Tag: Homer

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Assignment for Thursday, 11.19.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Thursday, November 19, our unit on the Trojan War concludes. Please do the following.

VIEWING

Streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit.

The Coens have notoriously claimed that they did NOT consult Homer closely when making this film. We can argue about whether or not we believe this claim. Regardless, O Brother offers a somewhat different approach to adapting classical myth: a subterranean approach, some would call it, in which the story world is set outside antiquity.

!! CONTENT ADVISORY !! The film features a blackface “gag” as the protagonists interrupt a KKK rally; this, in turn, throws the film’s racial politics into sharp relief. One issue we’ll need to discuss is the place of so-called Classical Heritage outside of white, patriarchal systems.

READING

  • Siegel, Janice. 2007. “The Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Homer’s Odyssey.” Mousein 7: 213–45.

This exhaustive discussion of the film’s resonances with Homer’s epic ought to get us started, and then some. (Fun fact: Dr. Siegel is my co-author on that long-delayed myth on screen textbook I’m writing.)

In this interactive essay (perhaps best viewed on a laptop), Harris provides a taxonomy on blackface in contemporary screen media. Today’s film receives discussion, and that discussion might help us come to terms with the “accidental” blackface scene (Harris’ term) in O Brother.

SEQUENCES

  • Huntley, Pettit, Whatley.

Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.

Recommendations should contain the following:

  • A brief description of the sequence.
  • Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
  • A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.

DC

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Assignment for Tuesday, 11.17.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Tuesday, October 27, our unit on the Trojan War continues. Since we’ll be transitioning to the period after the war, the assignment will be all reading, no viewing.

READING

  • Homer, Odyssey 1, 9, 11, 22, and 23

In a perfect world, we would have time to read all of the Odyssey, which is about the fraught return of Odysseus from Troy to his homeland of Ithaca. Like, the Iliad, the Odyssey spans a brief period of time, about a month or so in “real time,” with much of Odysseus’ ten-year journey told in flashback.

In class we’ll look at screen texts based on Homer’s “other” epic.

DC

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Assignment for Tuesday, 10.27.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Tuesday, October 27, our fourth and final unit, on the Trojan War, officially begins. As is customary, we’ll begin with primary sources: all reading, no viewing.

READING

  • Homer, Iliad 1, 6, 16, 22, and 24

In a perfect world, we would have time to read all of the Iliad, which is the primary text about the Trojan War — though it is hardly all-encompassing. In fact, the poem’s focus is on an argument that rages among the Greek forces for roughly seven weeks in the tenth year of the conflict. You won’t find the abduction of Helen or the Trojan Horse here. What you will find is an epic about honor and the morality of war, about mortals and gods, and about a city not yet beaten down into the dust.

In subsequent classes we’ll consider the larger sweep of the Trojan War and the texts in which that sweep is best represented.

But not today. Today, we’ll let Homer do the talking. These books will not only introduce the poem’s main characters but also the epic scope that would inspire later poets and artists — the lives of human beings set against a great cataclysm.

This optional, bare-bones summary of the Iliad by Prof. David J. Mastronarde (Berkeley) will help fill in the gaps left by our selective reading of the poem.

In class we’ll discuss themes of Homer’s epic as well as its impact on screen texts.

DC

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