Electra2.0036_Jancsó

Electra2.0036_Jancsó

Miklós Jancsó, dir. "Electra My Love," 1974 film adaptation of László Gyurkó's stage tragedy Szerelmem, Elektra (1968; published in Az equész ilet at Budapest, 1970). Screenplay for the film is by L. Gyurkó and G. Hernádi.

For Macfarlane's comments, see OGCMAonline posting.

Richard Brody, New Yorker online DVD of the Week 24 Aug 2010 click:
"In 1974, when Hungary was still under Soviet dominion, Jancsó had an altogether more allusive way of dealing with [his country's] history and its ongoing effects."

This film features Electra's role so directly that it seems erroneous to list it under an Orestes OGCMA number; however, Reid lacks an entry for "Electra."

Ryans, Tony. "Elektreia" [review], Monthly Film Bulletin 34,396, Jan 4 1976.

"...described by Tony Ryans... as 'a hymn to permanent revolution' (Ryans 1976:11),[Jancso] mixes the basic elements of the [myth] with a modern setting of oppression and resistance." (J. Cunningham Hungarian Cinema: from coffeehouse to multiplex, 123)

On Gyurkó's source play:
P. Brunel, Le mythe d'Electre (Paris: Colin, 1971).
and
The Oxford Companion to Theatre,4th ed., ed. by P. Hartnoll (OUP, 1983), p. 403.

Image at left (below) is from the "Feast of Truth" where Aegisthus' subjects proclaim their thanks to the tyrant for the bounteous blessings they have received. "Thanks to you, sire" is the refrain. (minute 23:50 ff.)

Some discussion of the remarkable deus ex machina ending (reminiscent of Euripides' Electra), see P. Michelakis, Greek Tragedy on Screen (OUP 2013), 220 ff.). See also p. 152: "The film does not provide a tragic take on revolution and its combination of liberation and terror. Rather it uses a tragic narrative to celebrate the liberating agency of revolution."

On the film's disconcerting final tableau (with the "Firebird of Revolution" as deus ex machina, see P. Michelakis, 220, but especially C. Elliott: "The sequence is a bit ridiculous and poetic at the same time, replete with a voiceover narrative extolling the virtues of perpetual revolution that would give even the most bureaucratic party apparatchik a bit of a rise. It’s a mix of (apparently) real reverence and over-the-top slapstick that’s contradictory to say the least, and not exactly palatable. And perhaps that’s Jancsó‘s point. The film was directed and released in Hungary at a time when the Soviet Union, and the Soviet bloc in general, were in an imminent state of collapse. Contradiction was the order of the day - not least of which was the contradiction between the utopian party rhetoric and the realities of a repressive state system. One can imagine today that Electra‘s conclusion held a certain self-reflective relevance for the Hungarian audiences at the time."