Word: agamemnon
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IPHIGENIA IN AULIS. After 2,400 years, the human truths in this drama by Euripides are still as fresh as open wounds. Directed with musical cadence and poetic tension by Michael Cacoyannis, the story of Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter for the Greek cause is a moving lament for all who die young in war. As Clytemnestra, Irene Papas brings the adrenal flow of a mother's love and grief to the stage...
...Greek fleet is becalmed at Aulis, restive and stalled in its military mission to bring the beauteous and adulterous Helen back from Troy. An oracle has told King Agamemnon that if he sacrifices the life of his daughter Iphigenia the wind will rise and Greek arms will ravage Troy. Agamemnon, played with a mixture of bluff aplomb and sad perplexity by Mitchell Ryan, is a politician's politician who rules more by public opinion than private conscience. He fears the mob and decides to do the oracle's bidding...
Moral Ambiguity. Agamemnon sends a letter to his wife Clytemnestra (Irene Papas) telling her to bring Iphigenia to Aulis under the ruse that the girl is to become the bride of Achilles. Abruptly seized by fatherly love, Agamemnon dispatches a second letter bidding Clytemnestra to stay at home. But this message is intercepted by Helen's husband Menelaus, who rails at Agamemnon for daring to dream of putting his daughter's life before Greek victory. This raises a question of moral ambiguity that runs through the play: Is this a war for a strumpet, or is it against...
Given all the attendant premises, the film is a really remarkable achievement. The three plays--Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides--have a total running time of about eight hours, cut to five and a half for the live production. This was obviously too long for a movie, and the time had to be further shortened by wholesale cutting to an hour and three quarters. Still, the film manages to capture the grand sweep of the classic tale of revenge, murder and retribution, though many qualities of the original are necessarily lost...
...spasmodic English narration is not always satisfactory. In the Agamemnon portion particularly, the narrative is simply superimposed on the dialogue, with the result that one cannot understand either the Greek or the English. At other times the Greek is momentarily faded out. I think a better solution (if a narrative was necessary at all) would have been to present an English summary at the start of each play and then let the drama go right through in uninterrupted Greek...