MovieChat Forums > Clash of the Titans (1981) Discussion > A pleasant mix of mythologies.

A pleasant mix of mythologies.

posted 14 years ago by lezardormeurgeant
1 reply | jump to latest

Calibos in this movie is loosely based on Shakespeare's Caliban in "The Tempest".
The Three Graeae Sisters of the Gorgons, later inspired Shakespeare for his
Three Witches in "Hamlet".
The Kraken adds a Scandinavian dash to the screenplay.
However Medusa's background(as a once beautiful woman vain in the beauty of her hair,
seduced by the lustful Poseidon inside the goddess Athena's very temple and thus
as a punishment, turned into any hair stylist's nightmare !)in the 2010 version
is no invention, but not a Greek Myth either. It was a latter Latin embellishment
by the poet Ovid.

When one reads the Arabian One-Thousand-And-One-Nights,
one finds so many surprising similarities with the Greco-Roman mythological tales.
This shows that the exchanges across the Mediterranean were well developed
since the earliest times.

[–] ContinentalOp 13 years ago

Indeed. A correction, though, the three witches of Shakespeare are actually the Wyrd Sisters of English and lowland Scottish folklore, who are pretty much the same as the Norns from Scandinavian myths, and thus they were not based on the Graeae sisters, but were similar and probably a form of ''cognate''.

You are correct about the One-Thousand-And-One Nights. Though the stories were compiled by Arabic scholars, the sources are from all over. A great many, including the framing story of Scheherazade, are Iranian (''Persian''), many are of Greco-Roman influence (like the Cyclopes) and others are Indian (such as the Buddhist Jakata Tales). The similarities with Greco-Roman stories is due to the influence of Odysseus on the stories and also because India and Iran are related culture to Greece and Rome and thus have some similar stories.

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