“Oedipus … The Structure of Funny”: Allusions to Greek Tragedy in Contemporary Cinema

Although several high-profile European auteurs have created film adaptations of Sophoclean and Euripidean dramas, Greek tragedy as a genre is hardly a mainstay of contemporary cinema. Nonetheless, Francis Ford Coppola designed a tragic end for his Godfather trilogy, and some films that are set in the modern world incorporate ancient tragic themes. Examples are given of these and other films that focus on widely recognized tragic characters, like Oedipus and Medea, make specific verbal allusions to other Greek tragic protagonists or motifs, incorporate major components of tragedy, and attempt to define tragedy itself, most notably in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors.