Limelight: Blame it on beauty By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Hers was "... the face that launch'd a thousand ships And Burned the topless towers of Ilium ", for whom the sagacious and scholarly Faust sold his soul to Satan, for the rapture of a kiss, and "the white glory of her loveliness". This "red rose of fire", most wondrous of women, brought ruin and destruction to all who gazed on her dazzling beauty... Immortalised by poets and historians, the Heavenly Helen will be coming to a theatre near you, in the new "swords and sandals" summer spectacular...TROY. How can filmmakers resist such a legendary saga of romance and passion, beauty and bloodshed, jealousy and betrayal, honour and adultery, heroism and courage, violence and gore? They have not. They dipped their hands once again in the bottomless well of Greek mythology and came up with a yarn spun with the purest gold. No other beauty, human or divine has inspired more words, more songs, more dreams, than has the fair Helen... Yet was there ever such a woman that dreamers found forever at the end of their dreams? Was there ever a brash and lovesick Paris? Was there a Homer who weaved such magic with his rhymes? Was there even a city called Troy? Does the truth lie in rhymes and relics of a remote past? There was a city of Troy, indeed, there was nine of them, each successive city built on the ruins of the previous one. Background of three epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, and The Aneid by Virgil the city of our fable was the sixth or seventh city of Troy. Surrounded by a great wall overlooking the Aegean sea and probably destroyed by fire, it is now part of modern Turkey reserving the ancient name of Troiad. But the epic accounts of the poets are largely fictional, derived from older poems and ballads. The story "Helen of Troy" is a creation of man's imagination, yet its allure, its romance and adventure have endeared it to generation after generation throughout history. As fascinating as any fairy tale, it started with the intrigue of gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. Once upon a time, long long ago, in the great city of Troy, by the Aegean sea a wedding party was held in honour of the sea-goddess Thetis and the King of Thessaly. All the gods and goddesses were invited except for Eris, goddess of Discord. Offended by her omission, she tries to stir up trouble by sending a golden apple inscribed "For the most beautiful". Three goddesses claim the apple, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy awards the golden apple to Aphrodite, because she promises him the divine Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Helen however, was already married to Menelaus King of Sparta, but a little thing like matrimony did not stop Paris from claiming his prize. Helen was more than willing. On his next visit to Sparta, Paris whisks away the fair Helen and takes her back to Troy. As you can imagine, this does not sit well with Menelaus. He calls upon his awesome brother Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, who organises a powerful army headed by all the heroes of Greece, Ajax, Nestor and Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) and the greatest hero of them all, Achilles son of the goddess Thetis. Unable to penetrate the walls of Troy, the Greeks camp outside the city gates for 10 years. Trouble brews between Achilles and Agamemnon and Achilles refuses to continue the fight. The Greeks are driven back to their ships. But Patroclus, Achilles's best friend is killed by Hector, and Achilles seeking revenge, returns to the battlefield and kills Hector, son of Priam and leader of the Trojans. The Greek army sails away in defeat, or at least pretends to, leaving a mammoth wooden horse at the gates of Troy. Warned by the gods not to pull the horse within their walls, the Trojans' curiosity gets the better of them. The horse is pulled inside Troy, and the Trojans celebrate their victory. As the city sleeps, the Greek army, hiding inside the horse creeps out and opens the gates to let in the rest of their army that was hiding at a nearby island. The Trojans are massacred, their city burnt and their land lies in ruins. What happens to the adoring couple? Some scholars believe that Paris was killed in battle, and fickle Helen married his brother Deiphobus, who was also killed. Only then did she return to husband Menelaus, to live happily ever after. Another version, is the legend by the poet Steischorus, who believes that Paris and Helen never returned to Troy, but went to Egypt where she remained the guest of King Proteus. After the war, she was re-united with Menelaus in Egypt. No one really knows if the Greek poet Homer himself ever existed. We know there was a Virgil (70-19BC) in Rome, but was there a Homer. Some scholars believe that there were two different poets who wrote the epic tale, which has survived through the centuries to become one of the most compelling works of literature. German scholar Frederich August Wolf believes that archeologists found no evidence that Greeks knew how to write during the time of Homer. Some critics have developed a theory that Homer never existed and that The Iliad and The Odyssey are collections of songs by several poets, because of inconsistencies in style and language. However they do disagree as to how they were composed or preserved. Such a timeless tale of epic proportions and iconic characters, with all its beauty, pageantry, romance, drama, suspense and intrigue, "such is the stuff that dreams are made of"... so are blockbuster super productions of the "swords and sandals" variety. At the cost of $200 million dollars, shot on the exotic shores of the island of Malta on the Mediterranean and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico on the Caribbean, German director Wolfgang Petersen ( Das Boot, the Perfect Storm) breathes life into "the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome". His TROY premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on 13 May, and will be released worldwide the next day. Petersen's finest accomplishment so far has been in the casting of this monumental project. He fills the wide screen with the vigour and valiance of young stars like Eric Bana, last year's Hulk, as the brave Trojan army commander, Hector, older brother to Paris, who pays for his brother's passion with his life. Orlando Bloom who stole many hearts before Helen's in the Oscar winning trilogy Lord of the Rings is Paris... The super star of the production "who himself looks like a demi- god", is Brad Pitt, who plays Achilles, immortal hero of Greek mythology. Combining the illustrious old with the exciting new, Petersen cast the venerable Peter O'Toole as Priam, King of Troy and the graceful Julie Christie as the goddess Thetis, mother to Achilles. "it is my homage to David Lean" says Petersen referring to O'Toole in Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Christie in Dr Zhivago. But who is Helen that spirit of beauty, whose "smile is better than a thousand victories"? Who owns "the lips that sang of Heaven and Hell"? Is there a woman alive who can bring back "the glories of the days of old"? Who can portray fair Helen of the Trojan tale, in all her splendour? Director Petersen believes he found his answer in his fair German star Diane Kruger. With so much riding on her beauty, the world awaits the dazzling radiance of Diane Kruger, to fill men's hearts with such passion of delirious love and forbidden delights. What is fact, what is fiction? What is myth, what is real? It all seems irrelevant, given the riveting tale of hopelessly passionate, forbidden romance, the incredible beauty of a radiantly irresistible queen, the power struggle between heroes and gods, the simple faith of men who fight to defend their hearth and home, and above all a cheating wife whose beauty eclipses all others... all those juicy details, make for great reading , and greater viewing on the screen. Pages of history and literature are filled with flowery descriptions of the faithless Helen so vain and fickle, consumed by her own passion, breeding ruin and destruction to great civilisations. This seems unfair, as Paris is seldom blamed for what happened to his family, his country and his home. Is it the bias of the tellers of the tale, condemning women at every turn? Is she the only one to be blamed for Troy, for Faust, for Menelaus and Paris. We are reminded of the words of Thomas Otway (1652-1685), who must have loved unwisely and lost and preferred to condemn all women, but never his own folly. Otway queries: What mighty ills have not been done by Woman? Who was't betrayed the Capitol? -- a woman! Who lost Marc Antony the world? -- a woman Who was the cause of a long ten years' war And laid at last old Troy in ashes? -- Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman.... The Orphan (1680) act III sc I Since these words were written over four centuries ago, perhaps it is time they were updated. May we simply add... and Man.
