Tag Archives: Hecuba

Yup, it tends to happen. I am out here trying to insert a side of the story to my script Engonos and also the script to Vitam Exhaurire and as it happens I suddenly have another idea. I am working on three scripts at the moment (the third will be on the back burner for a little while) there is no way I am starting another script. I’ll end up with a dozen of scripts and only one finished. Still, the idea has merit. So perhaps I can give it to Matt Damon. He might be busy, but it could help the students involved in Project Greenlight, an American documentary television series focusing on first-time filmmakers being given the chance to direct a feature film. Perhaps it would be useful for them. On the other hand, first time film makers tend to have their ideas on a rope, as such. I am not sure if it would be of any help. I’m thinking that any idea that hits a director (or visionary) who sees the idea might think that he (or she) could make something of this and I was never unwilling to give assistance to the creative mind. Beside that I am already working on projects 2 and 3 (4 comes later) and in that instance this idea would be redundant in my mind as I am focussing on something else.

The Idea
The idea is surrounding Euripides, the Greek writer and a Greek tragedian of classical Athens. He lived between 480 BC and 406 BC and is said to have voiced over 90 plays and several were made into movies (after he died). So I got to thinking. What is this movie is about Euripides. Starting as a young Greek (around 455 BC) and from there we get to see two settings. The first is his daily life and set this in an authentic looking life (at that time) and in between he goes on dream quests and envisions some of his works like Orestes and how he envisions how the Furies to be. We see him thinking through grief in Hecuba and how he sees the unfold through grief over the death of her daughter Polyxena and the revenge she takes for the murder of her youngest son, Polydorus. We see him shape Children of Heracles and how he opposes war. And in that setting and these plays he shapes tragedy as we know it to be now. You see, we see his plays and the versions that made it to the movies, but we don’t ever see Euripides himself and how this darkness is shaped into the massive hit it is now and has been for over 2000 years. There is also the thought that he might have been a doom sayer, brought to the surface in his plays and how it shapes him and darkens his soul. He died at an age over 70, in those days a real rarity. As such, the end of the movie should include The Bacchae which was published after he died, yet that part is ‘performed’ in the movie whilst we see Euripides as a ghost between the people watching his work lighting his should up. As we see The Dionysus in Euripides’ tale is a young god, angry that his mortal family, the royal house of Cadmus, has denied him a place of honor as a deity. His mortal mother, Semele, was a mistress of Zeus; and while pregnant, was tricked by a jealous Hera to request Zeus to come to her in his true form. But in the movie Dionysus is the ghost of Euripides, showing him angered by the people who mocked him in his life. And he is taken by three women Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the allotter), and Atropos (the inevitable, a metaphor for death) telling him that his work will survive thousands of years and he did well and Zeus will congratulate his efforts and the inspiration he was to greeks until time ends. 

This was the idea I had an hour ago. The plays are a bit open, but The Bacchae is essential to be at the end as it was published after he died. 

So that one is for Matt Damon to use in Project Greenlight.

Well, that is my creatively created $0.02, not bad for a 02:00 piece of work. Time to catch some snores as I prepare for the day ahead which starts in 3 hours. Have a great day.