Dear Cinemythologists,
On Tuesday, September 29, our unit on Heracles/Hercules continues. Please do the following.
VIEWING
- The Legend of Hercules (Renny Harlin, 2014)
Streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit. This is one of two Hercules films from 2014, and we’ll want to see how the peplum traditions established in the mid-20th century carry over into the 21st.
ANALYSIS
Huntley and Savage will continue our Analysis series. Their sequence selection is in the comments.
READING
- O’Brien, Daniel. 2014. “Hercules Rebooted.” Classical Masculinity and the Spectacular Body on Film: The Mighty Sons of Hercules. Chapter 4, 95–99. Palgrave-Macmillan.
O’Brien updates us on Hercules screen texts at the end of the old milennium and into the new, stopping with today’s viewing.
The reading is brief to allow time for you to work on milestone 1 (Thesis) of the Semester Project.
SEQUENCES
- Gross, Raker.
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
Huntley/Savage: 01:13:21-01:15:19.
Hello. The clip I’d like to look at is from 41:30 – 42:49. Hercules promises to bring Sotiris and himself back home before mud-fighting a fellow slave to death. This scene stood out to me because it gives a clearer glimpse into what it really would have meant to be a hero in ancient times – the act of conquering foes. Killing someone is not as glamorous as movies and epics make it out to be, but this sequence shows a bit of rawness. But, Hercules shows himself to be a hero in his and Sotiris’ own situation. He makes a promise and immediately takes a step to fulfill that promise in a heroic and animalistic fashion.
58:34-59:40.
I chose this scene because it feels like the first time Hercules proves himself as a hero fighting for a cause other than just himself. It also leads up nicely to the scene that happens later in the movie with the whipping scene. In order for that scene to make sense, Hercules has to be established as the hero of the people.