Troy: A Reflection

5. Aegean Congress/Social Sciences-Congre book , 2022

The relationship between cinema and reality can be examined in three subgroups. These are 'the movies that claim that the events and main characters in the movie were real', 'films deal with stories attached to reality' and 'films unpretentious about being real'. As an interesting fact, , Wolfgang Petersen's 2004 film "Troy" doesn't fit in any of these three options! It's because "Troy", which is based on one of the 'mythological' stories that reveal that they are not real with the surreal elements they contain, was presented to the audience in the Classic Epic format, purified from the gods, miracles and extraordinary powers, as an exceptional case. The main element that arouses curiosity in the audience of Epic Films is the reality of the events and characters shown in these movies. However, "how many movie protagonists were for real? The reason for this confusing argument is that historical movies being more associated with reality by the audience than movies set today. In Epic Films, the expectation about reality is whether the visual elements such as decor, costume, and production design fit the era they convey, as well as fidelity to the text.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2023

Return to Troy. New Essays on the Hollywood Epic (ed. M. M. Winkler), Leiden, Brill, 2015, pp. 203-223

History is deeply rooted in myths and legends, probably because “for the primitive mind myth was truth itself, not its representation”¹. Herodotus, the first Greek historian, was criticized by Thucydides for his inclusion of “legends and fanciful accounts” in his work. In spite of this, a sizeable portion of the information Herodotus has provided has since been confirmed and found credible by modern historians and archaeologists. It is the interpretation of ancient myths that has to be reconsidered, beginning with interpretation graeca, which caused a lot of confusion mainly for the ancient historians, geographers and poets.

Anatolian Studies, 2002

The historic series of excavations of Hisarlik-Troy have been continued over the last 15 years by a collaboration between teams from the universities of Tübingen and Cincinnati with fruitful results. Over the year 2001 however the director, Manfred Korfmann, attracted sharp criticism from colleagues, largely through the medium of the press, for his methods and publications. He was accused of exaggerating the importance of the site in the Late Bronze Age, particularly as a political capital and trading centre of Anatolia, and more specifically of unduly inflating the results of his investigations of the lower city. A symposium was convened by the University of Tübingen in February 2002 with a view to discussing these criticisms and the defence in an academic atmosphere. The four authors of this article attended the Tübingen symposium. After listening to the contributions it seemed to us that an assessment of the issues from our respective view-points would be timely: thus a detailed ...

Journal of Popular Culture, 2010

Why do we, as a race, feel the need to tell or listen to stories? Why do we re-tell stories from the past? In this paper I look at modern retellings of Homer's 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' in the films 'Troy (2004) and 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' (2000). The paper includes discussions on oral poetry, the film industry, the Homeric question and the directors' personal and film backgrounds. It analyses how the ancient world is represented in these films to memorialise the ancient and near past, and to provoke contemporary ethical debate on the nature and morality of war, as well as contemporary American society and values. Submitted as an MA thesis in Classical Studies, 2008

Esc: English Studies in Canada, 2005

Shakespeare Quarterly, 2013

SOTT, 2003

The weight of the EVIDENCE makes it quite clear that Troy and the Trojan War was not in Greece and Turkey (as we know it today), but somewhere else. Iman Wilkens book is filled with rich details and piles of supporting evidence that includes ancient historic writings, accurate geographic and topographic description matching, detailed maps, countless archaeological finds, historic place name matching, cultural and linguistic evidence.