ENGL 227.1 Spring 2021 Class Discussion Blog

 Jon Vitka Orpheus     After watching the movie Orpheus I found myself quickly seeing some weird hidden meanings within the movie. Whether it was the desire of love, or whether it was to do with death being a woman, or even if it was the odd hand-holding with the main character and  Heurtebise. What I found the most interesting was the mirrors that were reflecting Orphee. Throughout the movie, we get many glips of Orphee seeing himself in the mirror but, some of the scenes of him looking through the mirror were very questionable in the sense that he could have been Homosexual or even gay.       As you can see from the photo above, this was one of the scenes where Orphee was oldy worshiping his own reflection as if in a cartoon where you see a male cartoon figure like Johnny Bravo who keeps looking at himself in the mirror. Both of them are obsessed about how they look to a point where it looks very homosexual in a way. Now in this movie, we have o...

I really enjoyed this movie, especially how it adapts the Greek myth of Orpheus. For context, the Greek myth tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus being an astounding musician/poet and Eurydice his wife. When Eurydice dies, Orpheus travels to the underworld in hopes of bringing her back from the dead. Hades, the god of death, makes an agreement that she may follow him out, as long as he leaves the underworld without looking back to her. At the very last stretch, Orpheus fails when he turns around to look at Eurydice, and Eurydice is trapped forever in the underworld. The movie takes this and transfers it into a pretty striking story of what love/desire is accepted vs. what isn't.  The movie has two love interests in the form of both Eurydice and “Princess” or Death, with the difference between the two being Eurydice as the acceptable form of love and desire, and Death representing the unacceptable. While Orpheus is in love with both Death and Eurydice, in the end only on...

 Although there are multiple themes throughout the film "Orpheus", the theme of mirrors had caught my eye the most. From a production standpoint I liked how they used mirrors as a special effect in the film, considering how old this movie is it's pretty impressive what they were able to do and in my opinion pretty creative (even if it does seem a little cheesy compared to all the effects we see today). From the start of the film mirrors are a very relevant symbol.  My biggest takeaway of the whole mirror thing is that mirrors themselves represent death, as well as an alternate reality. Every time you look into a mirror you are older, therefore you are closer to death. As for the film the alternate reality comes from the mirror representing some sort of gateway into another world. For example in the beginning of the film when we found out the Princess was actually the spirit of death and she brought the man back to life. When she brought his body back from the dead and lea...

       Overall I did enjoy the movie Orpheus but at points I found it hard for me to focus since I am not used to watching films that are not in English. Orpheus is a Greek myth about a musician to has to go into the underworld to reclaim his dead wife. I have honestly never have heard of this Greek myth so maybe that was what made the confusing and also more interesting to me. This film was set in modern day Paris at the time and showed a lot of twists and turns and modern aspects such as the clothing of the actors and also related to with death as a counterpart. This film did focus on a lot of different themes throughout but the main theme that was focused upon was death. The Princess is seen to represent "death" in this film and I really enjoyed how death was portrayed in this way. Usually when you think of death you think of it as something evil or in any type of negative light but the director of this movie showed death as a delicate women and I think ...

      As it says in the title of this blog post, I don't get why Cocteau decided that this film associate itself with the original myth of Orpheus, because in my opinion the only similarities are the main characters names and the going to the afterlife to retrieve a dead wife thing.  In the versions of the Orpheus myth I'm familiar with Orpheus is much less of a outright ass to Eurydice.  He's a absentminded and neglectful husband sure, but he certainly doesn't threaten her with harm when he's mad or act like he doesn't even like her.  I honestly feel that if it wasn't for the driver he never would've gone to save her.  Which leads me to another point, I feel like Heurtebise acts more like the Orpheus I am familiar with that Orpheus himself.  Although I suppose this is fitting as the two seem to be two sides of the same coin to me.  In my opinion Heurtebise embodies the love for Eurydice Orpheus seems to have thrown by the wayside in his sear...

  Cocteau's version of the Orpheus did a really good job of making allusions between the original Greek mythology, and relating it back to the modernist themes that we could relate too. It was interesting to see how art and forbidden love play a hand with each other. Forbidden love is largely present. I feel like all artists suffer from this. There's a reason why they're called starving artists and not starving philanthropists. They're always looking and searching for their muse, for their next piece of inspiration. The ones that find it like Michael Angelou create masterpieces and live full lives, while the ones that don't stay stagnant, like Orpheus. He was an great artist and poet that started and ended the movie at his same position in life, trying to obtain the unattainable, and in the end losing everything.      Princess Death and Heurtebise were hopelessly in love with Orpheus and Eurydice, only to have neither one of them end up with their hearts desire. Dea...

  I first heard the story of Orpheus in high school while learning about greek mythology. When learning about gods and goddesses the typical picture that goes through the mind is men and women in togas and flower crowns hanging out in ancient greece. However this movie took a different approach. The biggest change obviously being the film is set in post occupational France meaning post world war two which works perfectly with the overall theme of life and death. What we have learned from our many history classes and textbooks over the course of high school and college is that world war two was not a fun time. When world war two comes to mind I immediately think of love, art and death. This time in history was like hell on earth for people. Which I think ties greatly into who and what orpheus is. Firstly he is symbolically a catabasis. A catabasis by definition is the descent or trip into the underworld however it can also mean just simply moving downhill. In this film Orpheus is al...

  Not gonna lie, from the beginning of this film I was a little skeptical to see how the production value of this film would turn out. I figured one would, considering that the prelude of the film told the audience that the part of the myth to which the film takes place is up to our interpretation, followed up with a modern (at the time) take on the setting and costume design. I was left immersed and curious as the film picked up.             I was familiar with the basis of the Orpheus myth. I was also familiar with the fact that there are many different versions or alternatives to which the myth was told. Now that I think about it, I suppose Cocteau was familiar with that notion as well, hence, the inference of Death taking on the appearance of Mar í a Casares being that Death comes in many forms; just like the many forms of queerness conveyed, such as Orpheus’s poet occupation and his sensual interactions with the mirror tha...

  I enjoyed “Orpheus” more than I thought to be honest. I really liked the way the director  used mirrors as portals and how they made death a delicate woman. I was also impressed with the way they used them because it was done so well. The way they used mirrors was done very well because they took an ordinary everyday object and turned it into something impossible. It makes sense why the main character didn’t want to tell people what he discovered at first because he would sound absolutely insane. When I see examples of any of this in movies it really makes me wonder if people are really crazy? For example, what if someone actually saw something impossible like a unicorn and they told you about it you would think they are crazy. Another thing I like about this film is the way the director uses death. Normally when you think of death you think of the grim reaper, but in here it’s perceived as a delicate woman dressed in dark clothing who just watches you and follows you around...

 The movie Orpheus plays around with many different themes throughout the film. One of the most prominent theme being death. I think it was an interesting choice to make death into a women in the film. After reading the articles provided on the film, I thought they gave good insight into why death is the princess and why she's perceived elegantly. I definitely think this had many undertones to it. Another piece to this theme involves the mirrors. Mirrors were used throughout the film as ways to go into other worlds, but I think that there's more to it than that. I think it also involves Orpheus to look at himself before he decides to continue. It's a moment where he stops and takes in what's happening and how he wants to proceed. In turn he ends up with his wife again and I think this symbolism had something todo with that.

 As someone who, loves and appreciates mythology it is interesting how the film utilizes its story notes to get across a message. what first sticks out to me is the variations from the original myth. It seems to loosely follow its story, and twist its story to tell the story of how being an artist and poet follows a path of potential pain and suffering. The character of death and Orpheus in the film makes a strong connection to the contemporary thoughts of art are liked with death. In the beginning of the move Orpheus is a struggling poet, he does not have much to desire and thus he is not achieving much. following the death of Eurydice he is motivated and more engrossed in poetry, and with the car it highlights a common thought among artists; That great art is born from loss and unreachable desire. Death is too drawn to the poet; poetry and deeper thought are not garnered through single happy moments so it usually ends up with individuals with misfortune. Edgar Allen Poe first spr...

     Orpheus  is a film about forbidden love and how the characters in the film deal with said forbidden love. While there wasn't much in the sense of outwardly queer characters or themes it was hidden within the lines of the film that wasn't obvious to me the first time I watched it. Orpheus is unable to be with either of the women he loves realistically. First there is Princess Death who being Death itself cannot be in a loving relationship and then later on his wife, who he is forced to not look at unless she would disappear from him all over again. This doesn't stop Orpheus from going into Death's world earlier in the movie to try and save his wife after she had died. While he ends up still losing her in the end, he didn't stop trying despite many of the conflicts. In the end he lost her to just a mistake. One look in the rearview mirror and she was gone.      The mirrors played a big part in the film as they were everywhere and most importantly th...

    Orpheus, as we know, is a figure from Greek legend. His legend has been adapted and retold time after time, with one of the most interesting retellings as the 1950 French film of the same name. The film goes out of it's way to make this telling of timeless, by having it take place in modern France but keeping all of the names the same. Modernizing classic legends and stories has been done before to varying success, such as the 1996 Romeo & Juliet film. I vaguely remember it taking place in California and had the characters wield guns instead of swords. (Forgive the placement and formatting of these images, Blogger is a mess)     What stood out to me about this film most was the effects. It used reversed footage in a lot of interesting ways, as well as utilizing reflections and mirrors. The reversed footage was largely used on the reanimating of the dead in a classic exorcist-esque body fluidly raising from a laying down position. The use I enjoyed the mo...

     Orpheus  was a fascinating watch as it was truly an expression of an artist's mind versus being like any other film in its time. The imagery that was used amazed me even in today's standards, especially with the use of mirrors in the film and the traveling through the underworld. Throughout the movie we are pushed to see mirrors as something more than just a reflection, but as a portal into another dimension. I liked the idea presented in the film that the underworld was not a foreign place we go to after we die, but that it exists along side our reality at all times. Orpheus is in love with the idea of death from the start of the movie as he is mesmerized by the Princess and follows her as she brings Cegeste to the afterlife.      Back to the imagery of mirrors in Orpheus. Someone in the movie said that mirrors are used to look at death, as we look into mirrors we see ourselves getting older with each passing second, death inevitably creeping in ...

      Hey everyone, not sure who's tuning in to read this time, but if you're here I appreciate you! For this blog post I'll be running through my thoughts on both the film we watched in class and the original story that it's based on. So, for starters let's talk about what I already knew. I had heard of this story before. The tale of the man who went back for his wife, and then broke the one rule that Hades had given, but that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Even the stuff we discussed prior to watching the movie was a huge shock to me. I had never heard the other part of the story, where the swears of women and then is eventually torn apart by people who praised Dionysus. So even just at the beginning of class I was so surprised of the amount of new information I was getting, so it made me even more excited to watch the film. We start watching, and I'm expecting this movie to be like the Greek version I'd heard. You know, like there would be te...

  “Orpheus” is a film directed by Jean Cocteau starring Jean Marais. This was a huge deal because Jean Cocteau was an open gay man the time the film came out. He cast his boyfriend, Jean Marais, because he thought we would like seeing his face just as much as Cocteau enjoyed it. I can only imagine that this was a huge step for the queer community at that time because now they have someone to look up to in the film industry. This film came out during a time where there weren’t really many open gay actors, directors, or even characters in film. The queers were thought of as a joke or something you should be afraid of. Then all of a sudden you see you see this open gay director who casted his boyfriend, an open gay actor, for the main role of a film. This was huge because it gave the queer community hope. Instead of being made as a joke. It also wasn’t just the film “Orpheus” but Jean Cocteau made many other films that had Jean Marais as the main character. This gave queers a positive...

  Orpheus was an interesting movie to watch because there was a lot going on all at once. Luckily, I just studied the story of “Orpheus and Eurydice” in another class, so I knew the general background of what was going on. The movie seemed to end where it started which was ironic... Orpheus started as a failed poet and nothing changed in the end. The connection between him and his death/the princess was very strange, and I didn’t and still don’t really know what to make of that. I know that she wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him which comes the death and desire connection.   “In Cocteau’s version, it is Princess Death and her assistant Heurtebise, both in love with indifferent, self-absorbed and ultimately unworthy humans, who sacrifice themselves and heroically take on pain and suffering in greater service of humanity. These embodiments and personifications of Thanatos, willingly surrendering to pure eros, aim without the satisfaction of object, freed at the point of im...

 Orpheus was quite the experience for me, to say the least. Not only was it in French (giving way to many rapid glances between subtitles and the film), but I found the story to be rather cryptic in nature. Orpheus the poet seems to have garnered a very large following (ultimately to his detriment), so much so that he is mobbed in public, fans riot over his influence, and the media seeks to tarnish his name. Now, I'm going to be straightforward here: this movie confounded me, so bear with my logic. It could very well begin to crawl into the territory of blind speculation. When the film began, I thought Heurtebise (probably absolutely butchered this spelling) carried himself in a rather gay manner and, coupled with that, he was company to a man and a woman (Orpheus being the man), who I assumed to be a couple. There, my mind fell into the trope trap. As the film went on, I was proven quite wrong, as Heurtebise eventually professes his love to Orpheus' wife in "hell" (I...

I really enjoyed watching this film.  It was actually very different than I thought it was going to be.  When I first heard of the story of Orpheus I thought we were going to be watching a more mythology type film, not a modern film for the time with a mythology tone to it.  I thought the theme of this film was very interesting.  It talked about the concept of death in a very interesting way.  Another thing that was interesting was the use of the mirrors.  I thought It was interesting how they were used for a few different reasons.  one reason to have a way to get from one world to the other and the other I think it could be a symbol to take a look at your life before you make decisions.  It seems like a reminder to make sure you understand how precious life is.  One thing that I thought of while watching this film was that it gave me Penny Dreadful vibes.  Penny Dreadful is about death following people around and while watching this it ...

 Recently, I've developed quite a taste for the horror genre, be it video games, tv shows, movies, or what have you. So I was quite excited when I heard that we would be watching an old 1930's horror film yesterday (I like seeing how they did special effects back then as well).     This movie does a good job of being a horror movie without relying on excessive gore, monsters (or really anything paranormal). I was honestly surprised that only one character ended up dying in the end. I thought we'd have some sort of slaughterfest on our hands with the way the other characters kept describing Morgan. Speaking of Morgan, I do feel bad for him. He's incredibly misunderstood (while he does do some questionable things while he's drunk out of his skull) due to his inability to speak. It must be absolutely maddening to have something to say and no way to say it. Perhaps (and this may be one of the biggest stretches in logic I'll ever make so bear with me) Morgan's in...

 The Celluloid Closet: Donovan Gale So going into this documentary I had really no idea what it was going to be about. When it became clear that it was about the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood, I knew that it was going to completely change my view of Hollywood, and it absolutely did, but it also changed how I viewed myself. One of the biggest things I was looking forward to in this class was learning ways I could become a better ally to the LGBTQ+ community. I have many friends and family members who are a part of this community, so it's important to me that I make them feel comfortable, but beyond that I want to in some way try to better understand their lives, so that I can better appreciate the difficulties involved with it. Does that make sense? I just want to help the people who are important to me in any way I can. Anyway, that was what I was looking forward to. So as we moved through this film I immediately got sucked in. There were so many things I was learn...

           The Celluloid Closet is an enlightening telling of the history of queer representation in film. It highlights the many queer archetypes and tropes up until the 1990s. It's a fascinating story that I'd bet many haven't heard before. The great lengths queers had to go through to appear on film, and if they even did, what dreadful stereotypes they'd have to fill. These forms of representation vary greatly as well, ranging from over the top sissys to monstrous vampires. What I found most disheartening however was the consistent theme of depression and self loathing within queer characters. The film showed clip after clip of queer characters hating themselves because of who they are, often leading to abuse from other characters or even suicide. I can't imagine being part of a marginalized group and only seeing narratives in which the characters are treated like that. I really enjoyed the interviews with people from several different areas of filmmakin...

  “The Celluloid Closet” a 1995 documentary film provides an inside scoop of how Hollywood projected people of the LGBTQ+ community back in the day. First and foremost I found it extremely interesting that even though film was not allowed to portray people of the LGBTQ+ community (because of censorship) it was still very much alive and living on the screen even if it wasn’t blatantly obvious. However most of the time being gay or queer wasn’t portrayed in the best light. As said and shown in the documentary most if not all queer people were portrayed as evil or malicious. Which ultimately led to the repetitive storyline of the queer character meeting a very brutal ending. It’s sad to think that this community as a whole was being misrepresented so often. The overall theme of queer people being stereotyped reminds me of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. When AIDS and HIV first became a thing in the 1980’s it was labeled as the “gay disease” simply because people were misinformed on the matter....

    The Celluloid Closet is an interesting documentary about queer films and actors during the history of Hollywood. Many of these films are one that I have never seen before or even heard about until I saw them in this documentary. It was interesting to see how these older movies would secretly portray queer people through innuendos and mannerisms that won't necessarily be recognized by a general audience. Looking at these characters today though, it is easier to tell which characters are supposed to be queer in these films. It was also interesting to see how many of these films portrayed queer people as the villains of their respective stories. It went along with the general consensus of them at the time and you could argue that many people still think that way today. I also thought that it was interesting when they mentioned how Hollywood despite being general for LGBTQ was still being censored by many higher ups. Movies were and still are a business and this led to them m...

  Jared Lestenkof While watching “The Celluloid Closet” I never thought how movies perceived the LGBTQ+ community. At first they wouldn’t allow gay characters in movies and when they did they would hulmiliate in some sort of way. When the movie industry was booming the censorship laws began booming as well. People who didn’t want to see something on the screen didn’t want it on screen at all and LGBTQ+ people and LGBTQ+ loving making were under these laws. I had no idea how bad it was for the gays in the past. Back then it started off as you weren’t sure if the character was gay but when they acted gay the audience would laugh at them. This would make a lot of sense why people back then were afraid of coming out because of how the movie represented them. If they came out they would get made fun of or beaten or worse. Fast forward a little bit and the gays were perceived as monsters, for example, a vampire, a werewolf, they are showing the people that gays don’t belong in this wor...

 The Celluloid Closet is a documentary about the history of LGBTQ+ representation in the media. There was little to no representation earlier on in the century for homosexuals and if and when they were represented, it was always in a negative light, or put in a situation where they have to be the villain or seen publicly as the "bad guy," to be made expendable. Films used this in order to have subtext that says the bad guy was defeated, but so was homosexuality. Positive representation was never something that was equally represented. A lot of times it was just negative stereotypes and closeted hatred. Gay people got tired of being portrayed this way so when they finally got the chance to be depicted and portrayed accurately it was relieving for them, being that they had to spend so much time playing side mediocre characters, or lead negative roles.  Censorship was an issue for cinema in general. When films finally got color and sound, a whole hoard of laws came out that rest...

           It is inherently interesting, at times heartbreaking how the culture for cinema changed when depicting LGBTQ+ characters. I like to think that, in a way, production companies and those of higher authority in Hollywood in the past have been playing this game of “Cat & Mouse”, where the higher-ups are the oppressive ‘Cat’ trying to catch the ‘Mouse’, that being, an element of LGBTQ+ being depicted in such a magnitude where the queer-coding begins to lose its effect, and is classified as inappropriate; therefore, condemned to further perpetuate the heteronormative agenda for that time period.               Part of what makes this documentary highly effective was its sheer honesty accommodated by multiple perspectives. From the 1920s, gay and lesbian characters were often depicted as a punchline to a joke about opposing behaviors of the hetero norm regarding gender expression. I was in...