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Chapter 11 - Ovidian Returns

from Part V - Eternal Returns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2020

Martin M. Winkler
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

Chapter 11 extends the subject of the preceding chapter by returning to Ovid’s Orpheus, Icarus, and Medusa. It begins with Jean Cocteau, who dealt with the myth of Orpheus in three thematically related films and addressed Orphic themes in other works. As mythic-creative character, Orpheus was Cocteau’s closest model. Poetic immortality is Cocteau’s chief concern, as is love beyond death. Statues play an important part in this. The chapter then turns to French critic André Bazin, who regarded the Icarus myth as an analogy to the nature of cinema as an idealistic phenomenon. A number of films with references to Icarus’ flight support Bazin’s thesis. Had Ovid not told his story, Icarus would have been all but forgotten. The cinema keeps his memory alive, especially in futuristic contexts. Icarus’ appearances in science-fiction films tell us that Ovid’s tale has lost none of its fascination. Thirdly, the cinema may be regarded as a benign Medusa Effect, through which actors become icons, if not necessarily statues, of themselves. All this, like much of the material dealt with in preceding chapters, is in essence marvelous, a quality that D’Annunzio had postulated as a major element in ancient art and that the cinema has revived spectacularly. “It’s a very old story,” we are told in Black Orpheus, which updates the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to its own time and transports it into the New World. The myth is always renewable, as this film’s Orpheus observes: “There was an Orpheus before me, and one may come after I’m gone.” The eternal return of myth, especially of Ovidian myth, is prominent in our media of moving images: cinemetamorphoses.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ovid on Screen
A Montage of Attractions
, pp. 353 - 383
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Ovidian Returns
  • Martin M. Winkler, George Mason University, Virginia
  • Book: Ovid on Screen
  • Online publication: 27 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108756891.011
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  • Ovidian Returns
  • Martin M. Winkler, George Mason University, Virginia
  • Book: Ovid on Screen
  • Online publication: 27 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108756891.011
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Ovidian Returns
  • Martin M. Winkler, George Mason University, Virginia
  • Book: Ovid on Screen
  • Online publication: 27 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108756891.011
Available formats
×