to fit the contemporary protagonist mold. Firstly, Paris, while often described as beautiful, was not the youth that Petersen envisioned. While the ages of the Iliad’s many heroes are never directly stated, one can estimate Paris’ age based on the total duration of the conflict versus the preceding events. In Book 24, lines 819–820, Helen states,
“This is now the twentieth year since I went away and left my home…”
The events of the Iliad detail the tenth and final year of the Trojan War but these lines suggest that Helen’s captivity in Troy began an entire decade before the Greeks landed. Additionally, when considering the mythological origins of Paris, including his abandonment and subsequent upbringing outside of the Trojan Palace up until his teenage years as well as the events related to the Apple of Discord, it isn’t out of the question to suggest that he might’ve already been quite aged before Helen’s abduction. All of this to illustrate- the lengths taken by the screenwriter, casting director, and Wolfgang Petersen himself, to recreate Paris as a heartthrob and Hollywood ‘leading man.’
The creative liberties do not end at Helen’s second husband however. Perhaps more egregiously, Menelaus’ depiction in Troy, both visually and narratively, is incredibly unfaithful to the events and characterizations within the Iliad. In a scene directly lifted from Homer’s work, the pivotal duel between Paris and Menelaus ends with the same coward-like retreat from Paris but in the film version, Hector (Eric Bana) steps in and kills Menelaus well before the Sack of Troy and the end of the war. This creates a gaping hole in the rest of the film as Helen’s fate has now completely derailed from the source text. Instead, the film’s finale sees Paris escape Troy with Helen, Briseis, and Andromache as the city burns. Their fate is left uncertain but the messaging has radically shifted. Petersen’s Troy undermines the tragedy of the Trojan War and alleviates the consequences of Paris’ hubris.
CONCLUSION:
In all, there’s one element to this comparative analysis that must be addressed as a point of evidence for the lack of evolution in Helen of Troy’s literary canon. While the Homeric and contemporary versions of Helen differ based on agency and flaws, the external function of the character remains the same: Helen as a symbol of feminine punishment. Homer illustrates Helen as a spoil of war, a woman cursed by her own beauty, and a prize to be re-claimed by Menelaus. She is helpless against the whims of Paris and Aphrodite and is extremely guilt-laden whenever in conversation with Hector or Priam. As much as she is the model of beauty, even favored by Aphrodite herself, she is an outcast and a symbol of vanity. Likewise in Troy, Helen is an instrument of sexual desire and punished for her promiscuity. While this is more-in line with the Christian interpretation of the temptress archetype, both texts maintain Helen’s role as the model for the punished woman. So with respect to the overall evolution of the character, one could argue that little can be said about how progressive the interpretation of Helen has become in recent years.
[[This piece is an adapted academic essay. The cited material can be found in: David Bordwell’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960, Homer’s Iliad, and William Luhr’s The Maltese Falcon.]
