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The Return captured the intensity of the last part of Homer's Odyssey, in large part thanks to the portrayal of the Greek figure by Ralph Fiennes. As Odysseus, Fiennes was as fierce as any superhero in modern cinema while simultaneously demonstrating how love can be the ultimate motivator.

The Return wasn't the first adaptation of a Homeric epic to big and small screens, but it differed from any previous attempts. Decades ago, Helen of Troy (1956), The Trojan Women (1971), and The Odyssey (1997) similarly tried — and failed — to do justice to the Homeric figures. Troy (2004) with Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, and others did present the Trojan War, albeit with a questionable amount of dedication to the Iliad.

The Return and Ralph Fiennes triumphed in its focus on Odysseus and tacit refusal to get lost in the larger story. This got me thinking — why not do more of this? Homer's...

"Star Trek: Voyager" was a big deal for Paramount back in 1995. It was the first new "Star Trek" show to launch after the conclusion of the powerhouse "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1994, leaving it and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" -- the "new kids" on the block -- to fend for themselves. What's more, the premiere of "Voyager" also launched Paramount's new TV network, Upn, a massively ambitious media venture that, it was hoped, would provide legitimate competition for the other major TV players of the era. Upn ended up crashing and burning after a decade, but "Voyager" eventually found a respectably sized audience. This was, however, after several years of struggling, and several instances of recasting. 

Most notably, "Star Trek: Voyager" had trouble finding a captain. The show's central character was to be named Captain Elizabeth Janeway, and she was notably to be the first woman to serve...

At the end of January, Greece saw its 3rd International Film Festival take place at the Alimos “Karolos Koun” Municipal Theatre in Athens, with the likes of Sir Ian McKellen and Jason Watkins winning awards.

At the closing ceremony, the awards for the best short, medium and feature films took place, which saw both Sir Ian McKellen awarded a gong for Best Voice Over and Jason Watkins a Best Actor award for their performances in the Short Film ‘The One Note Man’ directed by Greek director George Siougas.

Films that had their world, European and Greek premieres were screened, with Fiction, Documentary, Animation and Video Clip themes. Also participating in the competition were Short and Feature Film Screenplays, Theatrical Plays and Photographs.

A highlight of the festival were the talks given by directors Mary Kolonia (Armchair on the Pavement), Fivos Imellos (Wings), Alexandros Kakouris and Giorgos Dellis, (Xenia), Vassilis Economou...

"I have a scream I have to let out – I want the world to hear it.” So says Suad, a young Syrian woman who fled her homeland for Jordan. It’s one of the most powerful moments in a new documentary, Queens of Syria, which follows a 2013 theatre project run with Syrian refugee women in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to stage a new version of Euripides’s tragedy, The Trojan Women.

When I was growing up, New York 's best (now long-defunct) classical radio station, Wncn, played only American composers' music each Fourth of July. With the classical world dominated by Europeans, this was a welcome and educational corrective. In the history of American music, independence wasn't achieved until the 20th century; 19th century composers such as John Knowles Paine and George Whitefield Chadwick studied in Europe and blatantly imitated European models. Listening to their music "blind," few would guess they were Americans. There was Revolutionary War-era vocal writer William Billings, but his originality was more a lack of proper technique. Continuing Wncn's tradition, here's a look at true American classical. music. 

There is a bit of chauvinism in this article, as "American" here refers not to all the Americas (North, Central, and South) but rather the colloquial usage in the United States to mean that country's residents (hence, the Mexican Carlos Chavez,...

Second #3149, 52:29

1. After leaving Dorothy’s apartment, Jeffrey walks home in the dark, in one of Blue Velvet’s furiously abstracted montage sequences, where sound and image come together to convey a doomsday atmosphere so totalizing and intent on destruction (the destruction of innocence) that to try to convey it in anything less than one long sentence would be a betrayal, not only of the fact of black in this frame, but of the blackness of Jeffrey’s heart and his realization of this blackness in his face, in that askance look, as if he was the one ravaged instead of Dorothy, or as if the ringing in his head were the words of Hecuba in Euripides’s The Trojan Women—“evil vies for evil in the struggle to be first”—which perhaps he read in college just weeks ago, before being called home, and whose lines turn over and over in his mind,...

Actress Jane White died on July 24 at age 88. She was mostly known for her body of theater work but also appeared on daytime soap operas A World Apart, Search For Tomorrow and The Edge Of Night.

She played Lydia Holliday on The Edge Of Night in the late 1960s. On A World Apart she played Olivia Hampton in 1971. In 1979 she appeared as Tante Helene LeVeaux on Search For Tomorrow.

White had a long, distinguished career in the theater. She created role of The Queen opposite Carol Burnett in "Once Upon a Mattress". She was the first actress of color to play Helen of Troy in "The Trojan Women" and the first to appear at Joseph Papp's NY Shakespeare Festival ("Kate," "The Taming of the Shrew"). At the Metropolitan Opera she appeared in “Andromache.” She also performed at Carnegie and Town Hall concerts under aegis of Bobby Short, along with cabaret appearances at Feinstein's.

Michael Cacoyannis, the Greek-Cypriot filmmaker known for his film Zorba the Greek (1964) passed away on Monday. He was reportedly suffering from heart ailment and chronic respiratory problems.

Zorba the Greek received three Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film.

His filmography comprises works like Stella (1955), Elektra (1962), The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977).

He won nominations regularly at Cannes International Film Festival for his films, while Elektra won two awards at Cannes.

Director best known for the visually splendid and energetic Zorba the Greek

Although the first Greek films appeared in 1912, long periods of war and instability crippled any attempts at forming a national film industry. This meant that few features were produced until the 1950s, when the director Michael Cacoyannis, who has died aged 90, became the embodiment of Greek cinema, giving it an international reputation which reached a peak of popularity with his Zorba the Greek (1964).

Based on Nikos Kazantzakis's novel, the film burst on to the screen with extraordinary energy and visual splendour. It brilliantly combined the rhythmic music of Mikis Theodorakis and the Oscar-winning black-and-white cinematography of Walter Lassally with indelible performances by Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Irene Papas and Lila Kedrova (who won the Oscar for best supporting actress).

The film celebrated joie de vivre, yet there was an underlying pessimism and an echo of Greek tragedy...

Michael Cacoyannis, best known for the 1964 Oscar-nominated drama Zorba the Greek, died of complications from a heart attack and chronic respiratory problems early Monday at an Athens hospital. He was either 89 or 90, depending on the source. Born in Limassol, Cyprus, on June 11, 1921 or 1922, the young Cacoyannis (Mihalis Kakogiannis in Greek) was sent to London to study Law, but later turned to the theater, studying Drama at the Old Vic and playing various roles on the British stage, including the lead in Albert Camus' Caligula. Unable to find work in the British film industry, he eventually moved to Athens. Cacoyannis' directorial debut took place in the early '50s, with the breezy comedy Windfall in Athens (1955), whose production lasted two years. International acclaim followed the release of Stella (1955), which was screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. This drama about a free-spirited young woman (Melina Mercouri) torn by her...

Cypriot film-maker – real name Mihalis Kakogiannis – behind 1964 smash Zorba the Greek has passed away, according to reports

Multi-award-winning Cypriot film-maker Mihalis Kakogiannis, best known for the 1964 hit Zorba the Greek starring Anthony Quinn, has died at the age of 90, it has been reported. Kakogiannis, who was billed under the name Michael Cacoyannis for his English-language productions, was nominated in three separate Oscar categories for Zorba (including best director), and became a regular in competition at Cannes.

Born in Limassol in 1922, Kakogiannis learned his craft in the UK at the Old Vic, before travelling to Greece to shoot his first film, Windfall in Athens. His follow-up, Stella, starring a young Melina Mercouri, became an international hit and set Kakogiannis on his way. Zorba the Greek, adapted from a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, eventually won three Oscars (though none for Kakogiannis himself).

Thereafter Kakogiannis found it hard to match Zorba's success. His follow-up,...

Yannis Economides' Knifer Now in its second year, the Hellenic Film Academy Awards ceremony was held in Athens on May 4. Veteran filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis (Zorba the Greek, The Trojan Women) received an honorary award, while absentee filmmaker Yannis Economides' Macherovgaltis / Knifer was the big winner, taking home seven awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Knifer tells the story of a man who goes live with his uncle in the outskirts of Athens. Once there, one of his duties is the protection of two purebred dogs. Syllas Tzoumerkas' first feature, Homeland, won five awards, including Best Directorial Debut and Best Supporting Actress (Ioanna Tsirigouli). Homeland follows a dysfunctional Greek family living in a dysfunctional country (that's Greece as well) from the 1970s to the present. The Best Actress was Ariane Labed for her performance as a young woman attempting to cope with sex, death, and...

If filming classical literature always presents difficulties to the filmmaker, one of them is the haloed status of classical texts. Since the classics appear not to be about ordinary people, we are uncertain how Achilles or Arjuna should be represented, whether they should be made human or beings of another kind. The efforts made by writers to humanize epic characters by infusing them with ‘psychology’ – e.g. Iravathi Karve’s Yugantha – may be well-intentioned but they do not add to our understanding of the epics. Putting our thoughts and our kind of motives into the heads of epic characters seems to reduce their stature. A reason may be that the epics were created before the birth of the ‘individual’, before Man and the World had been differentiated, before the inner and the outer were set apart. Oedipus killed his father and married his mother not because of ‘psychology’ – i.e.

Above: Larry Cohen on the set of It's Alive (1973).

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

—Euripides

From Euripides to Larry Cohen may seem like a considerable jump, but the more one looks into the careers of the seminal Greek dramatist (480-406 BC), author of Andromache, The Trojan Women and The Bacchae, and the exploitation-savvy New York-born writer/director (b. 1941) responsible for Q - The Winged Serpent, The Stuff and Black Caesar, the more certain parallels start to insistently emerge.

Both men revitalised existing genre "tropes" via the use of audaciously sharp satire—often aimed at authority-figures and/or conventional society's idea of "heroes"—alongside unexpected psychological depth in terms of characterisation (for both male and female roles).

And, just as in his lifetime Euripides lagged in terms of awards and critical acclaim behind the other two main tragedians of classical Athens—Aeschylus and Sophocles—likewise Cohen has often been overlooked...

Halfway through our interview, a lithe young woman approaches. "She's a juggler," Alfred Preisser tells me as she gets closer. "I just wanted to run this by you," she starts anxiously. She wants to know whether she can do a fire-eating bit in the show. "We probably won't get fire permission," she adds, "but... I haven't gotten to eat fire in New York yet." "We'll talk about it," he reassures her, then looks sparks a satisfied smile. "See what I get to deal with!" Preisser (pronounced "Pricer") clearly relishes his work. The award-winning director first made a name for himself during nearly ten years at the Classical Theatre of Harlem, at which he served as co-founding artistic director (with Christopher McElroen). With productions like "King Lear," "The Trojan Women," "Dream on Monkey Mountain," "Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe," and the musical "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" (which won seven Audelco Awards,...