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. …
The last modernist : the films of Theo Angelopoulos
Preface Introduction by Andrew Horton Modernism, Minimalism, Melancholy: Angelopoulos and Visual Style by David Bordwell Angelopoulos, Greek History and The Travelling Players by Dan Georgakas A Tour of the Graveyard of Greek Ideals: Voyage to Cythera by Vasilis Rafalidis Tessellations and Honeycombs: The Beekeeper by Gerald O'Grady Theo Angelopoulos: Landscapes, Players, Mist by Michael Wilmington The Empire of the Journey in Voyage to Cythera by Yvette Biro Theo Angelopoulos: The Past as History, the Future as Form by Frederic Jameson "What do our souls seek?": An Interview with Theo Angelopoulos by Andrew Horton Theo Angelopoulos: Filmography compiled by Andrew Horton Theo Angelopoulos: Selected Bibliography compiled by Matthew Stevens and Andrew Horton Index Notes on Contributors
Italian Influence on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism
THIS ARTICLE TRIES to show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas to Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more to Zurich than to Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more to Heidelberg than to Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation to Calvin simply that of disciple to master, for each gave a personal nuance to his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads "to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of