PHAEDRA
US/Greece, 1962, 115 minutes, Black and white.
Melina Mercouri, Anthony Perkins, Raf Valone.
Directed by Jules Dassin.
Phaedra is the work of writer director Jules Dassin. Dassin had a successful Hollywood career in the '40s with such films as Naked City and Brute Force. Blacklisted, he went to Europe and made the crime classic Rififi. In Greece he made He Who Must Die and married Melina Mercouri. For several decades he has made films with his wife, using Greek settings and backgrounds and also with an eye on the Greek classics, filming them or adapting them to 20th. century settings. Phaedra is one of the earliest of these films. After the success of Never on Sunday, he adapted the classic story to contemporary Greece, making Melina Mercouri the ambiguous ageing heroine and matching her with Anthony Perkins as the desperate suicidal young hero.
The film echoes the Onassis type of empire with ships and wealth. The music by Mikis Theodorakis is very interesting and becomes part of the atmosphere and plot. The film is mannered, highly melodramatic and neurotic. However, it is the type of excessive melodrama that captures a willing audience and whirls them along in its momentum. Melina Mercouri is always a vigorously strong presence, almost a devouring actress, and she employs this style here. Anthony Perkins, always an expert at neurotic young men, offers this kind of interpretation here. Raf Vallone offers the authentic Greek background. Probably not a good film, but a very interesting one. Dassin was to go on to make such films as Topkapi, Promise At Dawn and A Dream Of Passion, with his wife.
1. The impact of the cry at the beginning and end of the film, the letters of the title and Phaedra’s name? The atmosphere of the credits, the statuary, the horses – and the ending with the car and death? Phaedra as an ominous name?
2. The importance of the mythical Greek background and audience knowledge of this or not? Knowledge of detail, knowledge that this was an updating of Greek mythology? The line of the plot, character attitudes, passions, fate, issues of family, power, empire? How well do ancient Greek myths translate into modern Greek settings? Into contemporary Europe? The characters and their passions and the net of interrelationships drawn starkly and tragically and even epically in the past – into the business headlines and newspaper articles and magazine articles of the present?
3. The vision of Jules Dassin and his American background, his living in Greece? His vision of things Greek and the universal message of mythology? How successful is his attempt to bring the past into the present, to interpret the past? His reliance on his wife, Melina Mercouri and her Greek background, intense passion and presence, her interpretation of Greek tragic heroines?
4. The atmosphere of Greek tragedy: world empire and wealth, monarchs and the language used of kings and queens, ships and the references to wealth being carried and far-off voyages and storms and disasters? The sea? The importance of family, inheritance, passion and love, the changing of partners in the adult generation, indications of relationships in the next generation? The role of the nurse with her ominous sense of doom? The chorus of the Greek women at the beginning and, especially, at the end with death? The importance of violence, death, especially by suicide?
5. The black and white photography and the joy of the opening, the crowds of people, the ship, celebration, society, Phaedra and her launching the ship? Family, hopes, the importance of international deals and Thanos going off? Yet hints of jealousy, changed marriages, passions and ambitions? Comment on people having everything. The launching of the ship and the beginning of Phaedra’s voyage to Alexandria and the ending with her death and the death of the ship? The consequent destruction on people who sailed with her?
6. Thanos as focal character, as a rich businessman, his Greek empire, his plans, building, devotion to Phaedra, for Alexandria? The mergers? His blindness to his wife’s character, to understanding his son, not knowing about his painting? The Greek sin of hubris and Thanos’s guilt? Did he deserve such repercussions and loss at the end? The film’s insight into blind pride and its overriding conquering and yet having its own seeds of destruction?
7. Melina Mercouri’s interpretation of Phaedra? Her physical presence, the strong overpowering character and physical appearance? A woman of will and command yet tenderness? Love for her husband, yet her wanting him to stay? Obeying his commands and going to Paris and London? Her regret? The impact of seeing Alexei in the museum, and what happened to her? The shoes, their walking? Her dislike for Alexei and her plans for her own son being overwhelmed by love and passion? The blindness and unreasonableness of the passion on both parts? Thanos and his presence in Paris, the quick visit and creating the situation for the passion to grow?
8. How successful was the love scene and the suggestion of passion with blazing fire and watery focus? The loud music and its crescendos? Visual suggestions? The sudden dying of the music and Phaedra being cold? A successful cinematic communication of such passion? Convincing in the plot at this stage? Their talking together, song, dancing? Alexei as the seeming young innocent seduced by Phaedra? Her being seduced by him? Her unwillingness to have any plans and his wanting plans? The ominous phone call and his not wanting her to answer and her decision to answer? Why did the relationship go so awry? Fate, the characters themselves?
9. The background of the nurse’s dream and her warning about the fighting of the two boys? The warning of the Chorus at the beginning? Successful use of a Greek device?
10. What happened to Phaedra at her arrival home, the edge, her unwillingness to be near her husband, going to the nurse, the nurse understanding what had happened, continuing to warn her? Her growing peacefulness, the phone call to Alexei? The ambiguity of her passionate asking him to come and the interpretation by father and by son?
11. How well had the film drawn the character of Alexei? Information about his parents, English mother, hostility to Phaedra, study in London, art? As a person – Anthony Perkins style of interpretation, genial, deep, callow? The growing passion for Phaedra and its effect on his emotions? His arrival in Greece and the shadow on Phaedra, the joy in meeting Thanos and the nurse watching? His ambiguity of attitude, growing hatred towards Phaedra, love for his father? His cousin and the hopes for a wedding? His cynical attitude towards her? Sharing the visit of the docks with his father? Participating in the party? To build a future in Greece?
12. The contrast with Phaedra’s moods and their domination of the film, the visit with her son to her father and his not understanding what had happened? Her defying of Alexei to kiss her with so many people present? The growing moods and preventing the wedding? The hostility towards the girl, the irony of her being in white at the time of the sinking of the ship and the Greek Chorus in black? Her decision to tell the truth, Thanos’s not hurting her? What did she achieve?
13. The contrast with Alexei and the building up of hopes and his father’s revelation of the information, beating him? Exiling him? Phaedra washing him and his declaring his hatred? His going to the cairn that he loved? The reckless driving – did he intend to kill himself? His comments about Bach and its appropriateness at this time of his life, singing, sudden crash and death? The pathos of his being carried in to his father as so many women were mourning the death of their families?
14. The contrast with the formalities of Phaedra’s death? The nurse’s participation? Her laying herself out solemnly?
15. Themes of family ambitions, intrigues? The portrait of Thanos’s ex-wife, rival, father-in-law, the plans of the girl to marry and her jealousy of other girls and Alexei’s attentions? The world of wealth and frivolity? Fine clothes, ordering and then transporting an Aston Martin, dances, the tossing of the plates into the harbour? This playboy world?
16. What was the audience finally left with? A purging experience of terror and pity as in the Greek classics? A look at the basic and perennial feelings and thoughts and relationships of human beings? How much insight?
