Orpheus: The Story and the Film

 

    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 temples and and statues of the gods like Zeus and Poseidon, but that wasn't it AT ALL. The movie begins, and there are people wearing suits, and driving cars? So I'm instantly thrown off. It was literally one of the first things I wrote down "Wasn't expecting cars!" The movie goes on and for the longest time I really had no idea how they were going to connect this to the ancient legend. They were using the same names for some of the people, but beyond that I wasn't sure how it was all going to tie together. For me, it was so clear from the beginning that Orpheus was in love with his Death. From the moment she told him to get in the car, he was hooked, and the originally legend revolved so much around his love for his Wife that I just didn't see how they were going to make this connection. However, pretty soon we see how the pieces come into play. Death comes and takes Eurydice to the "underworld" and thus Orpheus must go after her. Also, slight sidebar here, but can we just take a second to talk about those special effects? GOD DAMN. For a movie this old I was completely blown away by some of the effects they were able to pull off. Some I think I had a pretty good idea of how they could have done it, but others just left me completely in awe. They really went above and beyond, and it was all just so damn cool. Like Orpheus putting the gloves on? The way it reversed to give that weird glove moving onto his hand feeling, it was just so cool. It made me kind of realize how these are effects I could be utilizing today, so that was also cool. ANYWAY, sorry we got way off track there. We get to the part of the film where things are starting to align, but the whole time all I can think is that "I know he's probably just doing this because he wants to see Death" and low and behold, it absolutely was! So now I'm right back to where I started. I have no idea how they're going to tie it together, but again they do, and in such an interesting way I thought. By having those Judges to decide what was best, and essentially forcing Orpheus to return home with Eurydice, it was super epic and brilliant in my opinion. I also loved the ending. Where Death decided to set everything back to the way it should have been. I just enjoyed everything about that ending. The choice to have Death do what they did, the special effects and the way that they hand everything reversing back to a certain point, it was all just so cool. I could barely write anything down I was so absolved into what was happening. I honestly have to say that this has become my favorite older film. Primary because I just fell in love with the special affects, but also because I genuinely enjoyed their version of this story. I also just loved the "Interpret it how you will" at the beginning. It was a small thing, but it just made me feel immediately drawn in. So, those are my thoughts on Orpheus, if you're still reading this I want to just say thank you for taking the time, and I hope you have a wonderful day. 

Stay Golden, 

Donovan W. Gale