Nostalgic Impulses, Falling Idols and the Adoration of Achilles in Troy (2004)

Abstract

This chapter explores nostalgia, idolatry and homoerotic subtexts in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, a commercially successful classical epic based on events depicted in Homer’s The Iliad. The chapter begins with a discussion of the ancient landscape seen at the start of the film, locating it within a nostalgic frame that recalls Grand Tourist approaches to the past—as well as other recent epic films—and the yearning evoked by the soundtrack’s impulse to ‘Remember’. Discussion continues to examine the leading stars—Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom—in association with the mythic archetypes of Apollo, Hercules and Narcissus, with a particular focus on the significance of Pitt’s portrayal of Achilles’ attack on a golden statue of Apollo, taking its iconic place on the temple steps as a warrior athlete. The film’s representation of Achilles and Patroclus, a famed same-sex relationship of queer cultural history, is an ostensibly heteronormative one, but this chapter concludes that its subtexts are not entirely lost.