The Films of Theo Angelopoulos (review)

Andrew Horton, The Films of Theo Angelopoulos. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1999. Pp. xxii + 237. $35.00 (cloth), $16.95 (paper).

The Films of Theo Angelopoulos, the first book-length study of Theo Angelopoulos in English, could not have come at a better time or from a more qualified critic. Although recognized worldwide as one of the most important directors of the last quarter century, Theo Angelopoulos remains poorly understood and infrequently screened in the United States. The notoriety which surrounded the release of Ulysses' Gaze and the garnering of the Palme d'Or in 1998 at Cannes for Eternity and A Day have begun to rouse critical interest in his work. The Films of Theo Angelopoulos opens the door to a complex body of work and will do much to correct the notion that Angelopoulos is simply an eccentric individualist or a director overly infatuated with technique.

Andrew Horton, a prolific writer on film and a scriptwriter, brings special strengths to this project. He is literate in Greek, has lived in Greece for considerable periods, and has worked in the Balkan film industry, including Greek projects. Rather than sticking to a conventional chronological approach to Angelopoulos's career, Horton has opted for a more daring strategy. In Part One, three essays offer insight into the complex techniques favored by Angelopoulos and the various political and cultural problems Angelopoulos chooses to address. In Part Two, five specific films from each of Angelopoulos's major periods are examined in detail. In Part Three, three essays root Angelopoulos in modern cinema and indicate the new territory explored in Ulysses' Gaze and Eternity and A Day.

One insight that Horton brings to the study of Angelopoulos is that what is unique about the director is not his modernist sensibility, but the way he has infused that sensibility with classical references. Horton's assessment begins with a reference to George Seferis's Mythistorema in which the poet talks of having "this marble head in my hands/which exhausts my elbows and I do not know where to set it down." In other words, the classical Greek tradition is an enormous burden for the modern Greek artist. Many choose simply to ignore the tradition and commit themselves totally to modernism. A smaller number are content to offer what ultimately amounts to minor variations on the classic model. Angelopoulos, Horton argues, has brilliantly incorporated traditional images and myths into the most modernistic of cinematic approaches for the purpose of examining contemporary social issues without sacrificing the values of the past. This renders Angelopoulos simultaneously an artist in the classic tradition and a cutting-edge modernist.

Horton's most insightful analysis is devoted to the manner in which Angelopoulos has woven Euripides's version of the Orestes myth into various films, most obviously and successfully The Traveling Players. Horton explains that the myth is there almost as an invisible spine. If one is aware of the myth and its complexities, it offers an entry point into the film. If one is not aware of the specifics of the myth, catharsis comes from the immediate scenario at hand. The classic myth is meant to provide access for those familiar with it and to act as a subliminal bedrock for the story, but it is never employed as an elitist device to bewilder the mass audience.

Angelopoulos has frequently stated that he believes resistance to his work in the United States stems from his avowed leftist politics. He believes critics are either so apolitical that they do not have the knowledge to understand his subject matter or they are subconsciously (or consciously) alienated by his perspective. Horton addresses the poverty in most Americans' knowledge of Greece's contemporary history by explaining how the deep social divisions that brought a civil war (1946-1949) and dictatorship (1967-1974) to Greece inform much of the work of Angelopoulos, particularly from Reconstruction through to at least Voyage to Cythera. Like the mythical allusions...