Book contents
- Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination
- Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- I Prolegomena
- II Progymnasmata: Ways of Seeing
- III Complex Cinematism
- IV The Cinema Imagines Difficult Texts
- Chapter 10 Apollonius and the Golden Fleece; or, The Case of the Missing Ecphrasis
- Chapter 11 Arrow and Axes in the Odyssey; or, The Case of the Insoluble Enigma
- Chapter 12 Peckinpah’s Aristotle; or, How Well Does The Wild Bunch Fit The Poetics?
- V Epilegomena
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 11 - Arrow and Axes in the Odyssey; or, The Case of the Insoluble Enigma
from IV - The Cinema Imagines Difficult Texts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2024
- Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination
- Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- I Prolegomena
- II Progymnasmata: Ways of Seeing
- III Complex Cinematism
- IV The Cinema Imagines Difficult Texts
- Chapter 10 Apollonius and the Golden Fleece; or, The Case of the Missing Ecphrasis
- Chapter 11 Arrow and Axes in the Odyssey; or, The Case of the Insoluble Enigma
- Chapter 12 Peckinpah’s Aristotle; or, How Well Does The Wild Bunch Fit The Poetics?
- V Epilegomena
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In this chapter we find that Homer’s extraordinary vividness (cf. Chapter 4) is completely missing in a crucial scene of the Odyssey: Odysseus’ shot through twelve axes — through, not across, in-between, or anything else. Scholars have proposed several solutions to a textual problem that still resists any conclusive explanation. Screenwriters and film directors, too, have tackled it. The chapter first outlines the problem in the text and examines the major theories that commentators and translators have advanced to solve it, then analyzes all screen versions from the silent era until the age of computer videos. None other than T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”), himself a translator of the Odyssey, concluded that “a cinema” (i.e. a film) is required to understand Homer’s scene. Several onscreen arrangements of the axes and the manner of Odysseus’ shot are surprisingly close to scholars’ theories.
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- Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination , pp. 377 - 429Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024