Film Studies

Film studies provides the ideal field for further reflection on the issue of Greek culture. It involves the translation of Greek material into a new medium, as well as a new language, a medium furthermore that is characteristically modern. This article points out that this is the medium through which many moderns have their first or only self-aware encounter with ancient Greece. The stories of the Greek world have functioned as meta-narratives or metaphors for cinematic plots: from road movies to science-fiction films and westerns, cinema has persistently explored the themes of the journey, of homecoming, and of identity, whose archetypal force has come to be associated with Homer and Greek tragedy. Moreover, film theory has drawn on Greek philosophy, especially on theories of representation and perception, to articulate and debate phenomenological, cognitive, and narratological approaches to cinema.