DLaurent

Well-known member
His voice is part of the appeal to me. The sneering middle class hero goes after the elite and institutions.
 

other_life

bioconfused
working through a select filmography of raul ruiz and adore everything i've seen so far [memoire des apparences; return of the library lover; dialogue of dogs; the city of pirates; hypothesis of the stolen painting; on top of the whale]
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Interesting that when I look on Wikipedia there are loads more films listed than when I last looked... which was probably 15 years ago. Some things I would like to see.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I was thinking vaguely about all this the other day cos we were in a museum and there was a painting by Balthus who I think was Klossowski's brother.
 

version

Well-known member
I watched Troy last night and got really into it. Very well-paced for a near-three hour historical epic.

tumblr_llw5b6um0S1qclvq3.gif
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I watched Troy last night and got really into it. Very well-paced for a near-three hour historical epic.

tumblr_llw5b6um0S1qclvq3.gif
I saw most of it on telly here, didn't enjoy it that much to be honest. I loved reading Greek myths when I was a kid and I think I wanted a version that was literally like what I read then, not a grown up take which ignored the gods and magic (am I remembering correctly?) and sort of relegated them to being how a poetic writer may have interpreted and explained what happened.
That said, in any version, I always found Achilles to be a rather boring hero in that it didn't really require a huge amount of bravery to be the first to charge into battle against incredible odds when he thought that he was literally invincible and couldn't be killed.
I suppose that Achilles never transcended the powers he was given and that is the point at which a hero becomes interesting. In a Spiderman film or whatever, sure it's quite fun to see Spidey easily overpower a few common street crooks as an amuse-bouche at the start, but the real battle is always against a super villain against whom he is (seemingly) over matched. Odysseus or even (the demigod) Hercules fight incredible monsters in situations in which their powers alone will not suffice, they have to use them inventively to show that they deserve them. Whereas Achilles, despite being on nominally the side of the goodies is really like the super villain who is killed by the wit of Paris (which comes from divine intervention of course). The bits of the film I saw seemed to have way too much Achilles and not enough Odysseus.
 

version

Well-known member
(I'm talking exclusively about the film here,)

The Gods are mentioned a lot, but they aren't present in any form beyond statues, gifts and followers; Hector goes as far as to say he saw Achilles' men sack the temple of Apollo and the God did nothing.

Achilles' battle is with himself. He easily beats everyone he comes up against, but spends big chunks of the film refusing to fight because of various personal issues and friction with Agamemnon; Paris ends up killing him because he's distracted trying to find Briseis.

You're right about Odysseus. He's barely in it. He narrates the opening and closing, has a few conversations with Achilles and you see a few glimpses of him in some of the battles and the moment he comes up with the idea for the horse, but he must have about ten minutes of screen time, if that.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
(I'm talking exclusively about the film here,)

The Gods are mentioned a lot, but they aren't present in any form beyond statues, gifts and followers; Hector goes as far as to say he saw Achilles' men sack the temple of Apollo and the God did nothing.
Yes that is what I thought. I did not say it well before no doubt, but i meant that probably during the battle of Troy and the other classic Greek stories there were no interventionist gods in the way that the stories recorded them (you think!), rather Homer or whoever was describing events and making them into a poem would typically put the gods in to explain bits that he couldn't or simply to embellish the story and make the boring bits more exciting. And so this film is kinda like Homer with the magic stuff removed, you could sort of say that it is a stab at creating what really happened and went on to inspire Homer to create an enhanced, magical version.
So it is an approach that makes a lot of sense and which provides a way to tackle the story in a more realistic fashion while staying true to the spirit of the story as we know and love it. So, for example Achilles was just a really hard bastard who could defeat anyone or even loads of people at once, to such an extent that he appeared invincible. And so on. So I can't quibble with that approach or the rationale behind it.... but I personally just love the stories as I first read them and when i was little I really enjoyed Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts and so I wished that that magic and the gods were there.

Achilles' battle is with himself. He easily beats everyone he comes up against, but spends big chunks of the film refusing to fight because of various personal issues and friction with Agamemnon; Paris ends up killing him because he's distracted trying to find Briseis.
Though certainly it makes Achilles himself a much more interesting character. It's pretty much always a weakness in a film if the hero is too powerful so removing his invincibility is good for his story line. I don't think I made it to the point where Achilles died but in Homer's version, if I remember correctly, he was killed by Paris who was told by one of the gods (Hera perhaps) that he was vulnerable in the heel and so Paris shot him there with an arrow - I can't remember if it was poisoned or if he was simply vulnerable to any minor injury in that one place.
How did Paris kill him in the film??

You're right about Odysseus. He's barely in it. He narrates the opening and closing, has a few conversations with Achilles and you see a few glimpses of him in some of the battles and the moment he comes up with the idea for the horse, but he must have about ten minutes of screen time, if that.
Brad Pitt was the star I suppose so Achilles had to be the main guy- When I was little I loved Odysseus cos he was the smartest of the heroes, at first I always imagined him as a total weakling who needed to be twice as smart as everyone else just to survive, but of course I that was a total misunderstanding, from later events - stringing the bow that no-one else could, throwing the discuss further than ever before - it becomes clear that he is superhuman like all the other heroes (maybe not quite so much so as Achilles) and his brains are just a bonus.
 

version

Well-known member
He pulls out all but the one in his heel, so when the Greek soldiers find him they find him dead with a single arrow in his foot.
 

luka

Well-known member

i just watched Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle

i would say i enjoyed it. probably not for everyone though
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I watched Munich recently and I thought it was (on the whole) great. Probably it's seen as propaganda by both Isreali and Palestinian supporters, though?

The sex scene bit at the end is absolutely hilarious.

Bridge of Spies got a lot of critical praise a few years ago and I thought Munich was 1000 times better.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I watched it on the same day as i watched The Firm (Tom Cruise one).

Absolutely terrible film but has this amazing scene in it

 
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