Greek Drama the Trojan Women:

Greek Drama

The Trojan Women: Film Review

The Trojan Woman" (1971) directed by Michael Cacoyannis takes upon itself an extremely difficult task as a film -- to translate the medium of Euripides' ancient Greek drama into cinematic technique. Greek drama was a verbal art. Most of the action took place off stage, and was reported by minor characters onstage only after it had occurred, like the sacking of Troy or how the Greek soldiers threw Hector's son to his death. Also, Greek dram was a nationalistic drama -- in other words, the entire audience could be assumed to be familiar with the major characters and storyline of the fall of Troy.

Not so in a film today. Cinema must speak to a wider audience, and a screenplay must acknowledge the fact that not 'everyone' knows what is going to happen. To create a common sense of connection in a diverse audience of people, film often depends upon familiar character archetypes or actors to generate immediate interest in the plot. This may be why the director Cacoyannis chooses to use some of the most famous actresses in modern cinema to play the Trojan women, such as Katherine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave. But although they may be fine actresses, their different accents and methods of acting make it hard to believe that all of the women come from the same culture and grew up in the same culture.

Euripides' original play is translated fairly literally by Edith Hamilton, an author of many books on Greek mythology and culture for a lay audience, although not a professional scriptwriter. Hamilton's is a faithful translation, but not a translation that makes the language accessible to modern viewers. The characters always sound like they are giving speeches, rather than really feeling what they are saying, even when they are describing the fall of their city, and the deaths of their husbands and children.

The film adopts many of the conventions of the original drama in a fairly literal fashion, like the convention of having a chorus or group of individuals represent the common people. Although this was an accepted technique in Greek theater, it feels very artificial in a film, perhaps because we are not used to such an artificial dramatic convention. But that does not mean that the director can ignore the modern audience's different sensibility as he is, just like Hamilton, is 'translating' a different type of drama to a new medium and audience.

The landscape of the film is harsh and spare, much like an amphitheater might have been, and there is no sense of historical place. The film could be located anywhere, and except for the flowing Grecian robes worn by the women, there is little attention to historical detail. The film seems to take place in a kind of never-never land, rather than in a real place and time.

For most the film, the characters talk rather than act. This might be acceptable in the theater, where a play's setting may be fixed a fairly limited location, but a film is not a play -- or a sitcom. The director's camera seems anchored rather than fluid, and does not make use of the full vocabulary of cinematography. There are a few exceptions to this sense of stasis, such as when Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, bathes in water while the other Trojan women, captives of war, are dying of thirst outside in the heat. The contrast between Helen's moist, soft skin and the weather-beaten, tired face of Hecuba transcends words, and the juxtaposition of the aridness and the water gives added meaning to the text. But these moments are rare.

The theme of "The Trojan Woman," although an ancient play, should present a compelling interest for the present day viewer -- that of the horrors of war and the horrible ways that women are treated during wartime. But few connections are made between the present day and ancient times. There are no contemporary parallels suggested within the film itself to make the ancient people seem meaningful and real to a modern audience, which is necessary given the ancient language and story that tends to dehumanize and distance the viewer from the depicted actions. We are too distant from the events of Troy to identify with the Trojan cause.

The characters endure very extreme situations, like having their child murdered by Greek soldiers or being forced to become concubines. However, the long, formal speeches that dominate the screenplay, no matter how well-delivered, do not convey a sense of reality. Even close-ups of the women's contorted wailing faces do not stimulate empathy in the heart of the viewer. The advantages of film as a medium, as opposed to the stage, might be defined as being able to convey emotion without a great deal of hysteria, as might be seen in 'real life.' However, Euripides' play did not attempt to convey a realistic portrayal of life, but show a myth on an epic scale.