Journeys to the Underworld – Greek myth, film and American anxiety
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Our new podcast, Essays On Air, features the most beautiful writing from Australian researchers. Today, classics expert Paul Salmond explores how modern cinema directors borrow from Greek legends.
The Conversation is launching a new podcast, Essays On Air. It's the audio version of our Friday essays, where we bring you the best and most beautiful writing from Australian researchers.
American cinema mines Greek myth most strongly at times of profound social anxiety. In the age of Trump, we are already seeing key political battlegrounds framed as underworld quests in film.
The story of the Odyssey is a quintessential quest that relates to the passage through life and the importance of love, family and home. Odysseus’s adventures have influenced everyone from Batman to Bob Dylan.
Calls for accountability at a time of tragedy or crisis are understandable - but scapegoats can distract attention away from the true lessons that need to be learned.
Love, it is said, is a battlefield, and it was no more so than for the first goddess of love and war, Ishtar. Her legend has influenced cultural archetypes from Aphrodite to Wonder Woman.
Since the epics of the Homeric poets, there have been tales of the mysterious, war-like Amazon women. The myth is likely based on the ‘strong, free’ women of the nomadic Scythian tribe.
Australian writers are embracing monsters from classical mythology, which provide profound connections to issues of identity and coming of age. Which mythical beast are you? Try our author’s quiz and find out.
In recreating a perennial mythic tale in the latest episode, the creative taskforce behind Game of Thrones has cast us, the audience, as modern ancients. Warning: spoilers!
Olivia Newton-John has a lot to answer for. Even now, after 35 years has passed, it is hard to forgive her for her role in Xanadu, a film consistently voted as the worst film of 1980. This is quite an…