An examination of how screen texts embrace, refute, and reinvent the cultural heritage of antiquity, this volume looks at specific story-patterns and archetypes from Greco-Roman culture. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives, highlighting key cultural relay points at which a myth is received and reformulated for a particular audience.

Introduction: Cinemyths; Monica S. Cyrino and Meredith E. Safran PART I: THE HERO'S STRUGGLE 1. "Italian Stallion" meets "Breaker of Horses": Achilles and Hector in Rocky IV (1985); Lisl Walsh 2. The Isolated Hero: Papillon (1973), Cast Away (2000), and the Myth of Philoctetes; Scott A. Barnard 3. The Limits of Human Knowledge: Oedipal Problems in A Serious Man (2009); Osman Umurhan 4. Orpheus in a Grey Flannel Suit: George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau (2011); Seán Easton PART II: FASHIONING THE FEMININE 5. Dystopian Amazons: Fantasies of Patriarchy in Le Gladiatrici (1963); Antony Augoustakis 6. Arya, Katniss, and Merida: Empowering Girls through the Amazonian Archetype; Beverly J. Graf 7. The Suspense Thriller's Pygmalion Complex: Masculine Desire in Vertigo (1958), Les Biches (1968), and Body Double (1984); Kaelie Thompson 8. Plastic Surgery: Failed Pygmalions and Decomposing Women in Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960) and Bride of Re-Animator (1989); Hunter Gardner PART III: NEGOTIATING THE COSMIC DIVIDE 9. Savior of the Working Man: Promethean Allusions in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927); Alex McAuley 10. Magic, Music, Race: Screening "Black Enchantment" after Black Orpheus (1959); Monica S. Cyrino 11. Re-conceiving Hercules: Reframing Divine Paternity in Hercules (2004); Meredith E. Safran 12. The Twilight of Olympus: Deicide and the End of the Greek Gods; Vince Tomasso PART IV: CINEMYTH-MAKING 13. Of Marketing and Men: Making the Cinematic Greek Hero, 2010-2014; Stacie Raucci 14. John Cameron Mitchell's Aristophanic Cinema: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001); Lorenzo F. Garcia, Jr. 15. Dionysus Comes to Gotham: Forces of Disorder in The Dark Knight (2008); David Bullen 16. Hypatia and Brian: Early Christianity as Greek Mythological Drama; Anise K. Strong 17. Divine Animation: Clash of the Titans (1981); Dan Curley