Nothing Beyond Measure
medèn à gan nothing beyond measure SOPHOCLES ANTIGONE - a film by ALESSANDRO VANTINI Sinopsys of the film A woman and two men. It's night time. They cut the chain off the gate at the entrance…
Nothing Beyond Measure
medèn à gan nothing beyond measure SOPHOCLES ANTIGONE - a film by ALESSANDRO VANTINI Sinopsys of the film A woman and two men. It's night time. They cut the chain off the gate at the entrance of the theatre, they set the scene with the few objects they have brought with them, among which a camera. They have the task of "celebrating" a tragic ritual. The tragedy is ANTIGONE by Sophocles: the conflict between human and divine laws, the condition of women, the arrogance of power, the incapacity of reconciling one's own reasons with the reasons of another and mutual respect. From here we have the title of the film: the ancient Greek saying: "medèn à gan", nulla oltre misura, nothing beyond measure. The "celebration" and the challenge consist in the fact that three human beings, alone before themselves, with no costumes, masks or any other aids, are sharing among themselves the roles of Sophocles' work, including the chorus. Cinema has the power of plumbing the origin of every rite in the best manner: self detachment, in order to submit to the energy of comprehension that every character bears within in the situation he has been put in by the author. The rite of cinema, the rite of tragedy and the rite of theatre witness all processes of inner transformation in which every human being has his leading role to play and is actively responsible for, seeking the comprehension of a level of reality even more real than visible reality. Director's notes What is the profound essence of Greek tragedy? It is first of all a ritual and recalls "here and now" ancestral questions and hidden energies that regenerate when the rite finds time and place. Religious and theatrical rite. The actors, "traveling" the ritual from the inside, create a relationship of different quality between them, with the tragedy, with the characters, with the audience, in an atmosphere of simplicity, rigor, fluidity, rhythm that together, with the different acting registers used, they can transmit the meaning of Sophocles' text more effectively. The fundamental issue is not the story of ANTIGONE and of the other characters, but the questions that every tragedy poses regarding the condition of man and the mystery of his relationship with energies of a higher order. Issues that in the tragedy arise continuously: more rationally in the prologue and in the episodes, while in the parodos and in the stasimos, that of the tragedy represent the original and "mythical" part, these questions are recalled by the suggestions, by the "enchantment" of the myth. Only in the light of these fundamental questions, the events narrated in ANTIGONE take on a universal meaning that transcends the vicissitudes of the various characters. What is the profound essence of man? In the first stasimon of ANTIGONE it is said: "And although [man] possesses, beyond the imaginable, the art of inventing, which is something wise, sometimes turns towards evil, sometimes towards good". This double aspect of human nature what is it? In the "Phedon" Socrates states: "... let [man] reflect with reason and meditate through the myths ...". In the plot that develops in the prologue and in the episodes, we are invited to "reflect with reason", while the suggestions of the choirs seem a call "to the spell", to "meditate through the myths". A religious and theatrical ritual that aims to give place and time, "here and now", to the most ancient of the issues concerning man: "Know yourself". The question of the film The question I tried to answer when approaching ANTIGONE is the same one I had already tried to tackle in a previous staging of OEDIPUS THE KING. What is the essence of Greek tragedy? How to make it in the simplest, most effective, truthful way? I do not think it is possible to approach a staged Greek tragedy without asking what the ritual is. The difficulties that were initially presented to me were two: either to attempt an impossible philological reconstruction of the rite, or to superimpose on the text a "rituality" invented during the rehearsals, and all this was not in line with my intentions. The only type of ritual that has remained essentially unchanged, even in variations of form and style, over the centuries, is the ritual of the theater. So I used the theatrical ritual as a means to relive the tragic ritual: theatrical and religious ritual together, the only way that could guarantee a minimum of truth and rigor. To make this choice more radical and therefore more powerful, I decided to have the text interpreted by only three actors, including the choirs. It was very difficult for me to decide to undertake the direction and production of this show: I feared a refusal, to be accused of presumption, or worse, to have prevaricated the author. But the more I studied and analyzed the idea of directing in relation to the text, the more it took energy, clarity, incisiveness: at a certain point I was sure that such a conceived staging would have been at the service of tragedy, in the sense that he would have valued its strength, its meanings, its rituality, its sacredness. And this sense of being "at the service" of the text was the basic attitude around which the test work was carried out: three actors appear on stage as themselves, one woman and two men, and "celebrate" the rite: and for this same fact they are "at the service" of this rite. Under the eyes of the audience, the actors play the different roles assigned to them, then abandon them to interpret the choirs, then again return in the role of a character, often different from the one they left shortly before. According to my intentions, this fluidity, this versatility, which involves the three actors "in entering and leaving" by their respective characters, this pulsation, typical of the "ritual of the theater", is the only concrete form, current, within our reach, which can bring us, even if indirectly, to the tragic rite. The actors never leave the stage for the duration of the show and do not use either masks or costumes: this is because it is important to "stage", in sight, in the public eye, the difficulty, the interpretative commitment of every actor in changing character, without costumes, without masks, without help of any kind except that of his creative and technical resources. The actor on stage, without protection, in front of himself, of the text, of the public, vulnerable, who puts himself at the service of the tragedy. I wanted this last aspect, also part of the theatrical ritual, to call the actors to a very severe commitment, to demand from themselves an intense concentration, in such a way that the power of Sophocles' text found the most appropriate expression. Sinopsys of Sophocles' ANTIGONE In the prologue, Antigone, the daughter of the late Oedipus, reports to the sister Ismene the order of Creon, who became king, not to give burial to Polinices, their brother, who died in an attempt to conquer Thebes, ruled by another brother, Etèocles, also he was killed in the fratricidal duel. Antigone is determined to bury Polinices. In the first episode, Creon, in a speech to the choir, confirms the sentence: Polinices will not have to receive funeral honors, on pain of death. Only Etèocles, who defended the city, will have them. Just then a guard enters and reports that the corpse of Polinices has been buried. Creon threatens the hardest punishments if the culprit is not discovered. In the second episode the guard returns with Antigone, a prisoner: it is she who has transgressed the law. Antigone declares himself responsible and ready to die. In the third episode, Haemon, son of Creon and promised spouse of Antigone, goes to his father to ask him to save the life of Antigone. Creon refuses: Antigone will be locked up alive in a cave and left to die. The young man leaves, uttering dark threats. In the fourth episode Antigone cries her fate, which pushes her to die adolescent, without marriage and without children, and curses the incestuous marriage between Oedipus and Jocasta, from which she was born, together with her sister, Ismene, and her two brothers, Ethèocles and Polinìces. In the fifth episode comes Tiresias: he reports that mysterious wonders recommend to have pity also of Polinices. Creon refuses and accuses the soothsayer of greed. Tiresias goes away prophesying for Creon a domestic mourning. The king, exhorted by the choir, finally adheres to the invitation to free Antigone and runs to the cave. In the exodus a messenger announces that Antigone hanged herself and that Haemon, in despair, killed herself with her own sword. Creon arrives, with the corpse of his son in his arms, while a second messenger announces the death of Eurydice, wife of Creon, who killed herself accusing her husband of being a killer of their own son. Creon, desperate, hopes that death will free him from such pain. Alessandro Vantini
Nothing Beyond Measure
Drama
Film Details
medèn à gan nothing beyond measure SOPHOCLES ANTIGONE - a film by ALESSANDRO VANTINI Sinopsys of the film A woman and two men. It's night time. They cut the chain off the gate at the entrance of the theatre, they set the scene with the few objects they have brought with them, among which a camera.
They have the task of "celebrating" a tragic ritual. The tragedy is ANTIGONE by Sophocles: the conflict between human and divine laws, the condition of women, the arrogance of power, the incapacity of reconciling one's own reasons with the reasons of another and mutual respect. From here we have the title of the film: the ancient Greek saying: "medèn à gan", nulla oltre misura, nothing beyond measure.
The "celebration" and the challenge consist in the fact that three human beings, alone before themselves, with no costumes, masks or any other aids, are sharing among themselves the roles of Sophocles' work, including the chorus. Cinema has the power of plumbing the origin of every rite in the best manner: self detachment, in order to submit to the energy of comprehension that every character bears within in the situation he has been put in by the author. The rite of cinema, the rite of tragedy and the rite of theatre witness all processes of inner transformation in which every human being has his leading role to play and is actively responsible for, seeking the comprehension of a level of reality even more real than visible reality.
Director's notes What is the profound essence of Greek tragedy? It is first of all a ritual and recalls "here and now" ancestral questions and hidden energies that regenerate when the rite finds time and place. Religious and theatrical rite. The actors, "traveling" the ritual from the inside, create a relationship of different quality between them, with the tragedy, with the characters, with the audience, in an atmosphere of simplicity, rigor, fluidity, rhythm that together, with the different acting registers used, they can transmit the meaning of Sophocles' text more effectively.
The fundamental issue is not the story of ANTIGONE and of the other characters, but the questions that every tragedy poses regarding the condition of man and the mystery of his relationship with energies of a higher order. Issues that in the tragedy arise continuously: more rationally in the prologue and in the episodes, while in the parodos and in the stasimos, that of the tragedy represent the original and "mythical" part, these questions are recalled by the suggestions, by the "enchantment" of the myth. Only in the light of these fundamental questions, the events narrated in ANTIGONE take on a universal meaning that transcends the vicissitudes of the various characters.
What is the profound essence of man? In the first stasimon of ANTIGONE it is said: "And although [man] possesses, beyond the imaginable, the art of inventing, which is something wise, sometimes turns towards evil, sometimes towards good". This double aspect of human nature what is it? In the "Phedon" Socrates states: "... let [man] reflect with reason and meditate through the myths ...".
In the plot that develops in the prologue and in the episodes, we are invited to "reflect with reason", while the suggestions of the choirs seem a call "to the spell", to "meditate through the myths". A religious and theatrical ritual that aims to give place and time, "here and now", to the most ancient of the issues concerning man: "Know yourself". The question of the film The question I tried to answer when approaching ANTIGONE is the same one I had already tried to tackle in a previous staging of OEDIPUS THE KING.
What is the essence of Greek tragedy? How to make it in the simplest, most effective, truthful way? I do not think it is possible to approach a staged Greek tragedy without asking what the ritual is. The difficulties that were initially presented to me were two: either to attempt an impossible philological reconstruction of the rite, or to superimpose on the text a "rituality" invented during the rehearsals, and all this was not in line with my intentions. The only type of ritual that has remained essentially unchanged, even in variations of form and style, over the centuries, is the ritual of the theater.
So I used the theatrical ritual as a means to relive the tragic ritual: theatrical and religious ritual together, the only way that could guarantee a minimum of truth and rigor. To make this choice more radical and therefore more powerful, I decided to have the text interpreted by only three actors, including the choirs. It was very difficult for me to decide to undertake the direction and production of this show: I feared a refusal, to be accused of presumption, or worse, to have prevaricated the author.
But the more I studied and analyzed the idea of directing in relation to the text, the more it took energy, clarity, incisiveness: at a certain point I was sure that such a conceived staging would have been at the service of tragedy, in the sense that he would have valued its strength, its meanings, its rituality, its sacredness. And this sense of being "at the service" of the text was the basic attitude around which the test work was carried out: three actors appear on stage as themselves, one woman and two men, and "celebrate" the rite: and for this same fact they are "at the service" of this rite. Under the eyes of the audience, the actors play the different roles assigned to them, then abandon them to interpret the choirs, then again return in the role of a character, often different from the one they left shortly before.
According to my intentions, this fluidity, this versatility, which involves the three actors "in entering and leaving" by their respective characters, this pulsation, typical of the "ritual of the theater", is the only concrete form, current, within our reach, which can bring us, even if indirectly, to the tragic rite. The actors never leave the stage for the duration of the show and do not use either masks or costumes: this is because it is important to "stage", in sight, in the public eye, the difficulty, the interpretative commitment of every actor in changing character, without costumes, without masks, without help of any kind except that of his creative and technical resources. The actor on stage, without protection, in front of himself, of the text, of the public, vulnerable, who puts himself at the service of the tragedy.
I wanted this last aspect, also part of the theatrical ritual, to call the actors to a very severe commitment, to demand from themselves an intense concentration, in such a way that the power of Sophocles' text found the most appropriate expression. Sinopsys of Sophocles' ANTIGONE In the prologue, Antigone, the daughter of the late Oedipus, reports to the sister Ismene the order of Creon, who became king, not to give burial to Polinices, their brother, who died in an attempt to conquer Thebes, ruled by another brother, Etèocles, also he was killed in the fratricidal duel. Antigone is determined to bury Polinices.
In the first episode, Creon, in a speech to the choir, confirms the sentence: Polinices will not have to receive funeral honors, on pain of death. Only Etèocles, who defended the city, will have them. Just then a guard enters and reports that the corpse of Polinices has been buried.
Creon threatens the hardest punishments if the culprit is not discovered. In the second episode the guard returns with Antigone, a prisoner: it is she who has transgressed the law. Antigone declares himself responsible and ready to die.
In the third episode, Haemon, son of Creon and promised spouse of Antigone, goes to his father to ask him to save the life of Antigone. Creon refuses: Antigone will be locked up alive in a cave and left to die. The young man leaves, uttering dark threats.
In the fourth episode Antigone cries her fate, which pushes her to die adolescent, without marriage and without children, and curses the incestuous marriage between Oedipus and Jocasta, from which she was born, together with her sister, Ismene, and her two brothers, Ethèocles and Polinìces. In the fifth episode comes Tiresias: he reports that mysterious wonders recommend to have pity also of Polinices. Creon refuses and accuses the soothsayer of greed.
Tiresias goes away prophesying for Creon a domestic mourning. The king, exhorted by the choir, finally adheres to the invitation to free Antigone and runs to the cave. In the exodus a messenger announces that Antigone hanged herself and that Haemon, in despair, killed herself with her own sword.
Creon arrives, with the corpse of his son in his arms, while a second messenger announces the death of Eurydice, wife of Creon, who killed herself accusing her husband of being a killer of their own son. Creon, desperate, hopes that death will free him from such pain. Alessandro Vantini.