Othon

Straub-Huillet’s first film after leaving Germany for Rome, Othon announced a new approach to staging classical texts, both for the duo, and for cinema. Adapting a seventeenth-century play by Pierre Corneille, itself based on Roman imperial Roman power struggles, S-H dutifully place their actors in the appropriate togas and forum setting, but then quickly destroy all tropes of the historical movie. Rome’s very contemporary (and very ear-splitting) traffic jams are clearly seen and heard evident? Seen and heard? below, while the Italian cast trips over Corneille’s classic French verse. Historical eras, languages, and adaptations crash together; what remains is the text, and Rome, eternal.