As you can tell, I love a good argument
"What I said is that someone who reads 'inspired by' and thinks 'faithful interpretation' doesn't understand the terms. I did not say that I trust people to know the difference. In other words, I don't care if they do or not. The movie is clearly labeled as not being the Illiad. If people don't understand the labels, there is no damage done to Homer's work."
Good lord, man. So what people think of a work has no effect, good or bad, on the work? Are you joking? Does it make the Iliad itself any less (or any more)? Of course not. But for a work of art, especially one as old (and in some ways as alien) as Homer's epics to survive, they must be remembered. Every person who misinterprets that "inspired by" obfuscates the Iliad that much more. And, furthermore, while they may not think "faithful interpretation", they are pretty unlikely to guess that, for example, Paris is the biggest villain of the piece, or that Helen goes to Troy against her will, or that Priam isn't an idiot for trusting in Apollo. Among enormous amounts of others. These are not small things. Hector not taking Achilles' golden armor from Patroclus' corpse (thus further enraging Achilles) is a minor, believeable, even laudable change; back then that was just what you did, and doesn't make Hector any less of a hero. But how do you tell a contemporary film audience that? Given that they were presenting Hector in the most favorable light (and in both versions, Hector is easily the most sympathetic character), having Hector take the armor would have seemed ghoulish to our sensibilities. That's updating the myth in the way Christa was talking about.
So change it. Fine! You're preserving the spirit of the piece. Turning Paris into a hero distorts the spirit of the work so severely you can't really say it's the same thing. And I don't think a mere "inspired by" credit will clue people in to that. That's giving people a grossly misinformed idea of what was going on.
Plus, I will be very surprised if (assuming we both live to a ripe old age) this film is not used as a teaching aid, some time, some where during our lifetimes. I've seen similarly inaccurate films used (and not as guides to errors). That's not doing damage?
Remember, there are many older works (my normal reference, Spinoza, springs to mind) that are near impossible for laypeople to read today because what people thought they were about were obscured over time. If you seriously think this couldn't happen to Homer, well, great, but neither of us are likely to be around 500 years from now to debate; I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.
That said, I don't think Troy is the end of civilization, or even Homer. I do think it's a damn shame that a pretty good Hollywood popcorn movie had to obscure one of the greatest works of art we, as a species, have produced to give us our cheap thrills. Yes, I do think they could have made a good, actiony movie that preserved the spirit of the work. I'd rather watch Spiderman 2.
"For Homer's work to be damaged, Troy would have had to have made it impossible for people to understand the Illiad. Troy doesn't have the power to do that and if Ian is crediting it with that much power, I disagree."
I'm not crediting it with that much power, so we're not in disagreement there at all. But Homer's work doesn't need to be made illegible by Troy for it to be damaging. He just has to be obscured. "Making more difficult" is not as bad as "making impossible", but that doesn't suddenly make it harmless.
Good lord, man. So what people think of a work has no effect, good or bad, on the work? Are you joking? Does it make the Iliad itself any less (or any more)? Of course not. But for a work of art, especially one as old (and in some ways as alien) as Homer's epics to survive, they must be remembered. Every person who misinterprets that "inspired by" obfuscates the Iliad that much more. And, furthermore, while they may not think "faithful interpretation", they are pretty unlikely to guess that, for example, Paris is the biggest villain of the piece, or that Helen goes to Troy against her will, or that Priam isn't an idiot for trusting in Apollo. Among enormous amounts of others. These are not small things. Hector not taking Achilles' golden armor from Patroclus' corpse (thus further enraging Achilles) is a minor, believeable, even laudable change; back then that was just what you did, and doesn't make Hector any less of a hero. But how do you tell a contemporary film audience that? Given that they were presenting Hector in the most favorable light (and in both versions, Hector is easily the most sympathetic character), having Hector take the armor would have seemed ghoulish to our sensibilities. That's updating the myth in the way Christa was talking about.
So change it. Fine! You're preserving the spirit of the piece. Turning Paris into a hero distorts the spirit of the work so severely you can't really say it's the same thing. And I don't think a mere "inspired by" credit will clue people in to that. That's giving people a grossly misinformed idea of what was going on.
Plus, I will be very surprised if (assuming we both live to a ripe old age) this film is not used as a teaching aid, some time, some where during our lifetimes. I've seen similarly inaccurate films used (and not as guides to errors). That's not doing damage?
Remember, there are many older works (my normal reference, Spinoza, springs to mind) that are near impossible for laypeople to read today because what people thought they were about were obscured over time. If you seriously think this couldn't happen to Homer, well, great, but neither of us are likely to be around 500 years from now to debate; I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.
That said, I don't think Troy is the end of civilization, or even Homer. I do think it's a damn shame that a pretty good Hollywood popcorn movie had to obscure one of the greatest works of art we, as a species, have produced to give us our cheap thrills. Yes, I do think they could have made a good, actiony movie that preserved the spirit of the work. I'd rather watch Spiderman 2.
"For Homer's work to be damaged, Troy would have had to have made it impossible for people to understand the Illiad. Troy doesn't have the power to do that and if Ian is crediting it with that much power, I disagree."
I'm not crediting it with that much power, so we're not in disagreement there at all. But Homer's work doesn't need to be made illegible by Troy for it to be damaging. He just has to be obscured. "Making more difficult" is not as bad as "making impossible", but that doesn't suddenly make it harmless.
