Undergrad-friendly Greek drama films?

The Oedipus Rex movie my colleagues
 and I refer to as the "Burger King version".

Of all the great and glorious genres of Greek literature out there, my students seem to have the most trouble connecting with Greek drama. I'm not unsympathetic to their plight: Greek tragedy can seem austere and almost obsessively focused to a reader accustomed to reality TV and Twitter.

So I turn to the internet for a movie version of one of the dramas we are reading this semester. Let's not say a good movie version, so much as a version that won't instantly turn them off.

And I came up with ... nothing. Amazon Instant Video, Youtube, the school library, (Netflix is blocked on classroom computers)... all gave me zip.

The Bacchae? I could buy an 8-minute DVD of the film's conclusion. No thanks. Or I could show Dionysus in '69, an experimental (and 40+ years old) version of the Bacchae that looks as though it were filmed in black-and-white home video. Show that to the class that has trouble remembering that the Theogony is not called the Hymn to Zeus? Not so much.

The delightful Iphigenia is available (for a mere ninety-nine dollars).

So my plea to all of you Greek drama enthusiasts out there: please consider filming some of your stagings of these wonderful plays. Even if you just post them on Youtube, I promise you they will be gratefully received by classics-in-translation instructors everywhere. Pin It