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The cinematic art in the service of dramatic content : Aeschylus’ Persae

• Κατσούρης, Ανδρέας

The basic technique used in cinema, television and kineticrepre sentatio nal arts in general, is the motion-pictures either alone or in combination with speech. The ancient Greek dramatists, although they did not have in their disposal the contemporary technology, they were aware of the effectiveness of spectacle as well as of intellectual pictures; this is quite obvious in their plays, but especially in the messenger speeches. Aeschylus, above all others, employed this technique in such a way that in many cases the spectators are led to follow a series of pictures, the one after the other, in the same way as we experience in the cinema. A good example of this technique is illustrated in his Persae. Thus, the excessive richness and strength of the Persian empire, the military power, the central event of the play, the naval battle of Salamis, the agony of the Persian elders and of the mothers and the wives of the Persian youth, the notion of divine justice, all these are supported and expressed mainly by many succesive and repetitive intellectual pictures (visual, acoustic, kinetic) combined with spectacle, the so-called “opsis” by Aristotle, to create the Aeschylean world-view: that excessive strength leads to hybr is and the latter always leads to destruction, through which a lesson is given both to leaders and to peoples.

• Languages and Literature
• Arts

• Classical philology
• Motion pictures in archaeology
• Θέατρο, Ελληνικό

Περιέχει σημειώσεις, Σε συντομώτερη μορφή το θέμα αυτό παρουσιάσθηκε στο σεμινάριο που διοργανώθηκε από τον Τομέα Κλασικής Φιλολογίας το έτος 2007, καθώς επίσης και στο συμπόσιο που έγινε στην Θεσσαλονίκη το 2007 από τους διδάσκοντες και τους σπουδαστές του Ε.Α.Π. της ειδικότητας ΕΛΠ 31 “Αρχαίο Ελληνικό Θέατρο”.