Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the topic of Greek tragedy in film criticism and film practice. It asks how narrative and adaptation practices associated with the screen might be used as a vehicle for thinking about the shifting images of Greek tragedy in the modern world. It also asks how Greek tragedy can be viewed as a site of conflicted but interconnected discourses about film practice, history, and criticism. It argues for three overarching concerns that run through the book: the diversity of the reception of Greek tragedy in the modern world; the diversity of the methods, technologies, and practices at work in film adaptations of Greek tragedy; and the workings and politics of film adaptation and more broadly the potential of cinema ‘to evoke our desire for repetition’.