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