Post on 28-Jan-2022
Myth and Film • Three main types: • ‘Ancient world’ films
based on myth – part of the epic genre in cinema
• Adaptations of myth into other times and places
• Film itself as mythic storytelling
Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, 2000
Image: http://www.impawards.com/2000/posters/o_brother_where_art_thou_ver1_xlg.jpg
• “Highly visual” and “even cinematic” quality to many mythic texts*
• Vantage-point of the
gods = high-angle wide shots in the cinema epic
• Descriptions of battles
use visual language easily translated as camera angles (e.g. Homer’s Iliad 22.90-98 & 131-144)
• Winkler, Martin M. 2007. The Iliad and the Cinema. In Troy: From Homer’s Iliad to Hollywood Epic, ed. Martin M. Winkler, 42-67. Blackwell, Malden MA. • Clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq-uMIZGETs & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8lnE8b19tw • Images: http://thearchnemesis.com/images/Troy%20Armada.jpg & http://blogs.amctv.com/movie-blog/2008/05/08/troy-560.jpg
• Three main ‘clusters’ of myth-based films:
• Silent era • Widescreen era
1950s-early 1960s (though it trails off to as late as 1981)
• Current digital era
Dir. Desmond Davis 1981
Image: http://entertainnow.net/video/posters.php?page=3&type=m&id=9608
The Epic Genre in Cinema • The cinema epic as excessive
– in spectacle or length • Creates a tangible sense of
physical objects, time and place
• Mix of the “mythic, biblical,
folkloric, and quasi- or ‘properly’ historical”*
* Sobchack, Vivian. 1995. "Surge and Splendor": A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic. In Film Genre Reader II, ed. Barry Keith Grant, 280-307. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Dir. George Pal, 1961
Image: http://www.johnreid.helpinghost.com/ATLANTISLINEN.jpg
The Silent Epics • Biggest era for myth-based films, but few remain
• Captions made foreign exports easy • Old spectacle tradition with new narrative
developments
• Mythological, Biblical and other ancient subjects seen as lending cultural and educational credibility to early film* • An excuse for sex and violence, curbed in the sound era when censorship is enforced in 1934 * Baker, Djoymi. 2006. ‘The Illusion of Magnitude’: Adapting the Epic from Film to Television. Senses of Cinema, 41. http://sensesofcinema.com/2006/41/adapting-epic-film-tv/
Dir. Giuseppe de
Liguoro 1910
Image: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/images/06/41/homers-odyssey.jpg
The 1950s-60s Revival • Post-war downturn at the US box office • Impact of TV and leisure industries • Cinema returned to spectacle and new
spectacle technologies to compete • ‘Ancient world’ epics provide scope for
this spectacle • Post-war critiques of fascism,
communism, and the McCarthy witch hunts lent themselves to ‘empire’ focused films
Dir. Rudolph Maté, 1962
Image: http://www.impawards.com/1962/posters/three_hundred_spartans.jpg
Dir. Robert Wise, 1955
Ulysses, Dir. Mario Camerini,
1955
Images: http://8mm16mmfilmscollectibles.com/Ulysses1shWeb.jpg & http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tw5hXrbf1kg/TJqMKSD2f8I/AAAAAAAACQ0/zI-NjhlkOvo/s1600/helen+of+troy+800x600.jpg
Dir. Cecil B. DeMille, 1949
Dir. Mervyn LeRoy, 1951
Dir. Henry Koster, 1953
Cycle of myth-based films prompted by success of other types of epic
Images: http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/37/3725/8SOAF00Z/posters/samson-and-delilah-hedy-lamarr-victor-mature-1949.jpg & http://www.garboforever.com/Bilder/Unrealized_Projects/Quo_Vadis.jpg & http://www.studiodaily.com/Assets/Image/filmandvideo/2008/11/200_robe.jpg
Italian-made Hercules (Dir. Pietro Francisci 1957, but released in the USA in 1959) ushers in demand for sword-and-sandal ‘muscleman’ films
Dir. Giorgio Ferroni, 1962
(Romolo e Remo, Dir. Giorgio Ferroni, 1961 Images: http://images.moviepostershop.com/duel-of-the-titans-movie-poster-1963-1020206217.jpg &
http://wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-t/trojan_horse_poster_01.jpg & http://s2.hubimg.com/u/7289569_f520.jpg
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nisz2sMQ6d8
Full film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHMeaEyjVA
Dir. Giacomo Gentilomo, 1964
• Mythic heroes are swapped at will to suit different markets
• Mythic traditions and different film genres are mixed together
• Mythic traditions were always highly malleable (e.g. Herakles, Amazons)
• Concept of ‘original’ authentic myth is misplaced
Image: http://images.moviepostershop.com/hercules-against-the-moon-men-movie-poster-1965-1020209127.jpg
Dir. Don Chaffey, 1963, special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
• Challenge to bring the more fantastic elements of myth to screen
• Films based on myth tend to be clustered around technical innovations
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itBVysP6IPE, Skeletons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZK4MiIMZM&feature=fvwrel
Images: http://www.liveforfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/skeletons3.jpg & http://bavatuesdays.com/files/2012/01/fulljasonandtheargonauts22x287378-3.jpg
Dir. James Cameron, 1997
Dir. Ridley Scott, 2000
Dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 2004
The new cycle of CGI epics
Images: http://custodianfilmcritic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/titanic-poster-3.jpeg & http://au.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/22/A70-11370 & http://danrkramer.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/troy-poster1.jpg?w=620
Dir. Zack Snyder, 2007 Dir. Louis Leterrier, 2010
Dir. Tarsem Singh, 2011
(“From the producers
of 300”)
Images: http://www.critiques4geeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/300-poster.jpg & http://antitrustlair.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/clash-of-the-titans-poster.jpg & http://www.impawards.com/2011/posters/immortals_ver10.jpg
Hercules: The Thracian Wars (Dir. Brett Ratner, due 2014, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Hercules, based on the comicbook series by Steve Moore)
Image: http://collider.com/brett-ratner-hercules-the-thracian-wars/ & http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/30300000/Face-of-a-King-the-scorpion-king-30391879-1610-2560.jpg
Johnson in The Scorpion King (Dir. Chuck Russell 2002)
Images: http://www.superherohype.com/images/stories/2013/May/herc_3D.jpg & http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_3309/kellan-lutz/magazinecovers_2
Dir. Renny Harlin, due 2014
• Mostly heroic myths brought to screen
• Male warriors as objects of the gaze
• Homoerotic undercurrent of sado-masochistic spectacle
• Villains often contradict dominant models of normative masculinity* and reflect contemporary politics
* Hark, Ina Rae. 1993. Animals or Romans: Looking at masculinity in Spartacus. In Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema, eds. S. Cohan and I. R. Hark, 151-72. London & New York: Routledge.
Image: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h20qqsFZeMI/TvuxsLRCnZI/AAAAAAAADB0/ruUOe-hwzTQ/s1600/steveshrink.jpg
• Putting myth into new genres – different eras, different settings – allows greater creative leeway
• Allows new cultural associations and connections to be forged
• O Brother Where Art Thou? melds Homer’s Odyssey with depression-era road movie musical!
• Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kID9iXY5Nuk • ‘Cyclops’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLvcrsbliOo
Image: & http://www.impawards.com/2000/posters/o_brother_where_art_thou_ver1_xlg.jpg
Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, 2000
Elements of Homer’s Odyssey in new contexts…
Dir. Jim Jarmusch,
1995
Dir. Anthony Minghella, 2003
Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968
Images: http://www.leninimports.com/johnny_depp_dead_man_movie_poster_b_2a.jpg & http://www.the-white-stripes.com/Cold%20Mountain_DVD_Cover.jpg & http://4.bp.blogspot.com/0GguOzQtbN0/USOpuQPofwI/AAAAAAAATsg/xvIDu2WRbeY/s1600/1968_2001+Space+Odyssey_11.jpg
Trick of “Nobody” in a new western genre context (Homer’s Odyssey 9.364-414) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVVkiMIkM0
• Even history seen through the mythic template…
Image: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KJfy23dR9IY/S835VCCV8HI/AAAAAAAAAcw/JcG9Wp5DA2w/s1600/apollo13poster1.jpg
Clip from Brides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ob2iKO7IHk
Dir. Ron Howard 1995
Dir. Stanley Donen, 1954, citing Plutarch’s account of the rape of the Sabines from Life of Romulus
References to myth occur in a suprisingly broad range of film genres
Image: http://d1g4sq00ps2bp3.cloudfront.net/img/_categories/_images/Entertainment_Items/Lobby_Cards/CGC_Graded_Lobby_Cards/21108.jpg
Film as mythic storytelling?
Dir. George Lucas, 1977 Dir. Chris Columbus, 2001 Images: http://www.cinemasterpieces.com/82011/swcportal.jpg & http://images2.fanpop.com/images/polls/269000/269604_1247829030867_full.jpg
• For a chronology of myth-based ancient world epics, based on the era in which they are set, see:
• Solomon, Jon. 2001. The Ancient World in the Cinema. New Haven: Yale UP.
• For a chronology based on different eras of
filmmaking, see: • Hall, Sheldon and Steve Neale. 2010. Epics,
Spectacles and Blockbusters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
• Balanced approach would look both at the ancient sources and the era of filmmaking
Additional sources: • Black, Gregory D. 1994. Hollywood Censored: Morality Code, Catholics and
the Movies. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. • Fraser, George MacDonald. 1988. The Hollywood History of the World.
London: Penguin. • Elley, Derek. 1984. An Epic by Any Other Name. The Epic Film: Myth and
History, 9-12. Routledge, London. • Ford, Andrew. 1997. Epic as Genre. In A New Companion to Homer, ed. Ian
Morris and Barry Powell, 396-414. New York & Leiden: Brill. • Hunt, Leon. 1993. What Are Big Boys Made Of? Spartacus, El Cid and the
Male Epic. In You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies and Men, eds. Pat Kirkham & Janet Thumin, 65-83. London: Lawrence Wishart.
• Richards, Jeffrey. 2008. Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds. London: Continuum. • Winkler, Martin M., ed. 1991. Classics and cinema. Lewisburg, Pa.:
Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses. • Winkler, Martin M., ed. 2001. Classical myth and culture in the cinema. New
York: Oxford University Press. • Winkler, Martin M., ed. 2007. Troy: from Homer's Iliad to Hollywood epic.
Malden, MA : Blackwell. • Winkler, Martin M. 2009. Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo's New Light.
Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press. • Lecture and notes © Djoymi Baker 2013