Martin Winkler, University Professor of Classics in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, adds to his impressive list of publications on Classics and cinema with a new study published by Cambridge University Press in 2009.
Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo's New Light, interprets films as visual texts and provides the first systematic demonstration of the affinities between Greco-Roman literature and the cinema. The book covers a wide range of European and American directors, genres, and classical authors and examines major themes from classical myth and history: film portrayals of gods, the question of heroism and patriotism in war, and the representation of women like Helen of Troy and Cleopatra as products of male desire and fantasy.
A unique synthesis of traditional scholarship in Classics and film studies, the book offers an innovative perspective on the two disciplines of classics and cinema and demonstrates film's unlimited range when it adapts ancient texts.
December 17, 2009
