Cinematic Signatures of Orpheus and Operatic Evocations

This paper traces the tradition of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice from Ovid and Vergil through Poliziano to late Renaissance, Baroque, early classical, and early twentieth-century opera as antecedents to Cocteau's Orphée and a number of contemporary films, including Imagining Argentina, Slumdog Millionaire, The City of Your Final Destination, Rabbit Hole, Remember Me, and The Book of Life. Because tragic and non-tragic endings are not reliable identifiers in the Orpheus tradition, the paper focuses on such narrative signatures as retrieval from death, playing a stringed instrument in the face of death, and dying twice.