Delightful, amazing, and full of surprising insights, this modest study includes nine new essays on both old Homeric questions (key themes and scenes) and modern concerns: e.g., it offers analyses of Wolfgang Peterson's blockbuster film Troy (2004) and other American films. Issues of orality, historicity, and Hellenism are dealt with, as are matters relating to gift-giving and the sacred law of hospitality. One essay probes and explicates the famous recognition scenes in the Odyssey (books 19 and 23). Two others examine the rhetorical sway of conversation and speech in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The careful scrutiny of Troy looks at how the film rewrites Homer audaciously and even redefines Homeric heroism. One contributor explores the charming It's a Wonderful Life as a skillful reworking of the Odyssey (Clarance the angel as Athena . . .). The book closes with an essay that compares the Iliad and the Odyssey with Henry King's film The Gunfighter (1950) in terms of the warrior's glory, self-recognition, and homecoming. The volume would have been more user friendly had Myrsiades fused the bibliographies at the end of each essay into one full grouping. Useful index.
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