Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

10 results

  • Chapter 8 - The Cinematic Nature of the Opening Scene in Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Story

  • from III - Complex Cinematism
  • Martin M. Winkler, George Mason University, Virginia
  • Book:
    Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination
    Published online:
    15 February 2024
    Print publication:
    22 February 2024, pp 267-294

  • Summary

    Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Tale is a precursor of modern mystery-adventure-romances. Most famous is its suspenseful but enigmatic opening, which is remarkable for its inherently visual nature. This chapter offers an interpretation of this scene from a cinematic perspective. It adapts Heliodorus’ clever opening into a screenplay, thereby demonstrating the concept of enargeia (Chapters 3 and 4) from a yet different point of view. The chapter additionally juxtaposes Heliodorus’ first scene to the intricate opening shots of two classic Hollywood thrillers: Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The mystery inherent in Heliodorus’ opening is solved only when an eyewitness explains it later both to the characters and to the readers. This explanation constitutes what is today called a flashback. Hence the chapter examines complex flashbacks in a variety of film genres. Hitchcock’s cinema exhibits a number of lying flashbacks, with the one in Stage Fright the best-known example. But Heliodorus was there first.