prometheus ( 1998 film )
david denby has been a staff writer and film critic at the new yorker since 1998 .
14 t. harrison. prometheus, london, faber and faber limited, 1998. p 27 .
15 t. harrison. prometheus, london, faber and faber limited, 1998, p 31 .
ebert, roger (may 26, 1998). godzilla rogerebert. com. retrieved june 20, 2017
in late summer of 2014, the 1998 film was mocked by rifftrax live, which was created by and shares many of the former members of mystery science theater 3000 .
another american - made godzilla film was produced by legendary pictures in 2014. unlike the 1998 film, legendary' s godzilla was generally well - received by fans and critics alike, and was much more closely based on the character. a sequel for the film was green - lit, along with a crossover film with king kong in 2020 .
godzilla received two golden raspberry awards in 1998: worst remake or sequel and worst supporting actress (maria pitillo). the film later received the saturn award for best special effects in 1999 .
richard dcamp (uw oshkosh): “carl orff and aeschylus’ prometheus desmotes. ”
ironically, the budget of $ 100, 000, 000 - 120, 000, 000 which tristar could not agree with de bont on that ended up sending this film to development hell was exceeded by roland emmerich and dean devlin' s version of the 1998 film .
athenian drama continues to be a fertile source of inspiration. professor hall describes tony harrison’s 1998 film prometheus as “the most important artistic reaction to the fall of the british working class”. adapted from a play often attributed to aeschylus, the film is an imaginative interpretation of ancient myth against a backdrop of industrial decay. for hall, “it provides overwhelming proof that capitalism and classicism need not go hand in hand” .
the godzilla in this film is said to be an artificially - created species rather than being a naturally born or mutated species as in the original 1954 film, the entirety of the toho series, and the legendary film .
the film is dedicated to tomoyuki tanaka, who produced all of the original godzilla movies until 1995 and died only a month before this film began production .
box office update: ‘prometheus’ leads friday with $ 21. 4 million, but ‘madagascar 3’ will win weekend
the statue of prometheus that is built in the film weighed 1. 2 tonnes and was covered in 4, 800 sheets of gold leaf paper. it now lives in writer - director
in the end, this compromised line did not appear in the finished film .
noomi rapace in ridley scott’s first science - fiction film since “blade runner. ”
because of the poor reception of the film, a lack of retailer interest, and the underwhelming financial performance of the first film, sony ultimately decided not to make another godzilla film and their license to the godzilla franchise expired may of 2003 .
4 farnell, l. r. ‘the paradox of the prometheus vinctus’ – journal of hellenistic studies 53: 40 - 50 as referred to in a j. podlecki. aeschylus prometheus bound, great britain, antony rowe, 2005
the two teaser trailers (museum and fishing) have their recycled clips and audio when they appear in a broadcast on cfcn in april and may 1998. some dialogue and clips are skipped .
' we' ll perform it across europe,' he said,' on mountains of industrial waste. we' ll film prometheus' s defiant speeches as we go, in a composite landscape of the debris of promethean fire.' the play never happened, but the film did .
prometheus is a contemporary quest story set in end - of - millennium britain and continental europe. it asks what humanity has made of prometheus' gift of fire - energy, technology, expertise, but also destruction, pollution and war .
sony' s contract with toho stated that sony had the option to produce a trilogy of american godzilla films so long as the first sequel was released within five years after the first film. sony green - lit a sequel shortly after the film' s release, while an animated series made as a continuation of the film began to air later in 1998. during that time tristar released toho' s godzilla 2000: millennium in u. s. theaters .
godfrey cheshire,' abbas kiarostami: seeking a home', john boorman and walter donohue (eds .) - projections 8 (london: faber and faber, 1998), p. 226 .
toho in particular criticized the film for ruining godzilla' s image and
taking the' god' out of' godzilla'
[ 1 ] in addition to mandating that all future incarnations of the 1998 creature be called zilla, they produced the film godzilla 2000: millennium as a direct response, in an attempt to return the traditional japanese godzilla to the big screen .
susanne kogler (kunstuniversität graz): “prometheus and the muses: myth, gender and creativity in 20th century music. ”
according to a 1998 interview with producer jerry bruckheimer, they changed the script at the nsa’s request so that the wrongdoings were the actions of one bad apple nsa official, and not the agency in general .
in our london office, he sorts and digests his findings. on the bookshelf is a prometheus cigarette lighter from japan, and issues of a bondage magazine called prometheus, presumably because he was bound to a rock. there' s something for everyone in a myth .
hermes: “poets have taught mankind to breach the boundaries zeus put round speech and the fire prometheus stole created man’s poetic soul. ” 16
one man who resolved very early in his career that he was prepared to risk his neck in lovecraft - land was guillermo del toro. the director first began sketching out design ideas for a possible adaptation of at the mountains of madness around the time his debut film, the vampire movie cronos, was released in 1993 and by 1998 he had completed a script with matthew robbins, who cowrote the director’s 1997 giant bug film mimic .
just as the prometheus myth prompted athenian poets and philosophers to think more positively about political and intellectual revolution, aeschylus’ portrayal of prometheus as a political rebel greatly inspired later artists and poets, like tony harrison, to use this as a background on which to set their own celebration of rebellion and revolution. like the greeks and romantics before him, harrison reworked the prometheus myth in the context of his own time and culture .
a sequel to the film was planned and received an entire screenplay written by tab murphy, and would have involved the monster that hatched at the end of the film battling a giant insect called the queen bitch. however these plans for a sequel were ultimately scrapped when sony and roland emmerich could not agree on a budget, and emmerich went on to make the patriot instead. sony later considered producing a new reboot to the series unrelated to the 1998 film, but decided against it and allowed their rights to revert to toho in may of 2003 .
prometheus ...
the youtube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third - party notifications of copyright infringement .
a clear contrast is here drawn between the vengeful and cold - hearted actions of the tyrannical zeus and the pathetic agonies of the humanised, freedom - seeking prometheus. the oppression and harshness affiliated with tyranny is linked by aeschylus to democracy by encouraging the audience’s empathy for prometheus in his struggle for justice. aeschylus makes prometheus’ sufferings the focal point of the play as he is left on stage bound to his rock throughout its entirety .
concept art for the american godzilla and the gryphon was commissioned by ricardo delgado in august and september of 1994. stan winston studios was contracted to create the special effects for the film, even producing various maquettes and props for the unmade film. additionally, a teaser trailer for the 1994 film was released in japan .
the species that this film' s godzilla originated from, the marine iguana, is only found in the galápagos islands. they do not exist in french polynesia, the location where godzilla was mutated in the film .
this film also shares some similarities with the 1995 film gamera: guardian of the universe. like godzilla in this film, gamera is said to be a guardian monster genetically engineered by an ancient civilization, and is supposedly destined to save the planet from a different monster, in his case, gyaos. like in this film, the military mistakenly believes gamera is the larger threat and spends a portion of the film attacking him before ultimately allowing him to battle his enemy. it also ends with gamera beheading gyaos and wading out to the ocean .
originally, prometheus was an idea for theatre. tony wanted to do aeschylus' s play in the open air, on the slag heaps of a yorkshire coalfield. ferrybridge was his site, with its coal mountains and cooling towers. the slag would become the caucasus to which prometheus would be chained .
another one - line quip that was censored by the dod came in the james bond film tomorrow never dies .
an interview with writer / director boots riley about his incendiary new film ,
sorry to bother you .
3a j. podlecki. aeschylus prometheus bound, great britain, antony rowe, 2005, line 324. all subsequent translations are taken from this edition .
three voice actors from the comedy series the simpsons appear in the film: harry shearer, nancy cartwright and hank azaria .
mackinnon k. (1986), greek tragedy into film, rutherford, madison, teaneck: fairleigh dickinson university press .
roger ebert became film critic of the chicago sun - times in 1967. he is the only film critic with a star on hollywood walk of fame and was named honorary life member of the directors' guild of america. he won the lifetime achievement award of the screenwriters' guild, and honorary degrees from the american film institute and the university of colorado at boulder .
yet war forms only part of a poetic oeuvre, both public and intimate, that spans page, stage and screen over 45 years. for harrison ,
it' s all one poetry
. writing for television since the early 1980s, he broke ground with a new art form of
film / poems
, with documentaries and features such as prometheus (1998), which transposed greek myth to post - industrial yorkshire and post - communist eastern europe. to mark his 70th birthday on april 30, his collected poems (viking) and collected film poetry (faber) will be published next month. and the same day he will talk about his work after a screening, at the bfi south bank in london, of the shadow of hiroshima, his 1995 channel 4 film for the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing .
barrow, robin. athenian democracy. hong kong, thomas nelson and sons ltd, 1992. barthes, roland mythologies, trans. a lavers, new york; the noonday press. 1972. dougherty, carol. prometheus, oxon, routledege, 2006 gibbon, jennifer. athenian society hong kong, thomas nelson and sons ltd, 1993. goldhill, simon. reading greek tragedy, cambridge university press, 1986 harrison, tony. prometheus, london, faber and faber limited, 1998. hall, edith. tony harrison’s prometheus: a view from the left, arion 12, 51 - 89, 2004 herington, john. aeschylus, usa, yale university, 1986. hogan, james c. a commentary on the complete greek tragedies: aeschylus, chicago, university of chicago press, 1984. kelleher, joe. tony harrison, plymouth, northcote house publishers ltd. , 1996. podlecki, a j. aeschylus prometheus bound, great britain, antony rowe, 2005. sommerstein, alan h. greek drama and dramatists, london, routledge, 2002. vellacot, philip. aeschylus prometheus bound and other plays, london, penguin books ltd, 1961
* * this written before it was known that the film had been taken away from fincher and re - cut by the studio .
[ ii ] in the early 1920s more than 30 film adaptations of ancient greek tragedies had been produced (p. 4) .
nisbet g. (2008), ancient greece in film and popular culture (updated second edition), bristol: phoenix press .
while there is no
facehugger
in
prometheus ,
the alien larvae look like vaginal - headed cobras and can dissolve / penetrate helmets, and they have highly acidic blood .
the myth of prometheus has shown a remarkable ability to inspire cultural works across two and a half millennia. one of the most famous portrayals of the prometheus myth is that of aeschylus in prometheus bound, the first and only surviving part of his trilogy on this theme. the interweaving of literature, contextual history and civilisation are exceptionally skilful and widely acclaimed. it is therefore interesting to compare a 5th century adaptation of the myth with a modern one and to examine how the vastly different cultural and historical context of a twentieth century writer are realised in each .
summer 2012: brave, the amazing spider - man, prometheus, total recall, the dark knight rises, the bourne legacy. photograph: rex features / lmk / planet / allstar
chaz is the publisher of urltoken and a regular contributor to the site, writing about film, festivals, politics, and life itself .
the other
ghost movie
that haunts
prometheus
( quite consciously on the part of the filmmakers) is, as i said before ,
2001: a space odyssey .
the history of the 1998 film and its monster has been a rather mixed and negative one. the initial reaction to the 1998 release was mostly a negative one spanning from both movie critics and the godzilla fanbase alike. critically it was blasted for uninspired acting, random plots that don' t fit, unnecessary use of rain, inconsistent size of the monster, shoddy special effects (even for its time period), and the constant themes and actual scenes it was accused of ripping off from jurassic park. tristar' s godzilla was accused of heavily borrowing concepts such as the asexual development of eggs. multiple scenes had the main characters running for their lives from the baby godzillas which look much like the velociraptors in jurassic park, although the directors insisted this was not intended .
now let' s look at two of the movies that are living inside
prometheus .
first, of course, there' s
alien .
many of the same (or similar) scenes, characters and images from the earlier picture are embedded in the new one' s dna. after two brief prologues (the
engineer
dissolving into the water, the discovery of a cave painting in scotland) the crew of the ship (nostromo in
alien
and prometheus in
prometheus
) are shown coming to life after months / years in stasis .
david bordwell - film history: an introduction (new york: mcgraw - hill, 2nd ed. , 2002), p. 669 .
the intensely dramatic sufferings of prometheus’ character are then used to add a second symbolic layer to the character. he comes to resemble a more general representation of mankind and the concept of their unjust sufferings .
godzilla was intended to be the start of a trilogy of godzilla films, however, a sequel was cancelled shortly after it begun development due to poor critical reception and fan feedback. an animated sequel series was created by jeff kline and richard raynis and then distributed by tristar, and went on to receive a warmer reception than its film counterpart. this would be the only american produced godzilla film until legendary pictures' 2014 film, godzilla .
helpless in his struggles and influenced by an unapproachable higher power, prometheus reflects the widely - held greek belief in both human fallibility and an overarching fate. although prometheus is a titan and not a human himself, aeschylus brilliantly uses the pathos of his suffering to create empathy for the character amongst his audience, humanising the character and allowing the poet to use him for more general comment on the human condition .
have you seen prometheus? do you think del toro should abandon his dream project? or do you agree with the correspondent to the director’s website who yesterday argued that “if there’s room enough for two snow white movies released within the same year there’s room for prometheus and atmom to be released years apart. given how important it is to guillermo i hope we get to see it at some point. ” ?
but the dod are credited at the end of the film and we obtained a copy of the production assistance agreement between the producers and the pentagon .
in 2012 ,
2001: a space odyssey
is 44 years old. i won' t be around to see it, but i wonder how
prometheus
will play in 2056 ...
prometheus’ theft of fire questioned and challenged the limits of the human condition in relation to those of the divine. this questioning is again related to the questioning of rulers and their decrees by a restless subject .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
dr alford is a teaching fellow in the department of politics, language and international studies at the university of bath. his documentary film based on his research, the writer with no hands, was premiered in 2014 at hot docs, toronto and won runner - up at the ammar popular film festival, tehran .
a novelization was released for the film, written as a retrospective by nick tatopolous. nick always refers to the monster as
gojira
in the text .
eons later, the sentinel is unearthed (on earth in
prometheus
; on the moon in
2001
). a team of explorers, some in cryonic hibernation, is sent into deep space to investigate .
in hesiod’s earlier account of the prometheus myth he explains how prometheus steals the previously divine element of fire and begins to bridge the gap between the immortal and mortal worlds. in hogan’s commentary on aeschylus’ text he mentions that ‘the theft of the divine confuses the boundaries [ between the divine and human orders ] by transferring immortal power to mortals’. 8 the ability that prometheus gives humans to break free from their primitive state of existence gives them the potential and power to achieve better things; a similar empowerment to that achieved by the athenian people through democracy. equally, however, aeschylus is quick to remind the athenian people of the suffering that must be endured to be revolutionary and affect positive change :
a teaser for this film was released in japan in 1994. jan de bont was to direct the film, which was to have godzilla fight a new monster called the gryphon, but the project was sent to development hell after de bont left due to budget disagreements with studio executives. tristar then tried to get roland emmerich and dean devlin to make the film, which they turned down several times. after the two read ted elliot and terry rossio' s script, however, they realized that an american version of godzilla could be done and accepted tristar' s requests, on the condition that they could discard the original script and handle the film however they wanted .
taco bell had tie - ins such as cups and toys that promoted the film. the taco bell chihuahua was also at the height of its popularity in taco bell' s television commercials. during the summer of 1998, several commercials pairing godzilla with the taco bell mascot were produced and aired, including several with the chihuahua trying to catch godzilla in a tiny box, whistling and calling ,
here, lizard, lizard, lizard .
when godzilla appears, the chihuahua says ,
uh - oh. i think i need a bigger box .
in - cinema gimmicks no 3d, says director len wiseman, for fear of his film looking
overtly futuristic
. this one' s in plain old two dimensions .
statistics taken from saeed zeydabadi - nejad - the politics of iranian cinema: film and society in the islamic republic (oxon: routledge, 2009), p. 141 .
hamid naficy,' islamizing film culture in iran', richard tapper (ed .) - the new iranian cinema: politics, representation and identity, p. 41 .
. through this, zeus is associated with the athenian perception of a dictator, the most pertinent example of which for aeschylus’ audience would have been the recently repelled xerxes. by dramatically subverting the traditional zeus character, he clearly identifies the character of prometheus as a rebellious figure against the higher powers of tyranny and authoritarian regimes of all kinds. given the recent struggle of athens against such a regime, this allows the audience to identify with prometheus and suggests that he is at least partially representative of athenian citizenry. this is a flattering comparison: prometheus is a titan (a mighty, awe - inspiring figure) who risks divine retribution to aid mankind; namely being bound to a rock with his immortal liver devoured daily by an eagle .
il 27 gennaio 1961 una pletora di alti papaveri conviene al teatro dell' opera di roma per la prima proiezione pubblica di viva l' italia! , il film ...
the ship lands on a planet (oid), following a signal of unknown origin (a transmission in
alien
; the cave paintings in
prometheus
). the mission turns out to be something other than what it originally appeared to be. the crew of the prometheus discovers a vessel and a race of large, dead humanoids who are familiar (the so - called
space jockey
) from
alien .
( turns out what we thought were their biomechanics heads are really helmets .) they find a large chamber where
eggs
( more like canisters in
prometheus
) contain some form of life. (that these seem to be intended for shipment to earth reminded me somewhat of the scientology doctrine of xenu. )
his bbc film on alzheimer' s, black daisies for the bride, daringly and successfully mixed sufferers with actors playing their younger selves, and won the prix italia. he made a poignant half - hour film about kazakh refugees selling soviet revolutionary trinkets on athenian pavements, and a bitter hour about hiroshima 50 years after the bomb, a modern dante for the screen .
tony set off alone, armed with camera, notebooks and a map of the most polluted places in europe, for a' recce' in romania, where there' s a carbon factory that has made the entire town black. like so much in prometheus, this is the obverse of the way a film is habitually made now, when the location search follows and illustrates the finished script. instead, there' s a nomadic poet / director hunting down what tony calls' the temples of prometheus' in the places that his fire - legacy has marked: burnt cities, bakeries, power plants, factories, statuary, candle - lit churches. he' s uncovering a common ground of fire beneath a continent' s criss - cross of ideologies, industries and faiths. place in tony' s film - making becomes a launch - pad for the story, not its background .
his prometheus, just one of the subjects of zeus’ oppression, is a deeply pathetic character, symbolising the recent struggles of the athenian people to establish their radical system of governance. he specifically draws the parallel between the vengeful and cold - hearted actions of the tyrannical zeus and the pathetic agonies of the humanised, freedom - seeking prometheus. in a wider sense, aeschylus’ audience would have seen a comment on tyranny and democracy here as well – tyranny connected with oppression and harshness; democracy linked with empathy and the struggle for justice .
generic conventions, expectations, transformations and hybridities are major issues involved in the process of adapting greek ancient plays to the screen. they are developed in the sixth chapter, by tracing the influence of ancient drama on genres such as the horror film, the western and the melodrama, and also on the uses of generic conventions with their aesthetics of shock, fear and pleasure in order to “bring back to life on the screen the dead genre of greek tragedy” (p. 131). the chapter continues with the analysis of the tragic turned into comic parody in woody allen’s mighty aphrodite (1995) and with michael cacoyannis’s iphigenia (1977) as a mixture of melodrama and western (“ souvlaki western” according to an anonymous reviewer [ p. 140 ]). oresteia, antigone, prometheus bound are the tragedies discussed in the following chapter, which examines the relationship of greek tragedy with history and elaborates on the construction of master narratives, fragmentation and continuity, irony and monumentalism through the analysis of three politically - charged films, o thiassos / the travelling players (angelopoulos, 1975), germany in autumn (schlöndorff, 1978), and prometheus by tony harrison (1998) .
he returns with the trophies of his expedition: wine - labels and tram - tickets with promethean iconography; photographs of likely locations, to be stored in stacks of albums. he' s especially excited about the statue of prometheus he' s found in dresden, replaced in its original position on the restored opera house, but still blackened by the allies' firestorm. he has found a modern statue of aeschylus, in the style of giacometti, on a traffic roundabout in eleusis, birthplace of the greek playwright and site of their fire mysteries. this will be the destination of the odyssey at the heart of the film, just as dresden will frame a kind of cantata in which prometheus is arraigned by the dresden firestorm dead .
when one of the crew is infected, the commander of the ship (ripley in
alien ,
vickers in
prometheus
) tries to prevent the contaminated man from re - boarding for fear of breaking quarantine. the android overrules her and lets them in .
thus harrison’s hermes links poetry to prometheus’ symbolic transgression across these boundaries. this allusion is in many ways self - referencing: harrison has used metered speech, which his audience would associate with high culture, in his own comment on the social issues of twentieth century england .
why we' re excited ever since alien and blade runner established his name back in the late 70s and early 80s, ridley scott has resisted making a sci - fi film. prometheus returns the director to the genre from which he came: a moody sci - fi thriller set in the same unpleasant nook of the universe as the unforgettable alien. once again we board an interplanetary craft that has unreliable overhead lighting and a cross - gender crew of space navvies. they make unwise investigations. they establish extraterrestrial contact. they regret it. scott has described the film as
really tough, really nasty. it' s the dark side of the moon
.
the last chapter considers the thematics of space and discusses the uses of monuments, archeological sites, ancient theatres or modern urban landscapes as film locations, while tracing spatial motifs such as the desert, the ruin, the mountain or the crossroad. the analysis begins with the examination of cacoyannis’s iphigenia (1977) as a combination of symbolic and aestheticised representations of archeological sites, and continues with the less known ukrainian film prometheus by ivan kavaleridze produced in 1935, where prometheus stands as a national symbol of the caucasus and, at the same time, as a symbol of the bolsheviks and the communist ideology. finally, the chapter discusses the japanese version of oedipus funeral parade of roses (1969) by toshio matsumoto and parallels the uses of modern cityscape with the pasolinian version of the same play. michelakis shows that spaces in tragedy on screen never stop to underline issues of liminality, transition, exile, enclosure, homelessness, otherness, and wandering .
there is no formal cia script review process but the agency’s long - serving entertainment liaison officer chase brandon was able to insert himself into the early stages of the writing process on several tv and film productions .
and that fusion of flesh and technology is one of the major themes of
prometheus
- - right from the opening. once aboard the prometheus in 2093, the first character we see is david (michael fassbender), who we soon find out is an android designed to exhibit signs of emotion so as to better facilitate interactions with humans. artificial intelligence with artificial emotion - - that' s something we immediately associate with
prometheus
forbears such as hal 900 in
2001 ,
ash (ian holm) in
alien ,
bishop (lance henricksen) in
aliens ,
the replicants in scott' s
blade runner ,
and, yes, david (haley joel osment) in the spielberg / kubrick
a. i. artificial intelligence .
we first hear him talking to another voice that sounds remarkably like hal .
this paper will examine the role of music and myth in marcel camus’ franco - brazilian film orfeu negro (black orpheus) from 1959. music in the film serves as an expression of racial identity. significantly, the title of the film deliberately signals from its inception its exploration of black identity, and emphasizes the racial elements of the culture. to this end, the filmmakers make use of various afro - brazilian signifiers, including candomblé, capoeira, carnival, and the poverty of the favela slums in rio de janeiro. by the same token, the composers (antônio carlos jobim and luiz bonfá) use prominent afro - brazilian musical styles to establish a black cultural identity: samba, bossa - nova and fossa. much of the film’s music is anempathetic, purveying a sense of giddy and joyful celebration in the midst of greek tragedy .
prometheus
has very close structural and thematic relationships to both
alien
and
2001: a space odyssey ,
which is something i' ll get into in more detail below. (i think of the discovery from
2001
as a gigantic sperm cell inseminating
prometheus .
) because when a film shows so little regard for the basic craftsmanship of storytelling and character, you have to at least consider the possibility that the filmmakers are telling you that they' d prefer it to be viewed in other terms. (both kubrick' s
the shining
and
eyes wide shut
fall into that category, i think - - preposterous and / or unsatisfying on their generic surfaces, perhaps, but working powerfully in other more primal or abstract dimensions. )
and prometheus is, first of all, a poem. its earthed, flexible couplets are as regular as frames of film stock. they make a chain upon which the images are fastened like ribbons. this poetry thrives on rhythm, on the stuff of speech. the old man, nostalgic in a nimbus of smoke, growls :
when bogey lit up, so did i, / smoke curling past my one closed eye ...
the verse is stripped of ornament, of metaphor. it keeps diction and perception within the scope of the speaking character. if these are assets when it comes to drama, in film they are vital. one clever visual metaphor and the camera counts for nothing .
favreau wanted a military character to say the line, ‘people would kill themselves for the opportunities i have’, but strub objected. favreau argued that the line should remain in the film, and according to strub :
hamid naficy,' iranian cinema', rose issa, sheila whitaker (eds .) - life and art: the new iranian cinema (london: national film theatre, 1999), p. 19 .
footage available a couple of trailers, a teaser, five clips; see urltoken other agents of hype a
daily bugle
channel on youtube purports to show news items emanating from the world of the film. elsewhere, plans explaining spider - man' s wrist - mounted web shooters were secreted online for fans to root out. see the results on the film' s tumblr (linked to at the above address) .
the god hermes descends on a depressed coal town in yorkshire. its mine is destroyed, and the miners driven away in a sealed truck by two figures in radiation suits, hermes' henchmen. an ancient miner sits in a disused cinema, defiantly smoking cigarettes and watching the action unfold. the miners are transported to germany, where they are melted into a huge golden statue of prometheus. this is carried to dresden, where prometheus is called to account for the city' s firebombing. a woman from the mining town, dishevelled and bewildered, follows in the statue' s wake .
as an adaptor, rather than translator, of greek drama for the contemporary stage, i embrace the concept of
inductive
rather than
historical
authenticity. this involves trying to create experiences for our audiences which will arouse intellectual and emotional effects similar to those experienced by ancient audiences. in the last fifteen years live original music has been central to my adaptations, and together with my composers i have explored using various genres of music (and dance). at times, believing in the importance of finding
emergent meaning
in the ancient scripts, we have added new music and songs. my presentation will include video clips from productions including prometheus 1. 1 (1998), the julie thesmo show (2000), helen of egypt (2008) and orestes terrorist (2011). top
in the film the characters of the mayor and his adviser are clearly caricatures of roger ebert and gene siskel. reportedly, the less - than - flattering portrayal was because both had given negative reviews of dean devlin and roland emmerich' s earlier film, stargate and their summer blockbuster independence day. when the actual siskel and ebert reviewed emmerich' s godzilla on their show, it received two thumbs down and siskel commented on being spoofed in the film, saying it was
petty .
ebert' s own print review declared that he considered emmerich
let us off lightly; i fully expected to be squished like a bug by godzilla .
[ 5 ]
aeschylus’ choice to emphasise might and force as such intimidating and violent aspects of zeus’ persona and rule, instead of less oppressive characteristics, is extremely unconventional. it is crucial, however, in his criticism of oligarchic rule controlled through fear, force and punishment, concepts which zeus clearly represents in prometheus bound .
in 1992, toho sold the rights to produce an american godzilla film to sony pictures entertainment, who assigned the project to its newly - acquired subsidiary, tristar pictures. terry rossio and ted eliott were brought in to write a script for the film, which was completed in 1994. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] tristar was satisfied enough with the screenplay to begin searching for directors. the screenplay caught the attention of director jan de bont after he had just finished directing the hit film speed. de bont originally wanted a budget of $ 100 - $ 120 million for the film, but sony and tristar' s executives were unwilling to place that much money into the project, eventually forcing de bont to leave the project and sending godzilla into development hell. various writers were brought in to perform rewrites to try and reduce the projected budget, but the difficulties scared away several potential directors .
there were scenes that were virtually frame - by - frame the same as jurassic park, like the velociraptor shadow scene, jump attack sequence or the door opening sequence. at the end of the film when godzilla was killed by the f - 18 hornets, audiences were confused as to whether or not they should have felt sorry for the creature or cheer much like the new york citizens and military celebrated to godzilla' s demise, whereas in the original film audiences were meant to feel sympathy for both godzilla and the martyr who gave up his life to destroy him. the godzilla fanbase criticized the film for lacking godzilla' s theme, personality, and key characteristics .
hermes seems to be punishing prometheus by showing him the worst depredations of industry, yet hermes concedes that zeus relishes all this, because zeus hates man. when hermes snuffs the memorial candles at auschwitz, is he drawing attention to these crimes of fire, or opposing man' s use of fire even for remembrance? are fire and industry, as the old man implies, sources of wisdom and pride or (as the images of the film cry out, and hermes cheerfully watches over) a curse on civilisation? it' s unfair to expect the film to come down on one side or the other of such a question, but the force with which a fine poet and a powerful camera can argue both sides makes for a kind of passionate stalemate .
an earlier script for an american godzilla film was written by terry rossio and ted eliott and was going to be directed by jan de bont. a teaser trailer for this was made in japan in 1994, but due to budget differences the script was dropped and roland emmerich was brought in. in the end, the original 1994 script' s estimated budget which caused it to be dropped was a couple of million dollars under this film' s budget .
working with tony as his producer, together with andrew holmes, has been an education - about how a poet takes to cinema, and how current cinema both supports and resists the result. we got off to an encouraging start three years ago. for a while, i had been saying to tony that it was time he wrote and directed a feature film. he had learnt film - making through a long series of' film - poems' for television, starting with v, which i' d commissioned at channel 4. in advance of transmission, it triggered tory mps and the daily mail to frothing fury, though none of them, of course, had seen it .
why we' re excited in what was just about a historical first, pixar suffered a critical knock last year: their sequel cars 2 sequel was panned as lazy and derivative. it raises the tantalising prospect of the hit - machine studio actually upping its game. brave will tell the story of the teenage merida, royal scottish redhead and determined 10th - century tomboy who – in the mould of 1998 disney film mulan – wants to shun her pampered life as a princess and enlist as a warrior alongside her male peers. clips released so far make it look stunning, with everything from merida' s rebekah brooks - ish mop of hair to the heather - filled highland forest in which she roams to the rippling lochs and misty skies all animated with breathtaking detail. (seriously: watch online footage of the hair if nothing else. it' s ridiculous .) last month, the first 30 minutes of the film screened for bloggers in california. tears and cheers were later reported .
matt zoller seitz is the editor - in - chief of rogerebert. com, tv critic for new york magazine, the creator of many video essays about film history and style, a finalist for the pulitzer prize in criticism, and the author of the wes anderson collection. his writing on film and tv has appeared in the new york times, salon, new york press, the star - ledger and dallas observer. (banner illustration by max dalton )
prometheus
has a talented cast, too - - especially michael fassbender, noomi rapace, idris elba, charlize theron, guy pearce, logan marshall - green (a dead ringer for a thinner tom hardy with the same purdy mouth). and yet, some of the characters aren' t even given a chance to register - - especially the two pilots (their one bit of business is they keep making bets with each other) and a disposable geologist and biologist whose only function is to behave absolutely nonsensically at every turn. most of the underdeveloped prometheus crew are scientists and corporate drones, and most of their dialog isn' t very fresh or funny, although idris elba as prometheus captain janek is a joy. when asked if he can land the ship in a certain spot, he says :
i wouldn' t be very good if i couldn' t .
spoken like cary grant in
only angels have wings
!
despite the large number of film adaptations, rewritings and influences from ancient drama, only a limited number of monographs are exclusively devoted to tragedy in film. while there are numerous studies that examine the role of antiquity, mythology or ancient themes in film, television and popular culture [ i ], just a few of them elaborate in depth on the cinematic adaptations of greek tragedy. the two major monographs date back from the 1980s: kenneth mackinnon’s greek tragedy into film (1986) and marianne mcdonald’s euripides in cinema: the heart made visible (1983). both studies construct the object of tragedy into film as a homogeneous entity, through the selection of their corpus and through the categorizations they propose. this kind of construction of a homogeneous corpus is evident in mcdonald’s study, which examines what can be called an auteur art - house canon, based mostly on pasolini’s, cacoyannis’s and dassin’s versions of euripides’s plays. similarly, although mackinnon’s book discusses a wider range of films and approaches, the distinction she proposes between what she calls films in the “theatrical mode”, films in the “realistic mode” and films in the “filmic mode” still constructs a rigid homogeneous corpus of study .
moviegoers may remember that “alien” is also about a corporate project. the spaceship nostromo is hauling a dreary cargo of ore back to earth when it inadvertently allows an unpleasant intruder on board, and ordinary life becomes a nightmare. “prometheus” shares some preoccupations and visual motifs with the old shocker. there is a huge, horseshoe - shaped spaceship; hissing, viscous creatures; and an obsession with the violation of the human body—scott’s specialty in outlandish horror. yet, despite what you may have heard, “prometheus” is not literally a prequel. “alien” turns into a haunted - spaceship movie; the large, damp, black creature pursues its victims through enclosed corridors, eliminating one after another. “prometheus” is just as scary but less claustrophobic. the spaceship lands in a barren gray area. before it, across a vast terrain, lies an enormous circular, closed - off structure. we thought that only man could make something as forbidding as a slag heap, but apparently gods are capable of ugliness, too .
as one might expect from a film, setting is extremely important in harrison’s work. in the opening scene of the film, one is taken to the cooling towers of ferrybridge power station and the mining community of kirkby. this area, near where harrison grew up, was hit particularly hard by the political unrest of the 1970s and 1980s, when successive conservative governments under heath and thatcher were engaged in a set of political struggles with the national union of miners. these disputes resulted in some of the most violent and destructive strikes in modern british history. by locating the opening scene of the film against such a symbolic backdrop, harrison immediately brings the themes of technological progress and its potential consequences to the front of the audiences’ mind .
as screenwriter damon lindelof (
lost
) said in an interview :
ridley was very interested in talking about,' what are the answers to the questions that
prometheus
is posing that are not necessarily definitively spelled out in the body of
prometheus
?'
so, they deliberately left some questions unanswered for the sequel, like what made the big white humanoids known as
the engineers
( who, it is theorized, created life on earth) turn against humanity and want to destroy us. (ridley scott has suggested that perhaps they hold a 2000 - year - old grudge, because we killed jesus and he was one of them. )
internal nsa emails show that the producers of enemy of the state were invited on multiple tours of nsa headquarters. when they used a helicopter to film aerial footage of fort meade, the nsa did not prevent them from using it in the movie .
so is del toro’s dream of adapting at the mountains of madness really dead? maybe. maybe not. yes, the box office success of prometheus means some cinemagoers might find a mountains adaptation thematically familiar. but the film’s box office figures also demonstrate that there is an appetite for exactly the kind of lovecraft - inspired, philosophically - inclined monster mayhem which del toro has now spent two decades trying to bring to the big screen. and, as the sequels - filled movie release schedule proves week after week, a lot of studio executives seem to believe that familiarity breeds contentment among moviegoers .
kiarostami, speaking about close - up, claimed that
even i, the film - maker, get confused as to which parts were fiction and which documentary
( 21). this could be applied to many nic films generally, since blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, life and art, reality and film, is at the heart of much iranian cinema. close - up' s starting point was a news - story about a man (hossein sabzian) arrested for pretending to be mohsen makhmalbaf, and kiarostami convincing the actual protagonists to re - enact the events on film (the similarities with how the apple came to be made are evident). hamid dabashi summarised this dis - orientating amalgam of fact and fiction :
one knows one is watching a fiction (kiarostami' s close - up) that is based on fact (sabzian' s real story) that is based on fiction (sabzian pretending to be makhmalbaf) that is based on fact (makhmalbaf as a leading iranian filmmaker) that is based on fiction (makhmalbaf making fictional stories in film) that is based on fact (the reality makhmalbaf transforms into fiction )
( 22). kiarostami manipulates his material with skill, playing with the audience' s expectations of documentary realism. for example, in the scene where sabzian finally meets the real makhmalbaf, the film crew is heard off - screen and the sound is cut under the false pretence of equipment failure — in fact this was a deliberate ploy to intensify the emotional power of the scene. throughout this film and the apple, its closest relation in the nic canon, a constant tension between what is or isn' t staged persists, and forces us to question the veracity of' realism' and of film itself as a medium .
thus aeschylus and harrison present us with considerably different adaptations of the prometheus myth. in the newfound political and intellectual freedom of fifth century athens, aeschylus relates those in power to the recently deposed oligarchic rule. he also plays on his audience’s memories of recent tyrants in his demonization of zeus, represented through might and force, two of his most oppressive characteristics .
in everything it touches, tony harrison' s gritty art goes against the grain. prometheus, his first feature film, contradicts most of the unique selling points of new british cinema. it isn' t peopled with attractive twentysomethings in picturesque cityscapes. it doesn' t proffer elizabethan or victorian heritage. it isn' t an adaptation of a play or a novel. it' s an original and classical work by a poet in the cinema, based on the myth of the titan who defied the gods. it' s the director' s first feature, at 60, making him the oldest jeune auteur in the business.
prometheus is a 1998 film-poem created by english poet and playwright tony harrison , starring walter sparrow in the role of prometheus . the film-poem examines the political and social issues connected to the fall of the working class in england , amidst the more general phenomenon of the collapse of socialism in eastern europe , using the myth of prometheus as a metaphor for the struggles of the working class and the devastation brought on by political conflict and unfettered industrialisation . it was broadcast on channel 4 and was also shown at the locarno film festival . it was used by harrison to highlight the plight of the workers both in europe and in britain . his film-poem begins at a post-industrialist wasteland in yorkshire brought upon by the politics of confrontation between the miners and the government of margaret thatcher . it has been described as " the most important artistic reaction to the fall of the british working class " at the end of the twentieth century . 
prometheus is a 1998 film-poem created by english poet and playwright tony harrison, starring walter sparrow in the role of prometheus. the film-poem examines the political and social issues connected to the fall of the working class in england, amidst the more general phenomenon of the collapse of socialism in eastern europe, using the myth of prometheus as a metaphor for the struggles of the working class and the devastation brought on by political conflict and unfettered industrialisation. it was broadcast on channel 4 and was also shown at the locarno film festival. it was used by harrison to highlight the plight of the workers both in europe and in britain. his film-poem begins at a post-industrialist wasteland in yorkshire brought upon by the politics of confrontation between the miners and the government of margaret thatcher. it has been described as " the most important artistic reaction to the fall of the british working class " at the end of the twentieth century.
prometheus is a 1998 film-poem created by english poet and playwright tony harrison, starring walter sparrow in the role of prometheus. the film-poem examines the political and social issues connected to the fall of the working class in england, amidst the more general phenomenon of the collapse of socialism in eastern europe, using the myth of prometheus as a metaphor for the struggles of the working class and the devastation brought on by political conflict and unfettered industrialisation. it was broadcast on channel 4 and was also shown at the locarno film festival. it was used by harrison to highlight the plight of the workers both in europe and in britain. his film-poem begins at a post-industrialist wasteland in yorkshire brought upon by the politics of confrontation between the miners and the government of margaret thatcher. it has been described as " the most important artistic reaction to the fall of the british working class " at the end of the twentieth century.