Background to MedeaLars Von Trier, dir. 1988

Roger MacfarlaneClassics

Jason and the Argonauts (1966) Zoe Caldwell as Medea (1982)

The Golden Fleece

Googlemaps, Aegean and Euxine Seas

Daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis

As “other” as you can get

Like other girls from Greek myth

Unlike any other woman in Greek myth

Euripides’ Medea is supercharged with sexual tension, frightening witchcraft, rhetorical verve

Medea escaping, Lucanian calyx, c. 400 BC, Sotheby’s

Hera and Aphrodite cause Medea to fall for Jason

Pretty dastardly… pawn of the goddesses

Her help was invaluable to Jason

She ran off with the handsome stranger … in his prime.

John W. Waterhouse, “Jason and Medea” (1907), private collection

Medea chooses Jason over familyHelping Jason win Golden Fleece is tantamount to treason: handing over the national treasure

By brutally deceiving her own brother, Apsyrtus, and butchering his body, Medea seals herself to the Argonauts

Jason presents the Fleece to Pelias, ca. 340 BC, Apulian crater, Louvre, Paris

Jason returns home to Iolchis with the Golden Fleece… and a foreign girlPelias renegs on the deal…

Medea helps Jason get his desserts

This leads to banishment in Corinth

Medea and Pelias on ca. 470 BC crater, British Museum E163

Glauke is a catalyst for change

Euripides has Glauke appear only in limited role

Von Trier amplifies her role considerably: “Medea and Glauce cannot both remain here.”

“Glauke” means something like “sparkling” … “Your name means “nymph”.

Some versions call her “Creusa”, which means “princess”

Glauke admires Medea’s gift, Dolon Painter, ca. 390 BC, Apulian, Louvre, Paris

Aegeus, king of Athens, offers Medea asylum

Medea nearly tricks Aegeus into poisoning his own son Theseus

Banished finally by Aegeus, Medea flees to Persia and becomes the eponymous foundress of the kingdom of Media.

Eventually, Medea returns to Colchis and dies.

Aegeus meets his son, Sisyphus Painter, ca. 410 BC, Apulian, British Museum GR 1856.12-26.3

Medea’s escape

Dramatic conventions

Euripides 431 Medea• Limited cast• Chorus comments and

structures action• Violence occurs offstage …

reported through messengers• Female characters are

aberrant … either positive or negative

• Limited spatial economy• Deus ex machina

Lars Von Trier’s 1988 Medea• Spare casting• Intimate cinematic style

foregrounds violent moments and obviates dialogue

• Mobile perspective

Euripides and his audience• The Athenian audience

knew Medea’s story…

• “three corpses”

Von Trier and his audience• The 20th-century audience

knows Medea

• “how could she?”

Jason

Jason fights Harryhausen’s skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1966)Jason gets coughed up by the serpent that guards the Golden Fleece, 5th BC kylix, Vatican 16545

Glauke

“Medea Sarcophagus”, Antikensammlung, Berlin

Creon

“Medea Sarcophagus”, Antikensammlung, Berlin

Medea’s escape

“Medea Sarcophagus”, Antikensammlung, Berlin

Medea

Wm Wetmore Storey, Medea (1864-1868) Metropolitan Museum, NY

Medea’s escape

Some Questions

• What is the significance of water imagery throughout the film? Especially in her contacts with Aegeus, water seems always to divide and join.

• Why is the film-quality so grainy? Is it a device to “classicize” the narrative, like some old B&W artifact?

• Those huge landscape shots: Is Medea herself larger than the power of the barren landscape she roams?

• Does Glauke understand the stakes of seducing Jason? Does Creon? Does Jason? How does the director convey this tension?

• Is there Abraham imagery in Von Trier’s hill-top setting of the children’s death?

• That horse, those children, the innocent… Who is culpable? How does the director ask/answer this?

Next time I watch Lars Von Trier’s Medea, I’m going to try to figure answers to these questions.

From the 1988 Danish/German television broadcast.