Set in contemporary Paris, the story of the film is a variation of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus. The picture begins with Orpheus (Marais), a famous poet, visiting the Café des Poètes. At the same time, a Princess (Casares) and Cègeste (Edouard Dermithe), a handsome, young poet that she supports arrive. The drunken Cègeste starts a brawl. When the police arrive and attempt to take Cègeste into custody, he breaks free and flees,only to be run down by two motorcycle riders. The Princess has the police place Cègeste into her car in order to "transport him to the hospital." She also orders Orpheus into the car in order to act as a witness. Once in the car, Orpheus discovers Cègeste is dead and that the Princess is not going to the hospital. Instead, they drive to a chateau (the landscape through the car windows is presented in negative) accompanied by the two motorcycle riders as abstract poetry plays on the radio. This takes the form of seemingly meaningless messages, like those broadcast to the French Resistance from London during the Occupation.
La vie coule tranquillement dans la société ancienne. Chacun y trouve sa place et les gens consacrent leur temps à des discussions philosophiques sur le sens de la vie. Parmi eux vit Icare, un excentrique qui essaie d'apprendre à voler comme les oiseaux. Retombant à chaque tentative, il se voit asséner un proverbe par l'un des vieux sages qui observent la scène, comme, par exemple Festina lente, Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, Quo altior gradus, tanto profundior casus, Bene qui stat non moveatur, etc. Ces paroles atteignent le ciel et en retombent sous forme de monuments de granit. Mais un jour, un miracle se produit et Icare s'envole.
In Edwardian London, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), a scholar of phonetics, believes that the accent and tone of one's voice determines a person's prospects in society. In Covent Garden one evening he boasts to a new acquaintance, Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), himself an expert in phonetics, that he could teach any person to speak in a way that he could pass them off as a duke or duchess at an embassy ball. Higgins selects as an example a young flower seller, Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), who has a strong Cockney accent. Eliza's ambition is to work in a flower shop, but her thick accent makes her unsuitable. Having come from India to meet Higgins, Pickering is invited to stay with the professor. The following morning, Eliza shows up at Higgins' home, seeking lessons. Pickering is intrigued and offers to cover all expenses if the experiment should be successful.
Three convicts, Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), known as Everett, Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Delmar O’Donnel (Tim Blake Nelson) escape from a chain gang and set out to retrieve the $1.2 million that Everett buried. The three get a lift from a blind man driving a handcar on a railway. He tells them that they will find a fortune, but not the one they seek. The trio make their way to Pete’s cousin Wash’s house. They remove their chains and sleep in the barn, but Wash betrays them and they are woken by policemen led by Sheriff Cooley, who have them surrounded. The police try to smoke them out, but Wash’s son rescues them.
Approximately 2,500 years ago, the Athenian tragedians -- Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides -- said it all in the most eloquent and poetic terms. Everyone else has followed in their footsteps, from Goethe and Shakespeare to Mann and Beckett. More than ever, the ancient tragedies are relevant today, for their subject matter is the universal nature of man: his hunger for domination, his greed and his lust. The plays are the confirmation of the human tragedy for all times and all places. The Greek myths upon which these tragedies are based combine marvelous storytelling with symbolic associations that are the foundations of the collective unconscious of our modern world.
Intitulé Race for Atlantis dans son appellation originale, le film dure environ 4 minutes. Entièrement réalisé en images de synthèse, il s'agit d'une course de chars volants, se déroulant tous les mille ans, sous l'œil de Poséidon, dans la mythique cité de l'Atlantide. Les champions sont appelés de toutes les régions de l'empire. Le char dans lequel les spectateurs sont « embarqués » doit remporter la course en passant à travers l'anneau d'arrivée, afin de sauver la cité de la destruction. Le diabolique char Ghastlius oppose une forte résistance et ne recule devant rien pour gagner.
A successful Greek filmmaker A (Harvey Keitel) is returning home and sets out on an epic journey across the battered Balkans in search of three lost reels of film by the Manaki brothers, the pioneering photographers who introduced movies into the Balkans at the beginning of the century.
When the King Agamemnon is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover and relative Aegisthus, the daughter Electra decides to get even, with the help of her brother Orestes. He helps his cousin Pylades to steal into Clytemnestra's house, and despite the fact that she is his mother, stabs her to death, then Aegisthus, as well.
A marble Greek bas relief explodes to reveal black men dancing the samba to drums in a favela. Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) arrives in Rio de Janeiro, and takes a trolley driven by Orfeu (Breno Mello). New to the city, she rides to the end of the line, where Orfeu introduces her to the station guard, Hermes (Alexandro Constantino), who gives her directions to the home of her cousin Serafina (Léa Garcia).
After imprisoning the Titans beneath the ocean, the Greek gods gather to Mount Olympus for Zeus, and his wife Hera have a son named Hercules. While the other gods are joyful, Zeus' jealous brother Hades plots to overthrow Zeus and rule Mount Olympus. Turning to the Fates for help, Hades learns that in eighteen years, a planetary alignment will allow Hades to locate and free the Titans to conquer Olympus, but only if Hercules does not interfere. Hades sends his minions Pain and Panic to dispose of Hercules. The two succeed at kidnapping and feeding him a formula that turns him mortal, but fail to remove his superhuman strength before Hercules is found and adopted by the farmers Amphitryon and Alcmene.
Vivant à Paris où elle travaille au musée du Louvre, Diana Prince reçoit de la part de Bruce Wayne une photographie la montrant au front lors de la Première Guerre mondiale aux côtés de Steve Trevor et ses amis. Elle se remémore alors sa jeunesse sur l'île de Themyscira, parmi les Amazones, qu'elle a quittée pour affronter Arès, le dieu de la guerre, et devenir Wonder Woman.
The opening scene shows the troops of Agamemnon of Mycenae ready to fight against the troops of Triopas of Thessaly. Afterwards, Prince Hector of Troy and his younger brother Paris negotiate a peace treaty with Menelaus, king of Sparta, and celebrate the end of a long and bloody war. Paris, however, is having a secret love affair with Menelaus' wife, Queen Helen, and smuggles her aboard their homebound vessel, much to Hector's fury, as this could lead to war between Troy and Greece. Upon learning of this, Menelaus meets with his elder brother, King Agamemnon of Greece, and asks his help in taking Troy. Agamemnon, who has wanted to conquer Troy for a long time, agrees, since it will give him control of the Aegean Sea. On King Nestor's advice, Agamemnon has Odysseus, King of Ithaca, persuade Achilles to join them. Achilles, who strongly dislikes Agamemnon and his ways, initially refuses, but eventually decides to go after his mother, Thetis, tells him that though he will die, he will be forever remembered.
Pelias (Douglas Wilmer), misinterpreting the prophecy given to him by the god Zeus (Niall MacGinnis), usurps the throne of Thessaly by killing King Aristo and most of his family. The infant Jason is spirited out by one of Aristo's soldiers. Pelias encounters one of the king's daughters, Briseis (Davinia Taylor), seeking sanctuary in the temple of the goddess Hera (Honor Blackman) and slays her. Because the murder has profaned her temple, the angry Hera becomes Jason's protector. She, disguised as the high Priestess, warns Pelias to beware of a man wearing one sandal.
Centuries ago, the Amazons, a proud and fierce race of warrior women, led by their Queen, Hippolyta (voiced by Virginia Madsen), battled Ares (voiced by Alfred Molina), the god of war, and his army. During the battle, Hippolyta beheaded her son, Thrax (voiced by Jason Miller), whom Ares forcibly conceived with her, who is fighting for his father. Hippolyta then defeated Ares, but Zeus (voiced by David McCallum) stopped her from delivering the death strike. Instead, Hera (voiced by Marg Helgenberger) bound his powers with magic bracers so that he was deprived of his ability to draw power from the aura of violence and death he could instigate, effectively rendering him mortal, and only another god could release him. In compensation, the Amazons were granted the island of Themyscira, where they would remain eternally youthful and isolated from Man in the course of their duty of holding Ares prisoner for all eternity. Later, Hippolyta was granted a daughter, Princess Diana (voiced by Keri Russell), whom she shaped from the sand of the Themyscirian seashore and gave life with her own blood.