Narrative technique · used in 5 films
Mapping an ancient myth, epic or historical event onto a contemporary or invented setting, so the old pattern gives the new story weight and inevitability.
Examples
François Truffaut · 1981
The film recalls the medieval legend of Tristan and Iseult, in which a couple's love cannot survive in the world. Here the lovers are ordinary, middle-class people in a provincial town. The old story gives their mess a sense of fate.
Where to see it: The ending. Mathilde and Bernard meet in the empty house next door, have sex on the bare floor, and she shoots him and then herself.
Terry Gilliam · 1991
Parry tells Jack the legend of the Fisher King, a king wounded by pride who is healed when a fool gives him a cup of water. The film maps that legend onto present-day Manhattan. The old story gives a messy, modern plot a shape.
Where to see it: Parry's retelling of the legend. He tells Jack that a fool gave the king a drink of water without knowing the cup was the Grail.
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen · 2000
The film is loosely based on Homer's Odyssey. The 3 women who sing by the river are sirens, Big Dan is the one-eyed Cyclops and Penny is Penelope waiting at home. You do not need to know the poem to follow the plot, but knowing it adds jokes.
Where to see it: Big Dan's picnic. The one-eyed Bible salesman invites Everett and Delmar to lunch, then robs them.
Yorgos Lanthimos · 2017
The title comes from the Iphigenia story in Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, where a father must sacrifice his child. Here a surgeon in a modern hospital faces the same kind of choice. You feel the fate closing in because the story has the shape of a tragedy.
Where to see it: The climax: Steven binds the family with duct tape, then fires a rifle while spinning, and the shot kills Bob.
Francis Ford Coppola · 2024
The main characters are Cesar Catilina, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, the rich Crassus and the agitator Clodio Pulcher. Those names echo real figures from the last years of the Roman Republic. If you know that history, you can watch the fight over the city as an old power struggle in new clothes.
Where to see it: The televised debate: Cesar proposes the utopian city Megalopolis while Mayor Cicero argues for building a casino.
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