A talented ensemble cast bring Euripides masterpiece to life. The Bacchae (also called The Bacchants or Bakchai in Greek) tells the story of the god Dionysus who comes to the city of Thebes disguised as a charismatic young man accompanied by a throng of erotic female maenads. The immortal play is a study in fanatical religions and confronts the personal balance that we all must find between order and spontaneity.
Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.
Johnny Minotaur is a lyrical explosion of taboos: incest, intergenerational desire, pansexuality and autoeroticism are a few of the issues Charles Henri Ford grapples with through mythopoeic, sensual imagery, recitations of his diaries and a philosophical debate featuring an impressive narration by such artists as Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Warren Sonbert and Lynne Tillman.
The story of Oedipus' gradual discovery of his primal crime, killing his father and marrying his mother, filmed by the famed British theatrical director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. This elegant version of Sophocles' play adds a brilliant stroke: the actors wear masks just as the Greeks did in the playwright's day.
A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?
Based on the plot of Euripides' Medea. Medea centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed her for another woman.
With the loss of Patroclus (his undeclared male lover), Greek warrior Achilles returns to the Trojan War.
While on holiday in Rhodes, Athenian war hero Darios becomes involved in two different plots to overthrow the tyrannical king, one from Rhodian patriots and the other from sinister Phoenician agents.
This musical comedy based on an opera by Jacques Offenbach incorporates a twist on the classic Greek myth: Orpheus, a music teacher at a girls’ school in the ancient Greek city of Thebes, actually does not miss his wife Eurydice that much – until the gods and Offenbach himself pressure him to retrieve her from Hades.
Malpertuis is the name of an old, rambling mansion which is in reality a labyrinth where characters from Greek mythology are imprisoned by the bedridden Cassavius. He manages to keep them, as well as his nephew and niece, prisoners even after his death, through a binding testament. As Jan, the nephew, unravels the mystery, he discovers that he cannot escape the house because Malpertuis is far more significant than he was led to believe.
A modern retelling of the Greek myth of Phaedra. The young and fiery second wife of an extremely wealthy shipping magnate meets her estranged stepson Alexis and sparks immediately fly. Their love seems doomed from the beginning when she convinces him to come to Paris to meet his father.
Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.
While two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus, two solitary individuals wander the Parisian streets hustling the populace for cash.
Hashire Melos! is the title of two Japanese animated films. The first was directed by Tomoharu Katsumata and released on Japanese television on February 7, 1981. It was either 68 or 87 minutes long, and its official title did not include the exclamation mark on the end. The second, with the exclamation mark, was a 107-minute remake of the first and was released on July 25, 1992. It featured direction and screenplay by Masaaki Osumi, music by Kazumasa Oda, art by Hiroyuki Okiura and Satoshi Kon, and background art by Hiroshi Ohno. Both were produced by Toei Company Ltd. Visual 80, and both were based on the original short story written by Osamu Dazai in 1940.
After escaping from her homeland and now abandoned by the man she loves, Medea must find strength from within to fight against growing injustice - how far is she willing to go?
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
Based on the legend of Tiresias, it tells of a transsexual who is kidnapped by a man and left to die in the woods. She is then saved by a family and receives the gift of telling the future.
A live film recording of the West End production of the modern musical adaptation of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, starring the original Broadway cast.
In Thebes in ancient Greece, King Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother Jocasta, having two sons - Eteocles and Polyneices - and two daughters - Ismene and Antigone. King Oedipus dies a beggar in the exile after gouging out his own eye, and Eteocle agrees to reign in Thebes in alternating years with Polynices. However, he refuses to resign after the first year and Polynieces raises an army and attacks Thebes, and they kill each other. The ruler of Thebes Creon decrees that Eleocles should have an honorable burial while the body of the traitor Polyneices should be left on the battlefield to be eaten by the jackals and vultures. However, Antigone, who was betrothed to Creon's surviving son Haemon, defies Creon's orders and buries her brother. When Creon is reported of the attitude of Antigone, he sentences her to be placed in a tomb alive. Antigone hangs herself in the tomb and Haemon tries to kill his father first and then he kills himself with his sword...
Filmed stageplay based on the ancient greek play The Bacchae written by Euripides. This play is performed by members of The Performance Group, an NYC experimental theater group who has made their own personal adaptation of this ancient text.