Heroic Identity in the Dilessi Affair, Aris Velouhiotis, and Alexander: A Reading of Angelopoulos's Megalexandros
Theodoras Angelopoulos's 1980 film Megalexandros has been linked to a variety of influences, from the homecoming of Agamemnon to the shadow puppet theater of Karagiozis, but with little attempt to puzzle out the nature of those influences or how they work in the film. The film itself, while appreciated for its striking photography and its powerful mise en scene - almost sufficient in themselves to carry the film - is characterized by an almost incomprehensible plot line, even if one avails oneself of Angelopoulos's coauthored print version of the script. It is interesting in this regard to trace the scenes that the script indicates have been cut from the film but which nevertheless are reinserted in some form to rescue the film - unsuccessfully some might say - from almost total incoherence.The purpose of this paper is to clarify the many influences - the Dilessi affair, the historical events of Megalexandros, the resistance figure Aris Velouhiotis, and the Karagiozis shadow puppet theater performance (the classics we shall leave to other hands) - and while doing so to provide an informed reading of the film's treatment of heroic identity. To avoid confusion, I shall refer to the bandit figure in the film as Alexander and to the Hellenistic hero as Megalexandros.I. The Dilessi AffairAngelopoulos's film relies upon two significant events in Greek history, the life of the Helienistic hero Alexander the Great (largely through Byzantine myths and popular tales) and the nineteenth-century kidnapping by bandits of elite English visitors to Greece in 1870, called the Dilessi affair after the name of the town on the east coast of mainland Greece where the hostages were murdered. The events of the Dilessi affair structure the events of the film, while the Alexander myth informs the construction of the hero. The modern guise of the hero incorporates, as well, elements of a hero of the twentieth-century popular front resistance movement (Aris Velouhiotis) and techniques of the Greek shadow puppet theater (Karagiozis).The events of the Dilessi affair offer the kidnapping, ransom demands, and negotiations over the fate of the hostages and amnesty for the band; the presence of spies, intermediaries, and behind-the-scenes forces; and a set of primary players who include the Greek government, the English ambassador, the bandit chief, the landowners, and the political party in opposition to the government (which, in the film, operates largely as an unseen force). Unlike the historical case, the goal of the hostage-taking in the film is to force the government to return land taken from the peasants by the landlords in collusion with the state and foreign business interests. Alexander describes his justification for his banditry as state tyranny, having taken to the mountains because he could not find justice. In line with this construction, the hero does not demand ransom but, rather, asks for amnesty for himself, his band, and all those jailed in the struggle against the state.1 Like the Dilessi affair, the government in the film uses the excuse that the Greek constitution prohibits amnesty and, as the original bandits - the Arvanitis brothers - did in Dilessi, the bandits respond that if the people made the constitution, they can unmake it. The Engish ambassador's position is essentially adopted from the facts of the original case as well, for, as he claims in the film, the English have no interest in the Greek constitution, but only in the lives of the "subjects of the queen," warning Greece of the consequences should any harm befall them.From this point, the film essentially departs from the Dilessi script. Alexander astutely reminds his adversaries in the film that anti-European sentiment runs high among the common Greeks2 and that as time drags on the hostages are more likely to be sacrificed "for the prestige of the nation." The Prime Minister, with his army humiliated in a falled attempt to rescue the hostages and facing international pressure, gives his personal guarantee to an alternative plan: whereas Alexander cannot be amnestied, if he and his men submit to a trial they will be pardoned. …
A Reconsideration of Theodoros Angelopoulos's O Megalexandros
Alexander the Great (1980) is one of the most challenging films of Theo Angelopoulos. Not well received critically when first released, and a box office failure with both national and international audiences, the film is rarely shown and rarely figures prominently in discussions of the director's work. Despite this lack of critical attention, the film is an integral part of the work of Angelopoulos and may be seen as a political and stylistic template. The film also figures in the international debate over what cinematic forms are most appropriate for directors with a radical political message. Angelopoulos has insisted that such films must have an innovative form. Alexander the Great carries out that view by trying to force the audience out of its usual passive suspension of disbelief to intellectual as well as emotional engagement. Alexander the Great is perhaps unique in this regard when compared with other feature films by major directors who have addressed anarchism as a serious political ideology.
Urban Identities and Catastrophe: Izmir and Salonica at the End of the Ottoman Empire*
Two huge fires dramatically influenced the urban development of Salonica and Izmir, in 1917 and in 1922, respectively. These catastrophes occurred after the Ottoman Empire fell, and Salonica and Izmir had shifted into new national contexts. The fires mainly destroyed the districts that were transformed during the late‐Ottoman period. These districts became the cosmopolitan façades of modern Izmir and Salonica. The post‐fires' tabula rasa provided an opportunity for Greek and Turkish politicians and European planners to change the urban identity of both cities. Moreover, the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 transformed their multicultural societies also. Reconstruction plans had been thought to de‐Ottomanize and remove the previous idea of the towns and their multiplicity, interpreting new cultural and nationalist feeling. Here, I emphasize how modernity was interpreted before and after the fires, and point out contradictions between ideological aspects of planning and how the first urban districts were built during the 1920s.