The Owl's Legacy (1989) | Couchpile

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The Owl's Legacy (1989) | Couchpile

Miniseries poster

Miniseries

13 Episodes

1989

E01

Symposium, or the Received Ideas

6/12/1989·26m

In Paris, Tbilisi, Athens and Berkeley historians have played with reconstitutions of the "symposium" - the Greek banquet - around tables laden with food and wine.

E02

Olympics, or the Imaginary Greece

6/13/1989·26m

Greece's inheritance was recomposed in contemporary mythology. This sometimes led to terrible misappropriations for the benefit of totalitarian ideologies - of which Nazism was born.

E03

Democracy, or the City of Dreams

6/14/1989·26m

What exactly does the word mean “democracy” mean? Does it designates the ancient city-state or our contemporary political systems? What are the analogies or, on the contrary, the radical differences between realities separated by more than twenty centuries? Are certain functions suitable for all civilizations? Τhe third episode of Chris Marker’s legendary documentary series – which first aired on British state television in 1991 but remained in the dark for decades – returns to classical antiquity to make a bold parallel, familiarizing 21st-century audiences with a concept of the commons that seems primordial yet innovative, reinventing itself in every single manifestation.

E04

Nostalgia, or the Impossible Return

6/15/1989·26m

Ithaca is the iconic distant home that no one should forget: such would be the universal lesson of Homer's Odyssey.

E05

Amnesia, or the Sense of History

6/16/1989·26m

Built on the testimony or "autopsy" - which literally means "seeing oneself" - our conception of History has deeply shifted since Herodotus.

E06

Mathematics, or the Realm of Signs

6/19/1989·26m

The geometrical space and the mathematical language constitute a universal legacy the Greeks have bequeathed us with. How do we articulate its perfect logic to the complexity of contemporary sciences?

E07

Logomachy, or the Root of Words

6/20/1989·26m

All the meanings of "logos" originated from a small territory between Ephesus and Patmos. According to Aristotle the human animal fights with a specific weapon: speech... Logos' destiny would it be the "logomachy"? The fight over words.

E08

Music, or the Inner Space

6/21/1989·26m

A cross between imitation and creation, the search for the beautiful and harmonious animates the artists' personal quests - including with cutting-edge technology - as well as it serves great collective schemes - religions in particular.

E09

Cosmogony, or the Use of the World

6/22/1989·26m

This reflection over creation - divine cosmogony and man's creativity - takes us from the Greek statuary art to the Acropolis' Korai on show in Tokyo. This takes us on towards the Gorgon - a mirror of death.

E10

Mythology, or the Truth of Lies

6/23/1989·26m

There are a set of myths to which we constantly refer ourselves. We will question their genesis, their place in psyche, their transmission, their nature.

E11

Misogyny, or Desire's Traps

6/26/1989·26m

The Greek conception of sexuality was very different from ours. What did the Greek think of desire in a world where heterosexuality and homosexuality - far from being opposites - were models of existence that were different but compatible?

E12

Tragedy, or the Illusion of Death

6/27/1989·26m

The great figures borne out of Greek tragedies help us fathom the founding mechanisms of human practices - all the way to a society like Japan, that is so apparently far from ours.

E13

Philosophy, or the Owl's Triumph

6/28/1989·26m

Around the metaphorical - but also very real - figure of the owl; entwined reflections upon the place of thought in daily existence and public action - sometimes with and sometimes against the Greek legacy.