Why Rollerball is the Iliad on Wheels

I recently re-watched the 1970s James Caan film, Rollerball. It’s a pretty good film, famous as much for the violence and synthesiser classical music as the story.

What did intrigue me is that the film’s story is a pretty interesting take on the Iliad, with Caan’s Jonathan E being in the role of Achilles. The central conflict does in some ways ape that in Homer’s work, being between a shining individual and a greater power and the crux for the enmity between the two comes from an executive taking Jonathan’s wife from him, in much the same manner which Achilles lost his prize Briseis.

Much like greedy Agamemnon, the Energy company fear their side’s great hero and realise he has become something of an antithesis for their ideals.

Aside from James Caan’s mild befuddlement as he goes through scenes of trying to understand the political system he lives in, the parallels continue through the film. We see escalating moral and political pressure put on Jonathan to toe the party line and do as he is instructed, he is also offered a great number of incentives - none of which he particularly values. Much the same as Achilles, he is driven to excel at what he does and on his terms and is not to be dissuaded.

Jonathan’s vice captain on the Houston rollerball team, Moonpie, is our dystopian Patroclus. His brain-death moves Jonathan to unseemly lengths to keep his physical body alive in a medicalised echo of Achilles’ treatment of Patroclus after his death. In this re-telling though, Moonpie’s death serves to set out hero deeper into his course rather than to change tack.

Of course, Rollerball does not offer us a Hector but does end with the duel in the championship game and it has been made abundantly clear that the game is one in which life is at stake. The cinematic retelling leaves our modern Achilles completing his victory lap after defeating his greatest challenge, and ends before we see if our hero will share his mythic fate.

It amuses me how many parallels a rather ordinary 70s sci-fi film has with the foundational epic of western civilization, and how little this idea has been discussed.