The Trojan Women
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Movie Reviews of The Trojan Women
Movie Review: "Anguish Heaped Upon Anguish"
Summary: 5 Stars
Ancient Greek plays with all their dramatic devices and often an emphasis on static speeches by the actors and the chorus often do not translate well to the screen. Euripides' "The Trojan Women," however, is an exception to the rule. What makes this production work is the fine acting by most of the performers as well as the beautiful language, though in translation, of Euripides.
The plot is simple and straight forward. Queen Hecuba (Katharine Hepburn), her now crazed daughter Cassandra (Genevieve Bujold), her daughter-in-law Andromache (Vanessa Redgrave) and a host of other Trojan women are now at the mercy of the Greek victors. The play builds as one catastrophe after another befalls these women. Cassanda will be the wife of Agammemnon, Andromache will go with the son of Achilles, and Hecuba will become the slave of Odysseus-- or as Hecuba so aptly puts it, "Anguish heaped upon anguish."
The Greek chorus-- or in this instance I suppose we must call them the "Trojan Chorus" works well. Irene Papas plays a different sort of Helen than we see through other writers' eyes. Here she is unbowed, even as she awaits her fate from the hands of her wronged husband Menelaus. In a quite wonderful scene, after Helen has made her pitch to him to spare her life, Hecuba delivers the great lines: "Kill her, Menelaus." Ms. Hepburn has a lot of such passages. I remember from having seen the movie when it was released in 1971 her lines: "Kindness unwanted is unkindness."
The theme is obvious. Wars always hurt the women and children most-- Andromache's son almost steals the movie, by the way-- and while the weaponry and locales may change, war in 2005 is not that much different than it ever was, a sad, sobering thought.
Movie Review: Star studded Drama
Summary: 5 Stars
The other reviews capsulate pretty much the story and the performances, and the movie will not appeal to those unfamiliar with Greek history. No one can watch this movie without misting up when the child, Astyanax, is taken from Andromache. Hecuba's big mistake is in letting Helen defend herself, although for the story she has to have her defense. I don't find it stilted, over dramatized or disjointed. Not to those of us who love the plays of Euripides. The translation is by the author Edith Hamilton and updates most of archaic phrases. The movie is unmatched in telling the story of the women left behind in any war, offensive or defensive. However, to paraphrase Cassandra, who says it best, "Trojans died defending their country, no glory greater".Movie Review: The Trojan Women
Summary: 5 Stars
I first saw this movie in San Francisco in 1971. I've always thought it one of Hepburn's best performances. The DVD I received from Amazon is in excellent condition & I'm sure I'll enjoy it watching it many times.Movie Review: After the war...
Summary: 5 Stars
Depicts the events immediately after the fall of Troy and what happened to the survivors of the war on the Trojan side.Movie Review: A Difficult Film to Watch
Summary: 4 Stars
I am conflicted about this film. On the one hand, it has a phenomenal cast: Katherine Hepburn as Hekabe; Vanessa Redgrave as Andromache; Irene Papas as Helen; Genevieve Bujold as Cassandra; Brian Blessed as Talthybius; and Patrick McGee as Menelaus. On the other, Euripides' play itself is static, consisting solely of the lamentations of the royal female captives after the siege of Troy.
I think it might have worked for a modern audience within the ritualized setting of a Greek Theatre, say, at Epidaurus, with a traditional production (e.g., masked actors, a stylized chorus, and Athena and Poseidon, who are absent from the film). Somehow thrusting Euripides into a 'realistic' setting, outside the walls of what was supposed to be Troy, paradoxically brought an artificiality to the drama, at times making Hepburn and Bujold seem as if they were tearing their passions to tatters--an impression enhanced by their grungy costumes. To me, Hepburn's portrayal of the Queen worked best when she was lamenting over the child Astyanax, or inciting Menelaus to murder Helen.
The performances that I really found compelling were those of Redgrave and Papas--the former in her role as the distraught mother and the latter as the beautiful schemer. Both women portrayed their characters with subtlety. It is Redgrave's understatement of her role that renders her ultimate howl of grief so heart-shattering. Similarly, Papas barely glances at her wronged husband Menelaus, but as she circles him we know that she is binding him with her plausible spell of honeyed words, and that he will never kill his errant wife.
Part of the difficulty of the play for a modern audience is that much of Euripides' script is based upon rhetoric. For instance, the confrontation between Hekabe, Helen, and Menelaus, is little more than a legalistic argument (Euripides' plays, according to Quintilian, were recommended readings for Roman attorneys, such as Cicero or Pliny the Younger.). Athenian audiences, who spent hours in the law courts, were mad about rhetoric and legalisms.
Another difficulty comes from the DVD, which has no closed captioning or subtitles. Significant sections of Hepburn's dialogue in particular become lost. The colour on the transfer is good, but because the costumes and desolate countryside are so dust-ridden, the film might have been more effective in black-and-white (But perhaps this was not the case when the film was shown on a large screen in theatres in 1971).To appreciate the poignancy of Euripides' play to its fullest, if one does not have access to the original Greek, a good translation is recommended, such as Philip Vellacott's, which can be found in Penguin's Euripides, "The Bacchae and Other Plays."
"The Trojan Women" did not win prizes when it was produced in 415 (perhaps because the Athenian audience did not want to face unpopular truths, such as their destruction of the island of Melos, earlier in the year--because the Aegean island wanted to opt out of a coercive alliance--and Athens' consequent killing of the male population and the selling the women and children into slavery.). Without its historical context, the tragedy is perhaps even more difficult to watch today, although its underlying message about the victims of war still resounds with a universal truth.
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