Thoroughly Modern Oedipus
J'etais agacé par le machinisme d'avant-garde. J'avais voulu démontrer que...n'importe quel chef-d'oeuvre ancien pouvait reprendre une incroyable jeunesse entre les mains d'un artiste.
-Jean Cocteau
Whenever Jean Cocteau chooses a legend from antiquity for a play, he interprets and rejuvenates it. La machine infernale is one of Cocteau's most original and important dramatic works. The Oedipus legend had always held enormous fascination for Cocteau, and his La machine infernale, while retaining a basic skeleton of the traditional Sophoclean story, is an updated modern version of the ancient myth. Sophocles' vision of the Oedipus story emphasizes the fate of a noble family. Oedipus, son of Laius, is induced to kill his father, whom he did not recognize; to guess the riddle of the Sphinx; and to marry his mother, whom he did not recognize. The revelation of his crimes moves him to blind himself and go into exile. On this subject......
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Approximate Word Count: 3931
Approximate Pages: 16 (260 words per double-spaced page) |