Troy

My favorite film of all time is Troy.  My hobby throughout my life has always been to watch historical documentaries and to read history books.  History had been one of my favorite subjects during middle school and high school.  As a result, I had watch numerous historical films over the year.  One of these films left a vivid impression in my mind.  In actuality, Troy is a Greek mythological fictional film.  As a result, a lot of Greek legendary characters were portrayed in the movie.  Some of these notable characters are: Achilles, Hector, Helen, Paris, Agamemnon, and Ajax.  The movie follows the Greek study of Troy quite closely with some director’s alterations.  The main difference between the story in the Greek mythology and the movie Troy is that Ajax, the second best fighter in Greece, was supposed to survive the Trojan War.  In the movie, however, Ajax died quite early on in the movie.  I guess the film director decided that Ajax was not an important character in the Trojan War and decided to kill him off early on in the movie.  The movie itself focused on the life and the heroic actions of Achilles, the best warrior in Greece, during the war.  Another director’s take on the movie is that the director tried to make the movie seem very “historically possible”.  What do I mean by “historically possible”? We all know that Greek mythologies are all fiction and are only stories for entertainment (although it is possible that there are some historical accuracies).  The actual story involving the Trojan War included the heavy influence of Greek gods and goddesses.  The story of the Trojan War in Greek mythology started off with three goddesses asking Paris of Troy which one among the three goddesses is the finest.  Each goddess was willing to bribe Paris and gave him different rewards in return if he happened to choose her.  There are lots of god/goddess and human interactions in the story. However, this interaction between god/goddess and humans are neglected in the movie.  The movie itself focused on human interaction.  The movie also showed a great deal of the ancient Greek society and their religious nature.  Before entering the war in Troy, Achilles went to his mother for oracles which stated that he would die in Troy but in return, receive eternal glory and his name would be remembered for years to come.  Before this movie, I heard about the Trojan mythology.  However, I had no interest in actually obtaining knowledge about this particular mythological event.  After watching this movie, I was very impressed by the quality and the way this movie was brought together.  Even though I was interested in history, I was never interested in Greek and Roman history.  I was more interested in WWI and WWII material in elementary school.  This movie to me had given me a new perspective in history and is arguably the reason why I am so interested in Roman and Greek history today.

500/2000