THE CRUEL WOMAN CROSSES TIME: MEDEA, THE TRAGIC PHENOMENON AND THE CINEMA

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the resonance of the Medea myth, based on the version created by Euripides (from Ancient Greek: Εὐριπίδης), in 431 BC, in the 20th century cinema, which questions this female figure as a paradigm of passionate and cruel woman. In this sense, we elaborated a study of the cinematographic production Medea (1969), made by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, which proposes a rereading of the character, who, in the feature film, is played by the lyric singer Maria Callas. Thus, we examine how the tragic phenomenon occurs in the composition of the main character and in the development of the plot. As methodology, we conducted a comparative analysis of the Euripidian Medea and the homonymous character of Pasolini, based on a theoretical foundation composed by Aristotle (2002), Junito de Souza Brandão (1984), Massimo Fusillo (1996), Albin Lesky (1990), Ulysses Maciel (2011) and Ryan-Scheutz (2007).