Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination

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by Martin M. Winkler

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Historical films

Keywords

historical films, literature, pre-cinema

Publishing date

2024

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 554 pages
6 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-009-39671-4

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Book Presentation:
This book aims to enhance our appreciation of the modernity of the classical cultures and, conversely, of cinema's debt to ancient Greece and Rome. It explores filmic perspectives on the ancient verbal and visual arts and applies what is often referred to as pre-cinema and what Sergei Eisenstein called cinematism: that paintings, statues, and literature anticipate modern visual technologies. The motion of bodies depicted in static arts and the vividness of epic ecphrases point to modern features of storytelling, while Plato's Cave Allegory and Zeno's Arrow Paradox have been related to film exhibition and projection since the early days of cinema. The book additionally demonstrates the extensive influence of antiquity on an age dominated by moving-image media, as with stagings of Odysseus' arrow shot through twelve axes or depictions of the Golden Fleece. Chapters interpret numerous European and American silent and sound films and some television productions and digital videos.

About the Author:
MARTIN M. WINKLER is University Professor and Professor of Classics in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University, Virginia. He has written and edited several books on Roman literature, the classical tradition, and antiquity in the cinema and has published over a hundred articles, book chapters, reviews, and notes. He is an honorary member of the Sociedade Brasileira de Retórica.

See the publisher website: Cambridge University Press