Reception of classical mythology in Woody Allen's dramas: Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, and Cassandra's Dream

Update Item Information
Title Reception of classical mythology in Woody Allen's dramas: Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, and Cassandra's Dream
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Humanities
Department World Languages & Cultures
Author Savenkova, Olga Sergeyevna
Date 2013-05
Description The thesis explores the reception of classical mythology in three dramas by Woody Allen: Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Match Point (2005), and Cassandra's Dream (2007). These films are studied as contemporary interpretations of the ancient stories of Oedipus, Narcissus, and Orestes. Allen's films use mythic patterns to meditate on such ancient themes as illusion versus reality, status, alienation and self-identity, the tragedy of love, human conscience, moral choice and responsibility, fate and revenge, crime and punishment. The purpose of this study is to show how Woody Allen's dramas originate from ancient mythology and how the study of Greek tragedy and Roman poetry sheds light on the problems centered in his movies, which are neglected by most critics. The comparative study of Allen's dramas in the context of classical mythology is based on a dialogic relation between ancient and modern narratives proposed by Vladimir Bibler. In this dialogue, every work of art contributes to the deeper understanding of one another. The interpretation of film and text in this thesis is based on close reading analysis. The study of Crimes and Misdemeanors in the context of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex discovers the film as an intertext and a metatext concerned with art's capacities for representation of reality. The study of Match Point in the context of Ovid's Narcissus reveals the problem of self-identification as a significant dimension of both narratives. A comparative analysis of Cassandra's Dream and Aeschylus's The Oresteia results in the insight about the film's title and main conflict. Eventually, the study provides an example of a dialogic approach to comparative literature in practice.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Cassandra's Dream; Classical Mythology; Crimes and Misdemeanors; Drama; Match Point; Woody Allen
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Arts
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Olga Sergeyevna Savenkova 2013
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 647,079 bytes
ARK ark:/87278/s6df762r
Setname ir_etd
ID 195870
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6df762r
Back to Search Results