Word: prometheus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...device of shamming insanity has a long tradition going back at least as far as Oceanus' advice to Aeschylus' Prometheus: "To simulate madness is the secret of the wise," Walken's "antic disposition" is correctly a disguise. He appears barefoot, wearing a muddied monk's gown with cowl. He takes things pretty fat, however, In the Nunnery Scene, where he not only berates Ophelia but even knocks her down and slaps her. Later he shinnies up a pole to give a speech...
...From now on I am the French Revolution," Bonaparte declares, and there are no secondary or tertiary meanings implicit in the statement. Symbolism here is not subterfuge; an eagle appears on the screen and that is Napoleon. A flame is superimposed on his angular unmoving face and Napoleon is Prometheus. The film never teaches, and it never explains. Yet it speaks loudly and continuously...
SCIENCE: GOOD, BAD AND BOGUS by Martin Gardner; Prometheus 408 pages...
Heedless of Zeus, Prometheus gave the secret of fire to mortals, and was punished by being bound to a cliff in the wastes of Scythia. There an eagle fed on his liver, which, once consumed, grew back, only to be devoured again. A harsh response, considering that Prometheus only sought to give man a little mastery over nature. But Zeus was notorious for overreacting. Who knows what punishment he would have devised for the modern enlightened nations that, in the interest of mastery over nature, have handed out nuclear power with such deliberate generosity these past few years...
...remove. The U.S. keeps a plane in the air with the capacity to trigger the missile system if ground controls are destroyed. It calls the aircraft Looking Glass. And the power of the nation's weaponry is disguised in initials (MX) or mythology (Titan), where even the Titan Prometheus must be having second thoughts...