MovieChat Forums > Highway to Hell (1992) Discussion > New Face for an Old Story

New Face for an Old Story

posted 15 years ago by Frumious_Bandersnatch_46
6 replies | jump to latest

For years I'd been getting see only bits and pieces if this movie:
I'd find the listing an hour into it; I'd be interrupted and miss the ending; etc.

I finally got to see it all in one piece and I realized that it's a modern telling (with tongue in cheek) of the ancient Greek tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Young bride taken before her time. Her guy follows and is so charming that he talks the ruler of the underworld into letting him take her back up to the land of the living. It's been told and re-told in prose, poetry, and music (especially opera) for centuries.

The only part of the Greek mythos this version omitted was the coin to pay Charon: If you had nothing to pay the ferryman, you had to work for your passage by rowing the boat for a time.

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Have you noticed that in Shakespeare's plays soothsayers said the sooth, the whole sooth, and nothing but the sooth?
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[–] jeffscsr 15 years ago

no sh[it]

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[–] es1000 15 years ago

Jeff, there was absolutely no need to strike a superior attitude here. I'm sure that most of the people reading the original post didn't realize the source of the story and were happy to have the info. If you don't have something worthwhile to contribute, please don't post.

[–] es1000 15 years ago

Good call!

[–] Merrida 12 years ago

Wow, I didn't realize that. I've always loved this movie, ever since I first saw it wayyy back when. Very cool info.
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Sic vis pacem para bellum.

[–] PirateMetalFan 12 years ago

not familar with that story but i noticed dante's inferno with cerberious, the river of styx and the led sign over the cave "abandon all hope ye who enter here"

"Hating on haters is a form of Hatin!"

[–] Frumious_Bandersnatch_46 12 years ago

Yes. Apparently Dante Alighieri borrowed "just a bit" from Greek mythology in his description of the entrance to Hell in the first part of La Divina Commedia.

BTW: I notice that "Highway to Hell" was the only story that did not mention having to pay Charon the boatman when crossing the River Styx. Other stories vary on what happened if you couldn't pay: In some you were condemned to wander the shore for eternity; in most you had to work for your passage by rowing the boat for a time.

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Of atoms, stars and nebulæ, of entropy and genes.
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