Putting your spin on myth stories

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  • Putting your spin on myth stories

    I'm planning to film a short based on a myth. How much of the original material should I give homage to? When does it become plagiarism? When you modernized something, does it take away anything from the original story?
    For example, Othello... When they remade that into a more contemporary setting, did it take away too much from the original? (I know that it didn't quite capture the original but having it potrayed by kids, did it kill the story?)

  • #2
    Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

    First of all, "Othello" is not based on a "myth", in the conventional meaning of the word. A myth can't be plagiarized (though the manner and style in which it's told can be, of course). I published a novel some years ago, a contemporary retelling of the Orpheus myth. Mine was set in Paris in the 1980s, and the myth--the inescapability of the myth--was an important part of the story.

    The Orpheus myth, like many of the Roman, Greek and other world myths, has been retold many times. They're part of the oral tradition, in that they undergo variations but always stick close to the underlying truth of the myth. In the case of Orpheus (which, for instance, was filmed, also as a Paris-based story, by Jean Cocteau), the essential story is that Orpheus loved Eurydice. Eurydice died, went into the underworld, and Orpheus, the great singer and musician, went to fetch her back. Told by the gods of the underworld that he could do so, but that if he looked back to see if she was there--if he doubted their pledge to him--he'd lose his woman forever.

    This was perhaps the first pre-Christian resurrection myth, and of course Orpheus lost. He then returned to the world of the living and was torn apart by the women of Lesbos because he wouldn't shut up about losing Eurydice.

    My story was in a sense built around the myth--I used it as an armature, a kind of story-spine. I had a Hungarian couple living in Paris. He worked for a Roman Polanski-type of Hungarian director based there; she was a restorer of frescoes. Unbeknownst to him, she'd been there far longer than she'd admitted she had; she'd been living a separate, hidden life. A life, in fact, that kept her for some of the time in the underworld (using the double meaning of the word). And my final scene of possible redemption indeed takes place in the underworld--an underground parking garage outside one of the Paris airports.

    So don't worry about using myths. As long as you don't copy word-for-word from any of the published, more modern, translations, you'll be fine.

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    • #3
      Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

      The schooner in Dead Calm is called the Orpheus....
      The Complete IfilmPro DEVELOPMENT FORUM (PDF)

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      • #4
        Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

        thanks. And yes, the "Othello" example was a bad one but that was the most recent movie that was done poorly, in my opinion, when they transalted it to the screen.
        What if I actually reenact it, just the dialogue, that would still work right? the whole public domain thing? Then, let say the story of "Hero and Leander" was retold but with young actors, will that deminish the final product? Should I work with older actor since I want to create a serious tone to it? I can't really go wrong in the text since it's there, you know?

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        • #5
          Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

          All of Shakespeare is in the public domain. You may do with him as he did with his predecessors: steal, plunder, alter and remake.

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          • #6
            Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

            Originally posted by Jake Schuster
            First of all, "Othello" is not based on a "myth"
            I think you're mythtaken.

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            • #7
              Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

              What if I actually reenact it, just the dialogue, that would still work right? the whole public domain thing? Then, let say the story of "Hero and Leander" was retold but with young actors, will that deminish the final product? Should I work with older actor since I want to create a serious tone to it? I can't really go wrong in the text since it's there, you know?
              Jake has given you some great answers.

              One added thing: If you use a translation or a recent recounting, the copyright law kicks in. You can steal the idea, which never belonged to the translator or modern writer anyway, but you cannot literally copy dialogue word for word in extended passages. For example: If you use something from a 19th-century Russian novel (in public domain), any text that you copy literally must be your own translation or a translation that has passed into the public domain. Otherwise, you risk copyright infringement.

              "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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              • #8
                Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

                I mentioned that, Comic. Translations are always copyrighted.

                As for "Othello", Shakespeare didn't find the germ of this in Greek or Roman myths, but rather in a book published in Venice in 1566 by Geraldi Cinthio, in which the tale of the Moor and his wife was first told.

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                • #9
                  Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

                  I've had this topic in the back of my mind. The screenplay is actually several down on the list, far from being ready for writing, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask about the morality of using myths, especially Native American ones. I don't want to disrespect a culture.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

                    Strip a myth of its proper names and you have a timeless story. Alain Robbe-Grillet rewrote the Oedipus myth in two of his novels and though you recognize the spine of the story, it became something else in his hands.

                    Don't worry about morality. Hell, the Frankenstein story, beyond Mary Shelley's dream and the book she got out of it, is really a version of the old Jewish tale of the Golem. I'm not offended.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

                      Originally posted by Angeloworx
                      thanks. And yes, the "Othello" example was a bad one but that was the most recent movie that was done poorly, in my opinion, when they transalted it to the screen.
                      What if I actually reenact it, just the dialogue, that would still work right? the whole public domain thing? Then, let say the story of "Hero and Leander" was retold but with young actors, will that deminish the final product? Should I work with older actor since I want to create a serious tone to it? I can't really go wrong in the text since it's there, you know?
                      There's a famous Hollywood line that goes something like, "whatever you do, don't ever retell the story of Hero and Leander with young actors".
                      "This is insane, he has space dimentia" - a line from Armageddon

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                      • #12
                        Re: Putting your spin on myth stories

                        Originally posted by Totiwos
                        I've had this topic in the back of my mind. The screenplay is actually several down on the list, far from being ready for writing, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask about the morality of using myths, especially Native American ones. I don't want to disrespect a culture.
                        There's no morality issues to these things because there's a good chance that the Native American story got its roots from an older story or that the story was unknowingly similiar to another story told half-way around the world.
                        "This is insane, he has space dimentia" - a line from Armageddon

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