Phaedra vs Hippolytus

Euripides vs. Dassin The classic Grecian legend of Phaedra probes the tragic consequences that occur when a fair sex becomes sexu wholey obsessed with her stepson. In Phaedra (1962) director Jules Dassin presents Phaedra as a muliebrity everyplacewhelmed by passions she can non control. This follows the interpretation of Phaedra developed by Euripides, who broke with older versions in which Phaedra was an evil-minded sensualist seeking to corrupt her innocent stepson. Dassin adds policy-making punch to the need by exploring the well-endowed lives enjoyed by elect channeliseping families. Where as Hippolytus signs place in Troezen, a urban center in the northeastern Peloponnese.In the Hippolytus, Phaedras husband is answer a year of voluntary f atomic number 18 for murdering the Pallantids. Where as in Phaedra, he is a very wealthy and free man. A majority of Hippolytus revolves most the goddess Aphrodite. Where as in Phaedra there is no gods or goddesss. Euripides pl y Hippolytus was written in 428 B. C. , and ever since it has been regarded as one of the great classical works. In his treat workforcet of the Phaedra myth, Euripides presents Phaedra in a demesne of mental anguish and exhaustion brought active by her have a go at it for Hippolytus, which she strives to conceal.Euripides frames the events of the human characters with the strawman of the gods Aphrodite and Artemis. Euripides Athenian audience was therefore provided with introductory k immediatelyledge about Phaedras discredited secret, for her passion is described as cosmos imposed by the god Aphrodite. Euripides portrays Aphrodite as a terrifying and vindictive deity, hostile the voluptuous woman often portrayed in visual trick. Her inception monologue conveys an imperious attitude, and she sees the world and its passel as her domain.Because Aphrodite is the goddess of love, her perception of the world seems reasonable, since her power extends to the customary lives o f the mortals over whom she rules. This is not, however, the benign emotion that instantly we might associate with the word love. Rather, Euripides depicts tickling love as a eat and destructive force. As Aphrodite states, those who fail to chord the proper respect to her willing example obliteration. The terrifying power of love is necessary to understanding Aphrodites anger at Hippolytus and the development of the extend.Aphrodite directs her fury at Hippolytus because he refuses to holiness her. He is, as he explains in Scene I, not elicit in erotic love and accordingly reveres the goddess of love from a long government agency finish off. He instead remain unblemished and wor transfers Artemis exclusively. This, of course, infuriates Aphrodite who vows to punish him for his blasphemy. Because he will not honor erotic love, she decides that its power will destroy him, thereby proving her supremacy over humanity to all those who hear of Hippolytus destruction.Her f omite for punishing him is Phaedra, his stepmother, who thus becomes a dupe of love. Phaedras position in the play as the agent through whom Aphrodite exacts her retaliation creates an ethical problem. According to Aphrodites scheme, Phaedra mustiness die, notwithstanding unlike Hippolytus, she has not attached any offenses against the goddess of love. Phaedra therefore becomes a dupe of loves power, a pluck bewitched into loving her stepson who then commits self-annihilation out of shame. Yet as Aphrodite explains, Her worthless does not weight in the measure so much that I should allow my enemies go untouched. Reconciling Aphrodites pauperization for revenge and Phaedras innocence is an instructive challenge of the play, and Euripides does not provide an soft answer. Out of this tension arises a important conflict of the play, specifically concerning the race in the midst of men and gods during the period in which Euripides wrote. This relationship seems tenuous at be st and bears myopic resemblance to modern perspectives on religion. As such, an essential question to consider is what responsibilities gods had to people and people to gods.Euripidess cataclysm offers a some in order of battles into this relationship. As evidenced by Aphrodites reaction to Hippolytus exclusive obedience to Artemis, humans were to worship all of the gods. This relationship, however, does not seem reciprocal. Rather, Aphrodites manipulation of Phaedra indicates that the gods had few obligations to humans. Free from the burdens of protecting men, the gods used men as their playthings objet dart humans had to worship the gods to placate them and avoid incurring their wrath.Dassins Phaedra is the forty-something, second wife of shipping powerfulness Thanos Kyrilis, who wishes to reconcile with his estranged son Alexis, an art student living in capital of the United Kingdom. The athletic and handsome Thanos is a cunning man of affairs involved in international com merce, but he is likable and adores his wife. He gives Phaedra high-priced gifts and names his new prize ship in her honor. Phaedra is not ignored or abused by an unattractive or deceitful husband. Dassin adds political punch to the fool by exploring the luxurious lives enjoyed by elite shipping families.This is not done in a heavy-handed manner. The lavish villas, yachts, and modish attire of the super rich are simply allowed to speak for themselves without any column grumbling by Greek commoners. Dassin takes a notwithstanding jab at the Greek shippers by setting up marital relationships amongst his characters that parallel real-life marriages involving the Onassis and Niarchos shipping clans. The tragedy takes form when Thanos cajoles a reluctant Phaedra to bestow a message to Alexis in London that his father wants his twenty-four-year-old son to be at his side.From their first encounter, Phaedra and Alexis engage in a playful flirtation inappropriate to their relationshi p. Alexis invites Phaedra to construe his girl, which turns out to be a pricey sports machine in a franchise window. Their empathy, however, leads to Alexis meeting with his father in Paris. When pipeline needs require Thanos to leave for young York City, Phaedra, persuades Alexis to remain. The supposedly mounting passion between Mercouri and Perkins lacks chemistry. All the sexual energy comes from the acerb Phaedra and her attraction to the bland Alexis is inexplicable.Nor is Dassins photographic camera effective in addressing this sexual void. The films big sex video is an unimaginative sequence of blurred shots of the include couple punctuated by shots of a rain down storm at the window, a clamorous fireplace, and glowing candles. After living in concert in Paris for more than a week, Alexis asks Phaedra to declare her love openly and communicate with him to London. Phaedra, however, ascertains compelled to rejoin her husband on the island of Hydra. fearsome of he r lack of self control, she tells Alexis, Dont come. Greece brings no respite to Phaedras emotions.Although silence yearning for Alexis, she is tormented by her intellect of shame and deceit. Her only confidant is Anna (Olympia Papoudaka), her senescent personal maid, who is distraught by Phaedras anguish. Annas emotions have homoerotic aspects that feel far more genuine than the emotions Alexis has projected. The women take siestas together, but their sexual intimacy remains limited to the adoring Annas caresses. Thanos informs Alexis that the car he so admires is waiting for him in Hydra. Alexis demands to get along what Phaedra desires him to do.The increasingly unstable Phaedra reverses what she had state earlier and implores Alexis to come as curtly as possible, but her plans go crooked when Alexis hews ever closer to his father while becoming ever more untrusting of her. The sexual dynamics intensify when Ercy, Alexiss beautiful second cousin, a woman his own age, fall s in love with him. Thanos and his circle are delighted at the prospect of a marriage that would further unite the shipping families. A outright sullen and possessive Phaedra stands between Alexis and all that is normal. Alexis reacts by playing the role of a carefree party boy at the local seaside tavern. He goes off with the first available woman, an act k this instanting to cool Ercys ardor and calumniate Phaedra. The film reaches its climax when the luxury ship named Phaedra, seen launched in the films opening scenes, sinks, killing most of its crew. Phaedra, obsessed by her own agenda, arrives at Thanoss offices in the midst of the crisis. Ironically clad in white, she pushes her way through black-clad women anxious to know the fate of their men. Oblivious to the grief around her, Phaedra-in-white reveals her secret love to Thanos.An enraged Thanos manages to celebrate himself from striking her, but beats Alexis viciously, decree him, as he did Phaedra, to leave his sight f orever. The blood-soaked Alexis returns to the family villa for a last embrace of his girl. Phaedra appears at the garage door and tells him they can now live openly as lovers he replies that he wishes Phaedra dead. The rejected Phaedra returns to the main dramatic art where she takes an overdose of sleeping pills while the now frenzied Alexis, listening to music by Bach, drives his girl over a cliff.