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| THE TROJAN WOMEN (1971) |
A Joseph Shaftel Production
A Cinerama Realeasing Corporation Presentation
In Eastmancolor, 105 minutes
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CAST
Hecuba: Katharine Hepburn
Andromache: Vanessa Redgrave
Cassandra: Genevieve Bujold
Helen: Irene Papas
Talthybius: Brian Blessed
Menelaus: Patric Magee
Alsyanax: Alberto Sanz
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CREDITS
Director: Michael Cacoyannis
Producer: Michael Cacoyannis, Anis Nohra
Scenarist: Michael Cacoyannis
Based on the Drama by: Euripides
English Translation: Edith Hamilton
Photographer: Alfio Contini
Art Director: Nicholas Georgiadis
Editor: Russell Woolnough
Music: Mikis Theodorakis
Wardrobe: Annalisa Nasalli
Production Assistant: Derek Haine
Special Effects: Basilio Cortijo
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SYNOPSIS
The women of Troy are devastated. They have lost their city, their menfolk, in the disastrous war fought over the beautiful Helen, spirited from the Greeks and brought to Troy. Hecula, Queen of Troy, is mourning the loss of all she h olds dear. She notes in anguish that her daughter, Cassandra, has gone mad. A virgin, dedicated to the god Apollo, Cassandra is to be given over to the Greek king, Agamemnon; since Apollo has given her the gift of seeing into the future, she knows what she faces, but the donor has added a negative: no one will believe her portents. Andromache, Hecuba's daughter-in-law, is horrified when she learns that her small son will be torn from her arms and thrown from the ramparts. She rages against her malign destiny, but is forced to accompany her dead husband's armor as she is sent off to Greece and the man who has claimed her. Helen, the cause of all the suffering, thinks only of saving herself. Arrogant and proud, she plans to win over her former husband but still is made to contend with the anger of the bereft women around her.
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CRITIQUES
"The flaws in the Michael Cacoyannis film of Euripides' The Trojan Women seem unimportant compared to the simple fact that here is a movie of one of the supreme works of the theatre, and not a disgraceful movie, either. What Euripides did was to look at war's other side, and the view from the losing side was not pomp and glory but cruelty and pain....Hepburn is splendid when she's angry - when she has an antagonist. Perhaps our awareness of her as Hepburn makes us a little impatient with the weak, resigned side of the character."
- The New Yorker, 1972
"I must confess that although I found Hepburn and Papas the least convincing as Hecuba and Helen, I found their exchange the most stimulating. In the play's only dialectical interlude, they provided a clash of powerful opposites, if not exactly the opposites Euripides had in mind."
- Molly Haskell, The Village Voice, 1972
"The Euripides play is the greatest lament for the loss of freedom ever written; it is not just the first but the one great anti-war play, and, despite the makeshift style of the film, the material catches you by the throat, and by the most legitimate of all means - its simplicity and its intensity. Katharine Hepburn, always forthright, starts as a fine, tough Hecuba, plainspoken and direct; she's splendid when she's angry. (Later, she comes to seem pitiful and mummified.) A false nose gives Geneviève Bujold's mad seeress Cassandra a classical look, and the actress plays with a bursting conviction; though the performance doesn't fully come off, she makes a stunning try. As Andromache - as anything - Vanessa Redgrave never does the expected. Her Andromache is being freshly thought out as you watch - a dazed, pale-golden matron, unflirtatious, free from guile. A tiny half-sob gurgles from her throat. Redgrave gives the finest performance in the film, and the director, Michael Cacoyannis, demonstrates his love of the material and his right to film it, in casting her as Andromache, and not in the obvious role for her - Helen. Because it is Irene Papas as a demonic Helen of Troy who lifts the movie out of the women's-college virtuous cultural ambiance that plagues stage productions. Helen is introduced prowling behind the slats of the stockade that protects her, and all you see are her brown-black eyes, as fiercely alive as a wolf's. While the other women mourn their dead, Helen uses all her animal cunning to survive. This is a cast that one could never hope to see on the stage."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"Whatever his other virtues, Euripides wasn't a born screenwriter, and Michael Cacoyannis's attempts to make him cinematic only point up the fundamental misguidedness of the project. The cast includes Katharine Hepburn, Irene Papas, Genevieve Bujold, and Vanessa Redgrave, and there is something about this array of formidable figures that suggests a toga remake of The Women."
- Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
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HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Links are provided for information only, and are not endorsements. Please ensure that your player is compatible with the region or standard before purchase.
Region 1:
NTSC Standard:
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Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn
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