Just saw Clash of the Titans recently and, having only breifly glanced at the trailers, was interested in how they were going to represent Medusa in her horrifying visage. Obviously being a physical impossibility, being as hideous as to have a petrifying gaze, I've always kinda been interested in how she's portrayed in any form, and, what with, what I thought to be, brilliant design of the Djinn and Witches, and Kraken from the trailer, was waiting to see what they came up with for Medusa's legendary display. At first, I thought they were being really clever, only showing her from specific angles, where her face can't be seen, whether it's from the back or in the shadows. As the scene unfolded, I found out they were actually being far less clever, showing direct close ups of her face, seemingly wanting to specifically detail to anyone watching that they chose for their representation of Medusa to have a perfectly flawless face. After the movie, as I was just looking into how closely the film was based on the 1981 film and true mythology, I further found out that they have actually been even less clever than I'd given them credit for during the movie, when I found out that Medusa was played by a Russian model. Medusa, the physical embodiment of ugliness, being played by a model.
there are a lot of ancient interpretations of the text that say it was her beauty that turned people to stone, not her uglyness. And in almost every interpretation she was beautiful before Athena cursed her and her sisters after she slept with Poseidon in her temple.
yeah, some people say medusa was stunningly beautiful that it made the gods jealous. and then she got her hair turned into snakes. in fact, i've heard this interpretation more often than i have of the "medusa was the ugliest cowface you can imagine." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa the idea of medusa being beautiful but monstrous is about 1,500 years old.
I've never once heard that Medusa was petrifyingly beautiful simply because there were others more beautiful than her. Case and point, Aphrodite, the incarnation of beauty. It was that Medusa rivalled Athena, who's merely the goddess of almost every non-physical property the Greeks could think of, in terms of beauty that she was cursed to be so hideous her visage would turn onlookers to stone. That's the story, and that's going by Ovid, who's basically our modern-day god of Greek mythology, from his Metamorphoses in which he set out to break his own Guiness World Record for the most information about Greek mythology written in a single written work. Furthermore, if memory serves, that is also the telling of the story they specifically relay in Clash of the Titans. And further still, for what it's worth, it's a remake of an older movie, in which they go by the same story, and in which her character design follows accordingly.
"so beautiful she petrified people?" no, medusa was beautiful, but it was the snake-hair and possibly the death-gaze that turned people to stone. she didn't go around turning people to stone before she got cursed, IIRC. in any case, Ovid is still just one guy. pick any one modern art historian/critic, even the best one you can find, and see how accurate and objective they are on the entire subject of, say, films in the 20th century.
Dude, could you take that quote more out of context? Did you seriously skip over the "I've never once heard that..."? I'm specifically saying that that was not the case, in response to; So really, you've further proved my point. And disregarding Ovid in the tellings of Greek mythology is like disregarding Homer in the telling of the Iliad and the Odyssey. And it's the version of the story they use in the film. What they've done is the same as if they said "Only Medusa's head can kill the Kraken!", and then have Perseus stab it to death with his sword.
please note that ijffdrie and me are different people. i've ALSO never heard the "beauty turned people to stone" story, but the "beautiful-but-cursed" version is all over the place, as common or even more common than the "butt-ugly" version of medusa. also, comparing Ovid/myths to Homer/Iliad is ridiculous. Homer wrote the iliad, while Ovid collected the myths. it's like saying Roger Ebert is the definitive source on Marvel Comics because he saw the movies and reviewed them.
Then why are you trying to correct my reply on ijffdrie's comment by restating what I've said? And what I meant by comparing Ovid and Homer is that disregarding Ovid for mythology is like disregarding Homer for the Iliad and the Odyssey; Stupid. Especially when they specifically use that telling of the story.
disregarding is not the same thing as realizing he's still just one guy. the brothers grimm are not the definitive source of folk and fairy tales even though they collected a lot of them and are the best known ones. they did not originally write them, they were not the first to collect them, and even though they did their best to write the most faithful renditions, they still only told one variation of the story. you're talking about ovid like he's the one and only source of greek mythology who went back in time and wrote that **** himself. i haven't watched the movie yet, but I don't see where "clash of the titans" is called "Ovid's Clash of the Titans" or has any other reference to Ovid. much like how the movie "Troy" wasn't called "Homer's Iliad."
For the movie Troy to be used as an example, it would be like the Greeks being told that the Trojan walls are unbreachable, and then have them merely breach Troy the good, old-fashioned way. And that's not to say that they would have overcome impossible odds, but that they would have simply messed up the plot. And Ovid was merely mentioned because of his version of the Medusa pretty much is the story of Medusa. Yes, there are other interpretations, but they use Ovid's in the movie, which is a fact you seem to remain blissfully ignorant of.
Clash of the titans like many movies this year rushed the story. Honestly if they would have taken some time and made it a three to four hour movie. I think it would have been great, but unfortunately I think the studios just wanted a quick buck.
It's just a Hollywood movie, not a mythology documentary. They did whatever they thought would be cool, I doubt they really did enormous amounts of research into the intricacies of mythology. They just went for the general story, I don't think they much cared if they got it 100% correct, because 99% of the people who watched it wouldn't notice. I thought it was pretty dumb that the djinn were made from pieces of old firewood that they'd kind of glued onto themselves over the years. Random. My point is that if you get upset about Hollywood movies botching the research and being historically or factually inaccurate; pretty much every movie that is semi-related to some kind of factual or imagined story is going to get your blood up.
