| The Bacchantes | |
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| Directed by | Giorgio Ferroni |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | The Bacchae by Euripides |
| Produced by | Giampaolo Bigazzi [1] |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Pier Ludovico Pavoni [1] |
| Edited by | Giorgio Ferroni [1] |
| Music by | Mario Nascimbene [1] |
Production companies |
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Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes [1] |
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The Bacchantes (Italian : Le baccanti) is a 1961 adventure-fantasy film directed by Giorgio Ferroni. It is loosely based on the Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae . [2] [3]
Thebes, the birthplace of Dionysus (born from the union between the god Zeus and the mortal woman Semele) suffers from a terrible drought, which triggers popular discontent. This adds up to the accusations of the prophet Tiresias, who alleges drought to the wrath of Dionysus, blaming King Pentheus for not believing in his divine nature and not revering him.
Manto, daughter of Tiresias, gives water to a stranger, who reciprocates with wine sacred to Dionysus. She then confides in her friend Dirce, discussing their respective unhappy destinies: Manto will become a virgin sacred to Demeter, despite her being in love with the servant Lacdamos, while Dirce is engaged to Pentheus, while dreaming of a life free from the court.
Following an omen reported by a priest, Agave, Semele's sister and Pentheus's mother, reveals to her son the existence of an ancient prophecy, according to which Lacdamos will marry a virgin sacred to Demeter and their son will become king of Thebes. Lacdamos is in fact the son of Ino, Agave's elder sister, who had him kidnapped and raised as a servant to keep the throne for Pentheus. According to the priest, Manto is the virgin of prophecy, and rumors have come that she already knows Lacdamos. To avoid both the fulfillment of the prophecy and the popular turmoil, Pentheus orders the sacrifice of Manto in honor of Demeter to obtain better harvests. Dirce intercedes in vain with Pentheus to prevent Manto's sacrifice, involuntarily confirming that she is already in love with Lacdamos.
At the suggestion of Tiresias, the night before the sacrifice Dirce drinks the sacred wine to Dionysus and goes with other women to Mount Cithaeron, where she meets the stranger who gave the wine to Manto. The next day the stranger instigate the people against Pentheus, while a lightning bolt blocks the hand of the priest who would have killed Manto. The Theban youth then goes to the Cithaeron to celebrate bacchanalia in honor of Dionysus, as well as the marriage between Manto and Lacdamos. The stranger reveals indeed that Lacdamos is actually the cousin of Pentheus and legitimate king of Thebes; according to the laws, he can therefore take Manto as his wife even if she has already been consecrated to Demeter.
Pentheus sends soldiers to the Cytheron and imprisons the rebels. The stranger manages to save himself but the next day he spontaneously goes to the palace before Pentheus' wedding, which has him chained to the cliffs of the Cithaeron. However, to appease the people's spirits, he decides to free all the captured people, except Manto and Lacdamos. Dirce visits the chained stranger, with whom she has fallen in love, who nevertheless reveals that he is Dionysus and will soon leave his mortal body.
Meanwhile, Tiresias reveals to Polycrates, the current head of the tribe that belonged to Athamas (Lacdamo's father), that Lacdamos is the true king of Thebes. Polychrates' soldiers free him and Manto and join the Bacchae, fighting against the army of Pentheus. Lacdamos defeats Pentheus in a duel and becomes the new king of Thebes; Dionysus finally ascends to god, while Dirce will lead the Bacchae.
The Bacchantes was released in Italy with an 100 minute running time on March 2, 1961. [1]
Dionysus is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. He is also known as Bacchus by the Greeks. This name was later adopted by the Romans; the frenzy that he induces is bakkheia. As Eleutherios, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.
Semele, in Greek mythology, was the youngest daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths.
In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes. He was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. Commonly stated to be a prince of Phoenicia, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre, the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, Cadmus could trace his origins back to Zeus. Originally, he was sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. In early accounts, Cadmus and Europa were instead the children of Phoenix. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour.
In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, Bacchae, or Bacchantes in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox skin.
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis and Alcmaeon in Corinth, and which Euripides' son or nephew is assumed to have directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.
In Greek mythology, Pentheus was a king of Thebes. His father was Echion, the wisest of the Spartoi. His mother was Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia. His sister was Epeiros.
In Greek mythology, Ino was a mortal queen of Boeotia, who after her death and transfiguration was worshiped as a goddess under her epithet Leucothea, the "white goddess." Alcman called her "Queen of the Sea", which, if not hyperbole, would make her a doublet of Amphitrite.
In Greek mythology, Agave was a princess of Thebes and the queen of the Maenads.
Dirce was a queen of Thebes as the wife of Lycus in Greek mythology.
In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself.
In Greek mythology, Autonoë was a Theban princess as the eldest daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes in Boeotia, and the goddess Harmonia. She was the wife of Aristaeus and mother of Actaeon and possibly Macris.
Cithaeron or Kithairon is a mountain and mountain range about sixteen kilometres long, in Central Greece. The range is the physical boundary between Boeotia in the north and Attica in the south. It is mainly composed of limestone and rises to 1,409 metres (4,623 ft). The north-east side of the range is formed by the mountain Pastra.
The Dionysiaca is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west.
The dynastic history of Thebes in Greek mythology is crowded with a bewildering number of kings between the city's new foundation and the Trojan War. This suggests several competing traditions, which mythographers were forced to reconcile.
The Bassarids is an opera in one act and an intermezzo, with music by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after Euripides's The Bacchae.
In Greek mythology, Polydorus or Polydoros was a king of Thebes.
Sparagmos is an act of rending, tearing apart, or mangling, usually in a Dionysian context.
The Bacchae is an independent film adaptation of Euripides' play The Bacchae, produced by Lorenda Starfelt and John Morrissey, and directed by Brad Mays.
The Lightning Child is a 2013 play by Ché Walker, freely adapting The Bacchae by Euripides. Its premiere production at Shakespeare's Globe in London ran from 14 September to 12 October 2013 - the same theatre has previously put on Walker's The Frontline.
The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite is an adaptation by Wole Soyinka of The Bacchae.