Chris Marker
Director
The Owl's Legacy (1989)
Miniseries
THE OWL’S LEGACY is an intellectually agile, engaging, and sometimes biting look at ancient Greece, its influences on Western culture—and how many eras have reinterpreted the Greek legacy to reflect their own needs. Each of the 13 episodes is centered on a potent Greek word: from “democracy” and “philosophy” to “mythology” and “misogyny.” Marker convenes and films symposia—meals featuring wine and thoughtful conversation—in locales including Paris, Tokyo, Tbilisi, Berkeley, and an olive grove on Athens’ outskirts. Footage from these banquets is interspersed with archival materials and interviews (often featuring a stylized or distorted owl image looming in the background). Marker’s diverse group of informants includes composers, politicians, classicists, historians, scientists, writers, filmmakers, and actors. Together their contributions form a compelling (and sometimes contradictory) cultural and historical exploration for each theme.
Released June 11, 1989
Episode 26 min
None+
Genres: Documentary, History
Keywords: tmdb.politics, tmdb.philosophy, mdblist.imdb-tv-mini-series, mdblist.has-trailer, imdb.greek-history, imdb.tv-mini-series
Production Companies: Attica Art Productions, FIT Productions, La Sept Cinéma
Network: La Sept
S1E1 - Symposium, or the Received Ideas
In Paris, Tbilisi, Athens and Berkeley historians have played with reconstitutions of the "symposium" - the Greek banquet - around tables laden with food and wine.
June 12, 1989, midnight
8.0
S1E2 - Olympics, or the Imaginary Greece
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.
June 13, 1989, midnight
8.0
S1E3 - Democracy, or the City of Dreams
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.
June 14, 1989, midnight
S1E4 - Nostalgia, or the Impossible Return
Ithaca is the iconic distant home that no one should forget: such would be the universal lesson of Homer's Odyssey.
June 15, 1989, midnight
8.0
S1E5 - Amnesia, or the Sense of History
Built on the testimony or "autopsy" - which literally means "seeing oneself" - our conception of History has deeply shifted since Herodotus.
June 16, 1989, midnight
S1E6 - Mathematics, or the Realm of Signs
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?
June 19, 1989, midnight
S1E7 - Logomachy, or the Root of Words
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.
June 20, 1989, midnight
S1E8 - Music, or the Inner Space
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.
June 21, 1989, midnight
S1E9 - Cosmogony, or the Use of the World
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.
June 22, 1989, midnight
S1E10 - Mythology, or the Truth of Lies
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.
June 23, 1989, midnight
S1E11 - Misogyny, or Desire's Traps
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?
June 26, 1989, midnight
S1E12 - Tragedy, or the Illusion of Death
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.
June 27, 1989, midnight
S1E13 - Philosophy, or the Owl's Triumph
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.
June 28, 1989, midnight
Network: La Sept
Episode Runtime: 26 min.
Season Runtime: 26 min.
Released: June 11, 1989
Last Air Date: June 28, 1989, midnight
Status: Ended
Certification: NR
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