I liked this movie a lot. Yes, it's made for TV and has made for TV production values. Yes the special effects are less grand than they could be. Yes a lot of things its critics say are true. But the story, far from being a botched tweak on the standard Hercules myth, is a totally new take on the myth, and it's a very interesting one.
Think about it. Zeus and Hera, king and queen of the gods. Their names permeate the story from beginning to end. But where are they? They are not played by actors, they are not rendered by CGI. They are not there. True, there is that scene where Hercules tries to destroy himself after he learns he has slain his children, and his dagger is knocked from his hand by lightning and the flames of the pyre put out by rain. These actions certainly could be the work of Zeus, assuming he were around. But they could just as well be the work of Deianeira, who is after all a goddess of nature and was there on the spot at the time. Or they could have been simply nature itself at play at a fateful time.
Another big question. Who was Hercules' father? Of course anyone who knows anything about Hercules will know the answer. It's got to be Zeus. Or does it? What we see in the movie is Alcmene being raped by a powerful man who we later learn to be Antaeus son of the Earth. True, he bears the mark of Zeus, but that is just a cut put on him by Amphitryon, and if it has an effect here it is the only time, for Antaeus is from start to finish a servant of Hera. So who is the father? Is it Zeus acting through Antaeus (makes no sense); is it Hera acting through Antaeus (makes more sense than the first choice); or is it Antaeus himself (the most plausible choice of all)? Or could it be that Antaeus did not actually impregnate Alcmene with his violent act, and that the father of Hercules is Amphitryon after all?
A story that raises such fundamental questions is clearly not a simple retelling of the Hercules myth. So what is it about? I think the answer is pretty obvious. It's about divisions. Divisions between the followers of Zeus and the followers of Hera, divisions between the branches of the house of Perseus, divisions between husband and wife, between parents and children, between siblings. Divisions between noble instincts and base instincts, between societal values and personal values, between conflicting desires. Divisions everywhere, within society, within families, within the individual.
And so what does it say about divisions? Again the answer is pretty obvious. That divisions cause conflict and hurt, that the conflict and hurt will go on as long as the divisions exist, and that the only way to get out of the cycle is to break down the divisions and bring warring sides together and set about healing the wounds they have inflicted on each other. The process requires will and sacrifice and above all open-mindedness. Hercules' speech to the gods, the rising of the people, the (willing or unwilling) sacrifices of Alcmene and Megara, the marriage of Hyllus and Iole are all about this process and its goal.
Paul Telfer said something interesting in one of the interviews he did for the movie: "There is also an idea of these myths becoming so pervasive in culture and lasting so long because they are endlessly re-interpretable. All the problems and dilemmas faced by those characters are universal and outside of history, also part of story telling is to take your story and relate it to today. Our Hercules is very different than the Hercules of ten years ago and 20 years ago, as it should be." In our present age of red states and blue states, conservative and liberal, religious and secular, pro-war and anti-war, and so on and on, I can't think of a Hercules we need more than the one in this movie.
It's great that so many people know the myth well enough to see where the movie departs from it. But the myth is not as fixed as it seems. The version most people know, though clearly based on early sources, is quite late - in fact hundreds of years later the great age of Athens and Sparta. When we go back to that age we find variations that may surprise us. For example, most people know that Hercules performed his labors as a penance for killing his children; and yet, if they look in Euripides' play "Heracles", they will see him quite clearly killing his children after his labors, which were done for a quite different reason. Was Euripides using a different version of the story or did he change the story himself for his own dramatic purposes? All that's certain is that he offered a version that differs significantly from the one we regard as standard today.
We should keep such ancient differences in mind as we look into Charles Pogue's script and see, for example, that Iole's parents have been changed from two outside people to Megara and Eurystheus, and, that Iole herself has been changed from the cause of Hercules' downfall to the symbol of his triumph. The point is that the myth is as fluid today as it was two and half millennia ago. Which, as Telfer says, is the way it should be.
I hope everybody will take another look at the Hallmark "Hercules" when it appears again on TV or DVD and give it a chance to tell the story it is trying to tell. It will still be a TV movie and it will have its faults. But it's an interesting and worthwhile artistic work, flawed as it may be, and deserves a second look.
Think about it. Zeus and Hera, king and queen of the gods. Their names permeate the story from beginning to end. But where are they? They are not played by actors, they are not rendered by CGI. They are not there. True, there is that scene where Hercules tries to destroy himself after he learns he has slain his children, and his dagger is knocked from his hand by lightning and the flames of the pyre put out by rain. These actions certainly could be the work of Zeus, assuming he were around. But they could just as well be the work of Deianeira, who is after all a goddess of nature and was there on the spot at the time. Or they could have been simply nature itself at play at a fateful time.
Another big question. Who was Hercules' father? Of course anyone who knows anything about Hercules will know the answer. It's got to be Zeus. Or does it? What we see in the movie is Alcmene being raped by a powerful man who we later learn to be Antaeus son of the Earth. True, he bears the mark of Zeus, but that is just a cut put on him by Amphitryon, and if it has an effect here it is the only time, for Antaeus is from start to finish a servant of Hera. So who is the father? Is it Zeus acting through Antaeus (makes no sense); is it Hera acting through Antaeus (makes more sense than the first choice); or is it Antaeus himself (the most plausible choice of all)? Or could it be that Antaeus did not actually impregnate Alcmene with his violent act, and that the father of Hercules is Amphitryon after all?
A story that raises such fundamental questions is clearly not a simple retelling of the Hercules myth. So what is it about? I think the answer is pretty obvious. It's about divisions. Divisions between the followers of Zeus and the followers of Hera, divisions between the branches of the house of Perseus, divisions between husband and wife, between parents and children, between siblings. Divisions between noble instincts and base instincts, between societal values and personal values, between conflicting desires. Divisions everywhere, within society, within families, within the individual.
And so what does it say about divisions? Again the answer is pretty obvious. That divisions cause conflict and hurt, that the conflict and hurt will go on as long as the divisions exist, and that the only way to get out of the cycle is to break down the divisions and bring warring sides together and set about healing the wounds they have inflicted on each other. The process requires will and sacrifice and above all open-mindedness. Hercules' speech to the gods, the rising of the people, the (willing or unwilling) sacrifices of Alcmene and Megara, the marriage of Hyllus and Iole are all about this process and its goal.
Paul Telfer said something interesting in one of the interviews he did for the movie: "There is also an idea of these myths becoming so pervasive in culture and lasting so long because they are endlessly re-interpretable. All the problems and dilemmas faced by those characters are universal and outside of history, also part of story telling is to take your story and relate it to today. Our Hercules is very different than the Hercules of ten years ago and 20 years ago, as it should be." In our present age of red states and blue states, conservative and liberal, religious and secular, pro-war and anti-war, and so on and on, I can't think of a Hercules we need more than the one in this movie.
It's great that so many people know the myth well enough to see where the movie departs from it. But the myth is not as fixed as it seems. The version most people know, though clearly based on early sources, is quite late - in fact hundreds of years later the great age of Athens and Sparta. When we go back to that age we find variations that may surprise us. For example, most people know that Hercules performed his labors as a penance for killing his children; and yet, if they look in Euripides' play "Heracles", they will see him quite clearly killing his children after his labors, which were done for a quite different reason. Was Euripides using a different version of the story or did he change the story himself for his own dramatic purposes? All that's certain is that he offered a version that differs significantly from the one we regard as standard today.
We should keep such ancient differences in mind as we look into Charles Pogue's script and see, for example, that Iole's parents have been changed from two outside people to Megara and Eurystheus, and, that Iole herself has been changed from the cause of Hercules' downfall to the symbol of his triumph. The point is that the myth is as fluid today as it was two and half millennia ago. Which, as Telfer says, is the way it should be.
I hope everybody will take another look at the Hallmark "Hercules" when it appears again on TV or DVD and give it a chance to tell the story it is trying to tell. It will still be a TV movie and it will have its faults. But it's an interesting and worthwhile artistic work, flawed as it may be, and deserves a second look.