CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 755
Sean Connery playing Agamemnon. The episode "Who Mourns for Adonais"
from the television series Star Trek presents Apollo, as the last of the Olympian
gods, who demands to be worshiped.
We find a modern depiction of a muse in three movies: The Muse (1999), di-
rected by Albert Brooks, with Sharon Stone, an extravagant and eccentric muse
who makes extraordinary demands upon a screenwriter in return for the cre-
ative inspiration she can bestow; Down to Earth (1947), directed by Alexander
Hall, with Rita Hayworth as the muse Terpsichore, who comes to earth to make
a Broadway producer fix a new musical because she is irate that she is portrayed
as too modern and sexy; and Xanadu (1980), directed by Robert Greenwald, a
remake of Down to Earth as a vehicle for Olivia Newton-John, a muse who, this
time, helps two friends open a roller disco (Gene Kelly also stars).
In The Midas Touch (1997), directed by Peter Manoogian, a twelve-year-old
boy who is granted his wish to have the Midas touch; a Hungarian movie with
the same title (1989), directed by Geza Beremenyi, tells the story of a flea mer-
chant who possesses the golden touch.
Cupid (Costas Mandylor) comes to earth and falls in love in the romantic
Love Struck (1997). In an even more lightweight movie, Vanna White proves that
she cannot act, as Venus in Goddess of Love (1988). Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite
(1995) offers amusing testimony of the power of love, along with a parody of
Greek tragedy. Much more serious, horrifying, and certainly not for everyone is
Ted and Venus (1992), directed by Bud Cort, who also plays Ted, about a misfit
who ardently pursues the woman of his dreams (an allegorical Venus).
We are all enriched by meaningful and stimulating cinematic treatments of
mythology and legend; and in our search for movies on Greek and Roman
themes, those that deal with comparative thematic material should not be for-
gotten. The film Dragonslayer (1981), for example, which is based on Anglo-Saxon
myth, exploits one of the most dominant themes in all mythology. The Wicker
Man (1973) presents with chilling insight an archetypal pattern of demonic rit-
ual and human sacrifice. The popular movies about Superman and Tarzan cer-
tainly can be related to the archetypes of classical saga. Superman (1978, the first
of the series with Christopher Reeve) presents a disarming variation of the pat-
terns in the birth, childhood, and adventures of a hero; and the version of the
Tarzan legend called Grey stoke is of particularly high caliber and worth men-
tioning not only for its own sake but also for the opportunity to point out that
Tarzan has been identified as an Odyssean type of hero.^64 There is something
of the Iliad (emotionally and spiritually) in the heroic sadness and epic devotion
of The Deer Hunter (1978), and the protagonist of Angel Heart (1987) suffers in
his ignorant guilt like an Oedipus. Voyager (1991) too is profoundly Greek in its
mood and intensity because of its themes of family, incest, and fate; also steeped
in the atmosphere of Greek tragedy is Jean de Florette (1987), as is made overtly
clear in the dialogue of its equally fine sequel Manon of the Spring (1987). Pretty
Woman (1990) is yet another metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Galatea; She's All