Immortals (Tarsem Singh, 2011)

[colinr0380]

Since we don't have a thread for Tarsem's next film Immortals at the moment, I thought I would briefly comment on a couple of sequences I enjoyed. I have not seen those Clash/Wrath of the Titans films yet but I assume that Immortals would fit neatly in with these films. Although I get the impression that all of these films are hangovers from the impact of the Lord of the Rings films. Immortals especially feels as if it is indebted to the Helm's Deep sequence of The Two Towers for its final section.

I particularly liked Mickey Rourke's bass rumbling, almost incoherent baddie! He seemed to be having great fun being as dastardly as possible! Stephen Dorff also seemed to fit perfectly into the cocky wisecracking sidekick role! I wasn't too sure about Henry Cavill's Theseus (despite looking uncannily like a young Olivier in some shots, the big rousing the troops speech unfortunately felt a little underwhelming), although the callow quality may be due to the character being a rather one dimensional hero figure getting railroaded by destiny towards becoming a mythical figure.

I particularly liked the Theseus slaying the Minotaur sequence which, in the image of the bull mask made out of barbed wire through which you can see glimpses of eyes underneath (the mask intimidating by acting both as a weapon and a cage), felt as if it were picking up some cues from that production of Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur. Although The Minotaur does not really get humanised as such in Immortals, though he does get an amusing sequence where the character is tracking our heroes by following the clues they have left behind, private detective style!

There is also a nice staging of the 'labyrinth' with Theseus following his wet footprints back out of the tomb. This whole sequence of interring the mother, finding the bow and fighting the minotaur is where the film is really flying at its highest. However throughout there is always, as can be expected in a Tarsem film, something visually impressive going on. I'll finish with a couple of great images from the film:

[Mr Sausage]

I take it then the Minotaur in this movie is a man in a suit of bull armour? If so, too bad, I always liked the sheer perversity of his being the deformed and unholy offspring of an act of bestiality.

[colinr0380]

Yes, though the minotaur is sort of a minor character in Immortals. In fact he is more of a henchman figure to Mickey Rourke's sadistic baddie than a particular threat in his own right, and all of this is taking place as an adjunct to an entirely different plot! But there is no doubt of what legend is being alluded to in those couple of scenes.

[Mr Sausage]

Yes, though the minotaur is sort of a minor character in Immortals. In fact he is more of a henchman figure to Mickey Rourke's sadistic baddie than a particular threat in his own right, and all of this is taking place as an adjunct to an entirely different plot! But there is no doubt of what legend is being alluded to in those couple of scenes.

Would you recommend the movie in general? I like the idea of filming greek myths in the style of baroque paintings, but it also seems like the myths are heavily altered, which may or may not sit well with me.

[colinr0380]

I'm not particularly well versed in Greek myths unfortunately, hence I came at the film from how it compared with The Two Towers and a hazy memory of the 1980s Clash of the Titans. It seems OK from that point of view, though I don't know if that will help you to decide how close or far from myth this film is getting or not (although for all the trumpeting of being from the producers of 300 all over the package, I suppose Immortals at least isn't as problematic as that)! The imagery, Eiko Ishioka's costumes and a cameo and narration from John Hurt were enough to endear the film to me for now! Another one of the images that I liked was the way that the Gods watching down on man were visualised looking on from their heavenly perch:



It was interesting to see the Gods having arguments amongst themselves about how much they should interfere with humanity, with some breaking the rules rather than standing back and letting the humans 'prove their worth' against tyranny on their own. Immortals feels less audacious and experimental than The Fall, without many layers of stories within stories, more a film already foretold in Phaedra's visions at the opening and then carried out almost to the letter. Which perhaps is something that feeds into the final battle (or battles given that the Titans get released at the end, bringing the Gods to Earth to banish the humans to their own part of the battlefield while they have their own fight) feeling rather underwhelming, as if because everything is already written there is no real sense of urgency to the action.

[Mr Sausage]

It was interesting to see the Gods having arguments amongst themselves about how much they should interfere with humanity, with some breaking the rules rather than standing back and letting the humans 'prove their worth' against tyranny on their own.

That's very much in line with Greek myth. The Gods were always squabbling with each other and involved in intrigues.

On the basis of that last picture alone, I'm giving it a rental. Gorgeous.

[colinr0380]

Do they kill each other for committing the transgression of interfering in human affairs in the myths too? This is the big theme of Immortals - of the greatest punishment being left to be forgotten set against the greatest achievement of being elevated into the pantheon. Perhaps the best thing I can say about it is that it often plays like a picture scroll or a piece of sculpture come to life.

[knives]

That's an element too (Prometheus for instance) though it appears surprisingly rarely.

[Mr Sausage]

Do they kill each other for committing the transgression of interfering in human affairs in the myths too? This is the big theme of Immortals - of the greatest punishment being left to be forgotten set against the greatest achievement of being elevated into the pantheon. Perhaps the best thing I can say about it is that it often plays like a picture scroll or a piece of sculpture come to life.

No, not really (Prometheus is a Titan rather than an Olympian, for instance). The gods are always intervening in human affairs (to promote their favourites or punish those who'd insulted them), and that's accepted. The only problems come when one god tries to step on the toes of a god with more authority than them, which is usually met with a rebuke, leading the lesser god to scheme in the background and use concealed stratagems instead. I'm rereading The Aeneid at the moment (yes, Roman, but technically using the same gods and showing the same things), and in that one Juno hates the Trojans even tho' Jove has explicitly ordered that no one tamper with the destiny of Aeneas (since he is to found Rome). So Juno is always devising stratagems to make life harder for the remaining Trojans without herself overtly intervening, such as sending young Ascanius' hunting dogs in the direction of a pet Hind kept by one of the local Latin tribes, causing things to escalate into war. Aeneas' mother, Venus, on the other hand, is always trying to counter Juno, such as sending her son, Eros, to make the Carthaginian queen, Dido, fall in love with Aeneas, allowing the Trojan's stay in Carthage to be assured. It's all very complicated, and humans end up seeming pawns in heaven's power struggles.

The Gods are always sleeping around, too. When it's not with each other (Aphrodite is always cheating on her club-footed husband, Hephaestus, the smith god, with handsome Ares, god of war, to the point where Hephaestus gets fed up, fashions an unbreakable steel net, and traps them in it while both are making love, much to the other gods' mirth) --when it's not that, they're always carrying on affairs with humans, the offspring usually becoming heroes, like Herakles. Zeus is a big philanderer, actually, and is always trying to hide his acts from his sister/wife, Hera. Amusing story: in order to calm Hera's loathing for Herakles, her husband's bastard son, Zeus contrives to replace Hera's child during breastfeeding with the baby Herakles, hoping this will bond them. When Hera realizes half way through what's happened, she tears the child away from her breast causing her breast milk to shoot out into space, creating the Milky Way. No joke, that is the aetiological myth of the Milky Way.

[colinr0380]

Thanks for creating the thread for the film Mr Sausage!

Zeus is a big philanderer, actually, and is always trying to hide his acts from his sister/wife, Hera

This is interesting to relate to Immortals in the way that the film introduces Theseus as living only with his mother who it is suggested had been assaulted by one of Hyperion's forces. So Theseus is fatherless at the opening and is being taught myths and legends by an 'Old Man', played by John Hurt as a surrogate father figure, who then metamorphoses into the youthful Luke Evans as Zeus once the conflicts begin. So there is the suggestion that Theseus is Zeus's protege here, even if the film does not really suggest Zeus is his actual father (I think it is perhaps used more to suggest that Theseus is well placed as a mediator between the two opposing sides by the circumstances of his birth), and it also complicates Zeus stating that it is totally up to Theseus to prove himself without help from the gods in the rest of the film, since it appears that he has been meddling long before it started!

There is a very nice extended opening scene on the disc which starts the film when Theseus and Phaedra are both children, so we get more of the 'old man' as teacher to a bullied Theseus and Phaedra gets her life-defining vision at around nine or ten rather than as an adult which occurs in the final cut of the film (Bascially the young Theseus material gets removed entirely, though there are scenes of the older Theseus getting bullied that reiterate most of this material anyway, and the sequence of young Phaedra (which takes place in an even more gorgeous mosaic tiled white room compared to the one in that top picture!) is replayed with the adult actresses instead)

[Mr Sausage]

I keep getting thrown off in your posts because it's clear the movie has renamed people in somewhat confusing ways. In the myth, Phaedra is the daughter of Minos and becomes Theseus' wife. Here, they've made her his sister. It's odd, and for some reason makes me want to see the film even more.

[colinr0380]

Phaedra's definitely not his sister in the film (though they are paralleled in the youthful scenes to suggest they are perhaps a particularly important generation), given the imaginitive way the couple find to remove Phaedra's visions! It is difficult to talk about the rest without spoiling the film but from what you've told me the film doesn't seem all that interested in staying particularly faithful to the myths. It plays like a kind of origin story more than anything:

Spoiler

Telling of the meeting and the growing love between Theseus and Phaedra. Then Theseus dies at the end defeating Hyperion (but failing to prevent the release of the Titans), but only after having made Phaedra pregnant (during the sex scene in which Phaedra's virginity, and thus her visions, are removed). Thus the cycle begins all over again with Phaedra as the new single mother regularly visiting the temple/labyrinth and their son being approached for 'tuition' by the old man (i.e. John Hurt back playing Zeus in disguise) again, perhaps to prepare him for the upcoming Battle in Heaven, which gets literalised in the final (precognitive?) image.

I'm rereading The Aeneid at the moment (yes, Roman, but technically using the same gods and showing the same things), and in that one Juno hates the Trojans even tho' Jove has explicitly ordered that no one tamper with the destiny of Aeneas (since he is to found Rome). So Juno is always devising stratagems to make life harder for the remaining Trojans without herself overtly intervening, such as sending young Ascanius' hunting dogs in the direction of a pet Hind kept by one of the local Latin tribes, causing things to escalate into war. Aeneas' mother, Venus, on the other hand, is always trying to counter Juno, such as sending her son, Eros, to make the Carthaginian queen, Dido, fall in love with Aeneas, allowing the Trojan's stay in Carthage to be assured. It's all very complicated, and humans end up seeming pawns in heaven's power struggles.

This is not really related to the film but I'm fascinated by these power struggles and the idea of fate or free will - is there a suggestion from your example above that Jove knows that by ordering no one to tamper with Aeneas's destiny that he is inviting them to do just that, and that he may be anticipating Juno's actions (or are Juno's undermining actions a part destined as well? Or do gods have free will and man is controlled by fate? Or a mix of both?). Or are the myths more black and white than all that?

[Mr Sausage]

This is not really related to the film but I'm fascinated by these power struggles and the idea of fate or free will - is there a suggestion from your example above that Jove knows that by ordering no one to tamper with Aeneas's destiny that he is inviting them to do just that, and that he may be anticipating Juno's actions (or are Juno's undermining actions a part destined as well? Or do gods have free will and man is controlled by fate? Or a mix of both?). Or are the myths more black and white than all that?

As you might imagine, the issue of fate and free will is tricky, and is sometimes up to the individual author. Generally, fate is decided by the three fates. The gods, while not bound by it, do seem to have the ability to alter it if they wish. In a particularly moving scene in The Iliad, Zeus sees that one of his favourite sons is fated to die, and he longs heavily to drag him from the battle and deposit him safely somewhere else. But inwardly he knows that, whatever sorrow he feels as a father, it is unbecoming of the ruler of Olympus to overgo the fates to satisfy his favouritism. So he has to sit there and watch his son die.

As for the Aeneid, there is no sense that Zeus' orders invent the context of their own breaking (as rules and laws tend to do). Juno's wrath goes back all the way to The Judgement of Paris, so Zeus' orders aren't the cause of her meddling. But her wrath is increased when Zeus reveals to the gods that Aeneas is fated to found Rome, and that Rome will overgo Carthage one day (Virgil's propaganda for the then finished Punic wars). Juno is the presiding god at Carthage, so obviously this does not please her. It is Venus' intercession, however, that inadvertently causes the great rift between Carthage and the Trojans, an intercession she would not have bothered with if she did not fear Juno's plotting. So Juno is, ironically, responsible for Carthage's eventual destruction in the Punic wars. In this case her plotting seems only to've helped fate on its way.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's fascinating how far back the process of using histories or mythologies to justify current political action goes- it's something that obviously came up with Shakespeare all the time (as with Richard II's retroactive justification for Henry Bolingbroke's coup) and that reading of the Aeneid makes the Punic Wars sound like Manifest Destiny, a political philosophy that any number of Westerns (including self consciously liberal or revisionist ones) have reified.

I think in some ways the whole human conception of fate is part of that strategy, a way to force people to accept that what is is also what must be, rather than taking action to alter the state of things.

[domino harvey]

I love Greek mythology and taught it last year as the major unit in English. There's certainly a universal appeal to the tales and exploits that explains their continued relevance, though they make more sense when contextualized against the society that created/furthered them (see Hesiod, for instance). One of the fonder memories I'll have of teaching is the afternoon one of my students got into quite a violent fight (she pulled out another girl's hair among other charming behaviors) and was being held down by an administrator while the police were coming and all the while she kept trying to get out of the hold because, and I quote, "I'm going to be late for (my name)'s class, we're learning about Zeus today!"

[Mr Sausage]

The sheer perversity of a lot of Greek myth no doubt continues to fascinate teenagers. There is so much incest, rape, war, intrigue, cannibalism, castration, ect., ect. I remember when my own 12th grade English teacher told us a condensed version of The Odyssey one day, and the whole class just sat there, riveted, not making a sound. Imagine my delight a year later in University when I discovered I actually got to study that stuff!

It's fascinating how far back the process of using histories or mythologies to justify current political action goes- it's something that obviously came up with Shakespeare all the time (as with Richard II's retroactive justification for Henry Bolingbroke's coup) and that reading of the Aeneid makes the Punic Wars sound like Manifest Destiny, a political philosophy that any number of Westerns (including self consciously liberal or revisionist ones) have reified.

I think in some ways the whole human conception of fate is part of that strategy, a way to force people to accept that what is is also what must be, rather than taking action to alter the state of things.

The Aeneid as a whole was actually conceived as a glorification of the Emperor Augustus and the Roman Empire that he founded (out of the ashes of the republic). Virgil rejigged history/mythology to give the new Roman Empire a heroic lineage, in this case being founded by refugees from Troy following the latter's destruction. So, not simply the Punic wars, but the very the glories of the empire and of Augustus himself are all made to be part of the divine plan. There is this famous moment in book 8 where Venus descends from heaven bearing arms for Aeneas to use in the coming war on the Italian mainland. There follows a very long description of the giant shield she gives him on which is carved the whole history of Rome (not yet having occurred in the narrative), from the founding by Romulus, to the rape of the Sabines, all the way to Caesar's victory in the civil war and Augustus' victory over Antony and Cleopatra that allowed him to crown himself emperor. Aeneas then slings this shield over his back, of which Virgil writes that he is "taking up / Upon his shoulder all the destined acts / And fame of his descendants."

The Aeneid is bald-faced propaganda for the whole regime. But Virgil is among history's greatest artists, and he turns this propaganda story into one of those enduring masterpieces central to our culture. There is, first of all, the sheer strangeness of his story. For one thing, Aeneas is an unlikeable hero: a cad, tediously noble, who is made positively unheroic in what should be his crowning heroic act, defeating Turnus to win Italy. As a contrast, the Carthaginian Queen, Dido, whom he spurns and insults in the name of 'duty,' is extremely sympathetic. There is also the odd tone of the poem. Despite the fact that it is supposed to be ceaselessly looking forward to the founding of Rome, its tone is elegiac, always mourning the loss of home and hearth and the hard lot being human in a pitiless world. The poem is endlessly fascinating. There is also the obvious fact that Virgil was trying to become the primary epic poet of culture by subsuming the two Greek epics into one work (the first six books are modeled directly on The Odyssey, the last six on The Iliad; and the first line of the poem famously echoes the first lines of both of those books).