• 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 Dir. George Pal, 1961 Press, Austin.
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, Dir. Giuseppe de curbed in the sound era when Liguoro 1910 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/ 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 Cycle of myth-based films prompted by success of other types of epic
Dir. Henry Koster, 1953
Dir. Cecil B. DeMille, 1949
Dir. Mervyn LeRoy, 1951
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 Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nisz2sMQ6d8 Full film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHMeaEyjVA
Dir. Giorgio Ferroni, 1962
Italian-made Hercules (Dir. Pietro Francisci (Romolo e 1957, but released in the USA in 1959) ushers in Remo, Dir. demand for sword-and-sandal ‘muscleman’ Giorgio Ferroni, films 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 • 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’ Dir. Giacomo Gentilomo, authentic myth is 1964 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, Images: Skeletons: http://www.liveforfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/skeletons3.jpg & http://www.youtube.com/watch? http://bavatuesdays.com/files/2012/01/ v=MOZK4MiIMZM&feature=fvwrel fulljasonandtheargonauts22x287378-3.jpg Dir. James Cameron, 1997 Dir. Ridley Scott, 2000
The new cycle of CGI epics
Dir. Wolfgang Petersen, Images: http://custodianfilmcritic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/titanic-poster-3.jpeg & http://au.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/22/A70-11370 & 2004 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
Images: http://www.critiques4geeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/300-poster.jpg & of 300”) 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)
Johnson in The Scorpion King (Dir. Chuck Russell 2002)
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 Dir. Renny Harlin, due 2014
Images: http://www.superherohype.com/images/stories/2013/May/herc_3D.jpg & http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_3309/kellan-lutz/magazinecovers_2 • 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
Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, 2000
Image: & http://www.impawards.com/2000/posters/o_brother_where_art_thou_ver1_xlg.jpg Elements of Homer’s Odyssey in new contexts…
Dir. Jim Jarmusch, Dir. Anthony Minghella, 2003 1995
Trick of “Nobody” in a new western genre context Dir. Stanley ’ (Homer s Odyssey 9.364-414) Kubrick, 1968 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVVkiMIkM0
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 • Even history seen through the mythic template…
Dir. Ron Howard 1995
Image: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KJfy23dR9IY/S835VCCV8HI/AAAAAAAAAcw/JcG9Wp5DA2w/s1600/apollo13poster1.jpg Clip from Brides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ob2iKO7IHk References to myth occur in a suprisingly broad range of film genres
Dir. Stanley Donen, 1954, citing Plutarch’s account of the rape of the Sabines from Life of Romulus
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