Bettany Hughes has made some marvelous documentaries over the last decade or so. I adored her lengthy films on Athens as well as Sparta and she has a nice way of bringing history to life. Here with "Helen of Troy", the film is a bit different, as this is not necessarily history but is a blend of history and mythology. No one knows how much of the story of Helen and the Trojan War is true and how much is simply fiction or bad history. Much of the problem is that Homer's account of the war was written centuries after the fact and much of the problem is that Homer was not attempting to be a historian but to tell a great story. So, talk about the gods, manly deeds and the sort are clearly artistic license. How much license, who knows?! While I am only a retired history teacher, I doubt most of Homer's account. Could Helen have been THAT beautiful and did she even exist? Was there a Trojan horse? Were Hector, Achilles and the like real folks--even if their exploits were clearly exaggerated? All these plus MANY more questions make this film by Hughes interesting but also quite problematic. The show is based upon many, many, many guesses and suppositions and what we truly know about the war is very, very limited. So you'll hear a lot of comments like 'could have' and 'might'. Interesting, perhaps, but not exactly a science. Still, given the limitations of the story and historical evidence, it's decent--if a bit less watchable than Hughes' other shows.
