The Owl's Legacy

Miniseries

13 episodes · Jun 12, 1989

Season Videos

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  • S1E1

    Symposium, or the Received Ideas

    Jun 12, 198926m

    In Paris, Tbilisi, Athens and Berkeley historians have played with reconstitutions of the "symposium" - the Greek banquet - around tables laden with food and wine.

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  • S1E2

    Olympics, or the Imaginary Greece

    Jun 13, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E3

    Democracy, or the City of Dreams

    Jun 14, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E4

    Nostalgia, or the Impossible Return

    Jun 15, 198926m

    Ithaca is the iconic distant home that no one should forget: such would be the universal lesson of Homer's Odyssey.

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  • S1E5

    Amnesia, or the Sense of History

    Jun 16, 198926m

    Built on the testimony or "autopsy" - which literally means "seeing oneself" - our conception of History has deeply shifted since Herodotus.

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  • S1E6

    Mathematics, or the Realm of Signs

    Jun 19, 198926m

    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?

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  • S1E7

    Logomachy, or the Root of Words

    Jun 20, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E8

    Music, or the Inner Space

    Jun 21, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E9

    Cosmogony, or the Use of the World

    Jun 22, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E10

    Mythology, or the Truth of Lies

    Jun 23, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E11

    Misogyny, or Desire's Traps

    Jun 26, 198926m

    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?

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  • S1E12

    Tragedy, or the Illusion of Death

    Jun 27, 198926m

    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.

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  • S1E13

    Philosophy, or the Owl's Triumph

    Jun 28, 198926m

    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.

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