Osamu Tezuka Apollo

O. Tezuka, Apollo's Song (1970/2007)

Osamu Tezuka adapts the myth of Daphne and Apollo within his manga Apollo's Song (1970). While the whole story's narrative arc is reminiscent of Orpheus and Eurydice, Apollo and Athena are acknowledged overtly but Orpheus is not. The protagonist twice receives oracular instructions from Athena at the story's beginning and end; and Apollo is referenced at two key moments in Shogo's salvation narrative. 

       Tezuka was one of the most creative and most instrumental practitioners of Japanese manga. Topics and narrative modes applied in his graphic novels manifest astonishing diversity throughout the 20th Century, from the rise of Hitler until the artist's death in 1989. Originally serialized in Japanese as Aporo No Uta in Shukan Shonen Kingu, Shonen Gahosha, Apollo's Song was translated into English in 2007. 

       It's hard to surmise from reading Apollo's Song that the artist is not aware of the Orpheus myth. The protagonist is fated to cyclical love and loss, ever closer to attaining real love. The cover art suggests the famous moment in Camus' Orfeo Negro (1960) when Orpheus ascends to the favelas with the limp corpse of Eurydice in his arms. Shogo grapples with his love for Hiromi throughout and ultimately achieves unity with her only in experiencing a hellish death to be with her. Shogo and the Hiromi surrogates perish recurrently and experience resurrection in new stories. Themes of joint suicide, questions about why violence so often interferes with love, lovers who lose their beloved, and human search for the meaning of true love crisscross Tezuka's tale.

O. Tezuka, Apollo's Song (1970/2007)

        Athena is never clearly identified by name in Apollo's Song. Her identity is, however, unmistakable. Phidias' classical masterpiece of Athena Parthenos, ensconced in the naos of the Parthenon (the iconic sculpture portrayed in mirror image in English translation) — speaks an oracle to Shogo in Chapter 1 (of 5). Her utterance is as the Divine would speak: "Thou shalt love one woman again and again, but before the two are united in love, one shall perish. Even in death, thou shalt be reborn, to undergo yet another trial of love." (1.41) Then, the manga's final scene, its epilogue centers on Shogo's return to the unnamed Parthenos to learn that "Thou shalt see [Hiromi] again soon. In every era, in every world, she shall await thee." As Hiromi rises naked from behind Athena's panoply and exits the Parthenon into the light where Shogo has gone, Tezuka's omniscient narrator instructs that "Nature divides us into male and female... We come together and create offspring for posterity..." (2.254-57) Athena, the virginal goddess, therefore directs both Shogo's fate and the eternal prospects of human procreation. In her management of a hero's sexual destiny, Tezuka's mythmaking has contrived a remarkable new role for Athena Parthenos.

Pursuit in water, Apollo's Song 2.205

traditional Apollo's Song 2.203

       Apollo's treatment in Apollo's Song is more overt and at first glance less novel. Late in the final chapter, Hiromi confides in her doctoral advisor, Dr. Enoki (2.199), that she is beginning to have feelings for Shogo and that she is aware of his infatuation with her. The Doctor advises her to "become a laurel tree." Hiromi fails to see the connection. The Doctor then helps her to learn "the Greek myth about the girl Daphne." He explains the myth of Daphne and Apollo along the lines of Ovid's Metamorphoses 1, the western classic ending in a Bernini visual; but, subtle divergences from Ovid are intriguing. Much of the pursuit occurs in water, for instance, recalling the manga's recurrent instruction on reproductive biology, sperm swimming upstream. Tezuka's adaptation explains how the god Apollo pursued and came to hold the object of his lust, how the daughter of Peneus lost her identity at the end of a frightened flight. Dr. Enoki summarizes, "Miss Watari, I'm telling you to become a laurel tree because if you continue to allow Shogo's feelings for you to intensify, he will eventually fall into despair." (209)

Shogo as fallen Icarus, Apollo's Song 1.239

       Apollo is first acknowledged mid-way through the manga. The first acknowledgement in a novel titled for him is rather obscure. "Apollo" is the only word in the principle frame that fills 1.239. Shogo has collapsed, exhausted by Hiromi's sternly regimented training him for a marathon. In an bout of training that one expects will likely result in sexual intercourse, the fleet Hiromi eludes Shogo for many laps around a small lake. As Shogo's physical fatigue darkens his mind, Tezuka in nearly every frame includes a glimpse of Hiromi's running legs and backside clothed explicitly in Shogo's underwear. (1.227-38) Hubris brings Shogo down in the end. He falls flat on his face on the strand. Icarus. And his only utterance rises to the top of the frame — "Apollo..."  Next frames find Hiromi now willingly removing her clothing over the collapsed boy, now that he poses "no threat" to her safety.  Hiromi is his coach. For now, Hiromi is fully in control. Over 200 pages later Dr. Enoki coaches her to play Daphne and relinquish control.

Lefty Athena, Apollo's Song 1.23; the
Japanese original mirrors this, with
Nike extended in the right hand.

       Tezuka's broader narrative in this manga treats the development of Shogo from sociopath to lover. Much is at work in Tezuka's highly original narrative, the whole stands very interestingly as a reception of Orpheus, with Shogo's love and loss of Hiromi never further than arm's reach from the plight of Eurydice and Orpheus. Yet, it is never closer than arm's reach, either. Tezuka's work is hardly a pastiche of the Eurydice narrative, nor is it a mindless pastiche of any classical myth.  The overt acknowledgements of the roles of Athena and Apollo secure Tezuka's manga as a worthwhile narrative for exploring adaptation of classical mythology. The most fruitful analysis will approach the reason why Tezuka names the narrative framed by rumination on "the endless drama" of human procreation "Apollo's Song".

Osamu Tezuka, story of Daphne and Apollo told within Apollo's Song, manga, graphic novel 1970 and 2007 — originally serialized in Japanese as Aporo No Uta in Shukan Shonen Kingu, Shonen Gahosha, and translated by Camillia Nieh — New York, Vertical. 

Hiromi is advised by the Doctor on 2.199 that the only way to avoid Shogo's infatuation with her — "Then become a laurel tree.... Do[n't] you know the Greek myth about the girl Daphne?" The narrative then unfolds along the lines of Ovid's telling, but with subtle divergences worth exploring. 

  Tezuka's greater narrative in this manga treats the development of Shogo from sociopath to lover. The whole stands very interestingly as an adaptation or reception of the myth of Orpheus, with Shogo's love and loss of Hiromi never further than arm's reach from the plight of Eurydice and Orpheus. Yet, Tezuka's work is hardly a pastiche of the Eurydice narrative. 

#ogcma.byu.edu   Athena Apollo Orpheus Eurydice
http://ogcma.byu.edu/Daphne2.0003_Tezuka.htm

Haskell Coffin's Nike

W. Haskell Coffin idealized the appearance of victory as America entered the Great War, as he had done in a wide range of illustrations published in and on American magazines over the first quarter of the 20th Century. He applied his idealized American woman in an image of Nike for a campaign to support the sale of war bonds. A pair of important posters by Coffin helped boost national response to America's entry into the Great War. His "Joan of Arc Saved France," included recently in an exhibition at the BYU Museum of Art ("For Home and Country: Posters and Propaganda from the Great War," curated by K. Hartvigsen) may be better known than Coffin's winged Nike in "Share in the Victory". Coffin's Nike is remarkable for his artistic application.
   Iconographically, Coffin's Nike is clearly derived from classical models. The winged figure is draped in a flowing chiton held over her left shoulder leaving her right should bare, precisely as the Winged Nike of Samothrace (Louvre).

The Louvre Nike's drapery is carved to suggest much finer weight fabric, as it blows back so blithely as to show the navel and other anatomical features of the form beneath the carved cloth. Coffin's Nike has a full, if not voluptuous, figure beneath her clothing, even if the overall impression is rather modest. Likewise, the drapery coming forward in three pleats over the left hip on Coffin's Nike is contrived precisely the same as her Samothracian forebear. Both Nikai stride forward with their right foot, unlike another similar Nike at Olympia. Coffin's model for the poster is certainly the sculpture in the Louvre.
   The attributes held by Coffin's Nike, a palm frond and a longsword, are an interesting invention. Of course the Nike of Samothrace lacks head and both arms; aside from the wings growing naturally from her shoulders, whatever attributes she held in her hands are missing.  She might have held something aloft in one or both of her hands. Since the Louvre Nike's arms are completely missing, it is hard to determine their disposition. The Winged Nike from Olympia, holds her left arm high and her right arm low, as does Coffin's. Her hands missing also, it is unknown whether the Olympia Nike held anything; but her gesture may suggest her pointing, like a herald, to the heavens and to the earth asa messenger might. Classical Nikai often extend laurel wreaths over the head of conquering heroes; thus, for Coffin's Nike to be wearing one herself diverges somewhat from classical iconography. The palm frond extended in her left hand recalls Thomas Brock's Victoria Monument (1901) opposite Buckingham Palace which extends a palm frond in one hand (left) and a wreath in the other.
   Secondary depictions of Phidias' great sculptures indicate that Nikai playing minor roles were preparing to crown victors. A coin stamped at Ellis shows the colossal Zeus sculpture at Olympia extended in his right hand a Nike who held out a laurel wreath. Similarly, the Varvakeion replica of the Phidias' Athena Parthenos likewise held emblems to crown victorious Athens. This Athena is emerging from the battle, not heading toward it. Coffin's decision for his Nike to offer the extended sword seems unprecedented in depictions of Nikai. She enters the fray. Whereas Nike typically comes after the battle has been waged and won, Coffin's new conception offers simultaneously both clean-clad (i.e. easy?) victory and the emblem of peace.
   Coffin's conception of Nike is a youthful American beauty. The blue eyes and rosy cheeks feature regularly in the artist's other portrayals of young women on magazine covers such as Redbook, Metropolitan Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post. His Nike's short bobbed hair further diverges strongly from classical iconography, a feature tending the image more toward strong young women of contemporary US culture than toward a divinity from Ancient Greece. Portraying a strong, lovely girl who might live next door Coffins aims his message at men and women alike. Both women and men can contribute equally to the cause this Nike represents.

— OGCMA.BYU.edu/Nike2.0010_Coffin.htm

Authority for citing mythological source material

Even Ovid is suspect.

“The popularity of mythology means that it is treated by innumerable websites; precisely this popularity means that many of these websites are created and maintained by people whose knowledge of the classics, and indeed of mythology, is far from perfect.”   
                                                 ——David M. Schaps, Handbook for Classical Research, 327

 Schaps' statement above will strike some as being awfully pedantic and classicizingly stuffy. It may not be comforting to this blog's reader(s) to learn that I endorse Schaps' view. With all due respect to the people who work hard at compiling those innumerable websites he mentions, I concur that it is important to keep one's eye on the classical texts from which classical mythology derives. And some knowledge of the classics is important for this. 

    In my opinion, any discussion of the reception of a classical myth should take into account the classical source(s) from which the myth is derived. Then, analysis should note the points of divergence from the classical source-myth and the modern reception of it. Where the versions differ, opportunities for analysis occur. 

   

    For studying the Reception of Classical Mythology, these resources are useful essential. Reception papers in the ClCv241 should rest upon these sources for authoritative statements of the source myths treated.

Reid, Jane Davidson. The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1990s. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.  — Great for reception; starts with authority; cites both classical sources and jumping-off points for scholarly research.

Moog-Grünewald, Maria, ed. The Reception of Myth and Mythology. Brill’s New Pauly, Supplements, 4. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. — Even stronger for reception, but more densely packed that OGCMA; next stop for researching reception of a myth, after Reid.

Simpson, Michael, trans. and comm. Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: the Library of Apollodorus. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976. — Apollodorus is critically important, but always worth second-guessing; Simpson’s notes help with that, and they often include very useful observations on intriguing receptions of classical myths.

Grimal, Pierre. Ed. and trans. by S. Kershaw and A.R. Maxwell-Hyslop. The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 1990. — A quick guide worth sticking in your pocket anytime you go to a museum; I carry it on my iPad.

Graves, Robert. Introduction by R. Riordan. The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 2012. — Quirky, over-the-top erudite, infected by Cambridge ritualism, not nearly as sexy as the Penguin cover (or Riordan’s endorsement!) would have you believe.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 8 vols. in 16 + index & supplements. Zürich: Artemis, c. 1981 -2009. — For reception per se perhaps less valuable; but for teaching that reception will ever be with us, this is da bomb. 

S1mOne: Andrew Niccol and Linda Hutcheon

Simone (technically: S1mOne, 2002) offers a usage of the Pygmalion myth that surprises with an overt endorsement of Linda Hutcheon's adaptation theory. Not an especially sophisticated narrative, the technologically fantastic film directed and written by Andrew Niccol has a defining moment that could qualify it as one of the most interesting of all Pygmalion films. 

The reader(s) of this blog may not agree with my hang-up on the presence of an overt, smoking-gun allusion to the classical myth being used in a given narrative adaptation; but I hope my insistence on finding the overt allusion to the source-myth in an a adapted texts is clear. I want to know that the creator of a classical mythological usage is aware of the source myth and not merely creating an archetypal cognate. (I.e. not every son with problematic father relationships is a big-O Oedipus, although such sons may manifest oedipal tendencies.) That awareness of conscious development of a myth Hutcheon calls "acknowledgement".

31 minutes into Simone, the prodigious cinemaste Victor Taransky (Al Pacino) is enjoying a domestic moment in a sunny kitchen with his precocious teenage daughter Laynie (Evan Rachel Wood). She is working on her laptop at the counter. Her activity on the laptop

A screen shot of S1mOne, 31:34, showing monitor
of Laynie's laptop Gérôme's Study for Pygmalion and
his Statue and text from theoi.com

manifests her knack for computer technology which she shares with her father and which will resolve the film's final crisis, albeit implausibly. Laynie's skill gets foregrounded by Dad in the moment. He notes that she works on her computer too much. What he can not notice in this apparently meaningless moment is that Laynie is writing something about Pygmalion on her computer. In a fleeting shot past Laynie's left shoulder, a POV 180 degree opposite to Victor's (whose hands are in a sudsy sink of dishes anyway), for less than one second of screen time, the viewer sees a fleet image of Jean-Léone Gérôme's "Study for Pygmalion and his Statue". The image is cropped somewhat from the original; but the figure of Pygmalion embracing his marble sculpture in the moment of her erotic vivification is readily recognizable. Because Laynie's fingers are tapping at her laptop's keyboard we assume that she is writing something. To the right of the cropped image, a text is momentarily visible: "Pygmalion saw these women waste their lives in wretched shame..." Laynie seems to have written a couple of paragraphs on this topic. In point of fact, the text that appears on Laynie's screen is the text describing Ovid's Pygmalion narrative at Metamorphoses 10 on the website theoi.com. Although Pygmalion thus enters our awareness, Laynie and her father do not discuss the myth. No oral reference to Pygmalion occurs, neither at this moment in the film nor elsewhere in the film. By entering the film this way, the narrative is rendered into an acknowledged usage of the Pgymalion myth.

We might have seen the Pygmalion myth coming. Taransky has reached a professional precipice with the shenanigans of Hollywood's prime donne (exemplified in the character of Winona Ryder as director Andrew Niccols' antithetical Niccola Anders). Rather than jump of the ledge, Taransky throughout the film makes use of a mysterious computer code proffered by a probable lunatic who pioneered a simulation so realistic that the fabricated actress would dupe all viewers into believing her to be a real actress on screen. Simone is a name shortened from Simulation One. In the hands of the consummate director, which Taransky must certainly be, this encoded actress comes from out of nowhere to win two Oscars for Best Actress in one year. Plausible? No. Pygmalion? Yes. That moment in the kitchen reads the Pygmalion myth formally and securely into the record. 

Promo poster for S1mOne (2002)

The film, by the way, bears a PG-13 rating. Nicolls' screenplay largely steers clear of suggesting that disturbing eroticized relationship Pygmalions often have with their Galateas in the Rezeptionsgeschichte. Moralizers in late antiquity and early Christianity castigated Pygmalion over their discomfort with his creation of what they took to be a marble doll crafted for playing out lurid perversions sordidly realized by Venus' animation of the girl made flesh. Ovid, introducing the myth for the first time into established Western literature, had done nothing to allay such judgmental readings of Pygmalion's motives. Ovid's sculptor has a physical relationship with his statue. That's sure. Pygmalions of our age seem always destined for the sack with their lovely creation. (E.g. Zoe Kazan's remarkable, but in this regard, utterly predictable Ruby Sparks.) Nicoll's digitized fantasy is mostly a pretty face. Taransky creates her as a facial amalgam of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Winona Ryder, and other gorgeous starletts. When he creates her voice, he throws in highlights of Bacall. Fawning entertainment reporters in the film observe that Simone bears resemblance to Sophia Loren; but the actress who plays Simone (Rachel Roberts) is statuesque more in the mode of early millennial Sports Illustrated models than from the Hollywood age of Loren. Taransky leads everybody in the film on to believe that he and Simone are romantically involved. When Taransky does interact with Simone below her neckline, he is mostly interested in clothing her with the right outfit for the moment. Not in disrobing her. Indeed, Taransky's involvement with Simone is asexual. Platonic. For he is creating the form of a woman. If anything, his actual love life improves as women — including his ex-wife — seem more turned on by his association with his famous, fictional fabrication. Niccol's Pygmalion is a creator who goes against today's grain, and not just because this is a family show.

Hutcheon's Theory of Adaptation (Routledge, 2006) defines an adaptation as an intertextual narrative that engages three principal matters: 

·      An acknowledged transposition of a recognizable other work or works

·      A creative and an interpretive act of appropriation/salvaging

·      An extended intertextual engagement with the adapted work

Therefore, an adaption is a derivation that is not derivative — a work that is second without being secondary. It is its own palimpsestic thing." (Hutcheon, 8-9)

Nobody who knows the Pygmalion myth will get very far into Simone without seeing the narrative as a Pygmalion adaptation. The elements of the zero-grade Pygmalion myth are all present and clearly developed: The artist despises the women in his society, so he creates an idealized woman as substitute for them; only superhuman intervention can personalize the creation and render it a reality. This is all true of Taransky, his spite for starletts, his fetishization of a bygone age, and his creation of a new girl endowed with perfect artistry. Yet, until the moment with Laynie and her laptop in the kitchen, when Gérôme's Pygmalion flashes on the screen (minute 31), the myth does not overtly achieve acknowledgement within the narrative. 

Niccol's screenplay takes a somewhat too clumsily orchestrated moment to read the Pygmalion myth purposefully into the narrative. It defines Hutcheon's element of acknowledgement. Once Pygmalion is recognizable by the creator's admission in the body of the narrative, the viewer is free to enjoy the creative and interpretive act of appropriation that takes place across the film. In other words, once we know that screenplay intends to adapt the Pygmalion myth, per se, the myriad choices the director makes in the film have particular bearing. 

So, is Simone a clever film? I tend to agree with the film's low scores on Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB. The film is not especially clever in many of its choices. A 2002 filmmaker's assessment of tricky relationships between coddled actors and the studios makes for a worthwhile tale, a satire on the remnants of the studio system. As a manifestation of Adaptation, it is textbook. For manifesting the adaptor's penchant for acknowledging the mythological usage it follows, Niccol steps right into line.

#ogcma.byu.edu     Pygmalion  Ovid   Andrew Niccol    S1mOne   http://ogcma.byu.edu/Pygmalion2.0037_Niccol.htm

Two courses on the reception of classical mythology in Fall 2016

Dear Mythographers and other Friends,

    You might like to know about my F2016 courses:

 “Reception of Classical Myth in the Arts in the Modern Era” Clscs 490R/Clscs 690R. MW 1:00 – 2:15 p.m.   and "Studies in Themes and Types: The Eurydice Theme" CmpSt 640R M 8:00 — 10:45.

     The courses are intended to explore theoretical and practical issues pertaining to the reception and adaptation of classical myth in the arts — literature, cinema, opera, painting, sculpture, landscape,

orchestral, graphic novel, television, video game, whatever. In particular, we will look closely at reception of two mythological figures especially: Electra and Pygmalion in the one, Eurydice in the other.

ad for 2012 Perth Opera's Elektra (Strauss)

In our exploration, we will deliberate on what constitutes usage of a classical myth, a sometimes challenging enterprise.

   We will read classical mythological treatments, such as are found in Sophocles, Euripides, and Ovid, and then proceed to standard treatments of Electra and Pygmalion in representations such as Strauss’ Elektra, O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady, Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and so forth. Student contributions in this seminar will drive collective success; thus, I am loathe to dictate up front what the

parameters of our study will be. Once we establish the groundrules for the course, the direction will be subject to interesting twists and turns. Hundreds of usages of these myths are available for consideration.

Jean-Leon Gérôme's Pygmalion

           Please contact me with any questions you might have.

     macfarlane@byu.edu works most directly, but macfarlane241@gmail.com works, too.

Imaged here: Strauss’ Elektra, Gerôme’s Pygmalion and Galatea,
                   Miller’s (actually Bendis/Austen's) Elektra: Assassin, Lerner/Loewe’s My Fair Lady

Both these courses will allow me to explore matters pertaining to reception of classical myth with the students.
   The CmpSt 640R should have a broader base of theoretical readings, because the course should be pertinent to individuals from every walk of our program’s life. There ought to be more interdisciplinarity in that course.

Frank Miller developed
Elektra, but others have
adapted the character.

    The Clscs 690R will have some of that, but perhaps a good deal less than CmpSt 640R ought to have.
       Further, Clscs 690R will be taught in a room that is largely populated by undergraduates (I hope!) who are enrolled in the 4xx-level course.
In both I will be expanding my core articles for the eventual OGCMA-online project. The 690R course will involve the creation of two articles, while the CmpSt 640R will be more focused and result in the creation of only one article. See below.

Differences will be readily apparent in the topics approached. Beyond the theoretical groundwork, the Clscs course will explore the reception of both the Electra myth and the Pygmalion myth, while the CmpSt course will dig as deeply as we can into the Eurydice myth.
    In the Eurydice course (CmpSt 690R) I hope to sideline Orpheus as much as possible and look for interesting psychological developments of Eurydice in myth and the arts. She deserves her own scholarship, and artists have been exploring Eurydice for a long long time. Geoffrey Miles stated (erroneously, I believe) that Edward Dowden’s 1876 “Eurydice” is “perhaps the first serious attempt to give Eurydice a voice and to see the Orpheus-Eurydice relationship from her point of view.” (Miles, 126) Dowden post-dates the Orfeo by Gluck (libretto by Calzabigi, 1762), whose Euridice expresses her plaintive rather pathetically and takes matters into her own hands, by over a century. (Gluck Orfeo premiered 1762.) But Gluck/Calzabigi may not be the first in this regard.

Poster for My Fair Lady.

   In the Electra/Pygmalion course, disparate mythological strands will be united by the common fact that OGCMA-print lacks adequate depth. Electra deserves her own article and Pygmalion’s cinematic reception is not even remotely explored by JDReid et co. Pygmalion is one of the trickiest test-cases for my anally myopic theoretical rules on reception, especially because I doubt that most descendants of My Fair Lady know anything about the classical myth that lies before it. You know this about me. As for Electra, some fascinating receptions of Electra come into play cinematically — Il Pistolero dell’Ave Maria, or Electra, My Love, or the Jennifer Garner Elektra —among others. This course, the Clscs 490R/690R ought to find us looking into lots of films.

Let me know if I can clarify anything.