The Owl's Legacy: Nostalgia, or The Impossible Return

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“It’s the most Greek word I know. In a sense, it defines Greece.” --Vassilis Vassilikos

Nostalgia is there right at the start of the Greek literary tradition. Odysseus, after a decade of fighting the Trojan War, must wander another decade before finally returning home to Ithaca. For millennia to follow, nostalgia—a word drawn from roots meaning “longing for home” and “pain”--continued to mark the Greek experience.

Greeks feel nostalgia on many levels and in many capacities. They are immigrants who idealize their homeland. Citizens of the contemporary world who feel a longing for and connection with the glories of the past (naming their children Electra, Diogenes, or Archimedes, for instance). And a people occupied by invaders for centuries, left wondering what remains of their culture. Modern Greeks take pride in the enormous influence the ancients have had on the Western world. But are they really, as George Steiner would notoriously have it, “a parody” of the past?

“We should raze the Sorbonne and put Chris Marker in its place.” —Henri Michaux

“The primary pleasure of the series, which is incredibly inspiring, is linked to this great banquet of participants, the sum of knowledge they invoke, but above all to the playful flows the editing establishes between their ideas, constructing a formidable network of meanings, historical and cultural perspectives - a veritable encyclopedia of development." —Le Monde

“Why did we have to wait so long for this electrifyingly intelligent film?” —Le Point

“Thirteen words to uncover an entire civilization and reestablish its considerable influence on our modern societies.” —Les Inrockuptibles

“With erudition, Chris Marker questions in each episode what remains Greek within us.” —Philosophie Magazine

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Main credits

Marker, Chris (film director)
Peck, Bob (narrator)

Other credits

Music, Eleni Karaindrou [and 3 others]; camerapersons, Andreas Sinanos, Jimmy Glasberg; editing team, Khadicha Bariha, Nedjma Scialom.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

"The Owl's Legacy"; Icarus Films; France; Chris Marker; Ancient Greece; culture; ,doc,art; history; shod

WEBVTT

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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My name is Elia Kazan.

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I am a Greek by blood,
a Turk by birth,

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and an American because
my uncle made a journey.

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This story was told
me over the years

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by the old people in my family.

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They remember Anatolia,
the great Central

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Plateau of Turkey in Asia.

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And they remember the
mountain air, just standing

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above the plain.

00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:01.240 align:middle line:90%

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Anatolia was the ancient home
of Greek and Armenian people.

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But 500-odd years ago, the
land was overrun by the Turk.

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And from that day, the
Greeks and the Armenians

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lived here, but as minorities.

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The Greeks, subject people.

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The Armenians, subject people.

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They wore the same
clothes as the Turk,

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the fez and the sandal,
ate the same food, suffered

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the heat together, used
the donkey for burdens.

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And they looked up
to the same mountain,

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but with different feelings.

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For in fact, they were
conqueror and conquered.

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So that at a certain time,
certain tensions rose.

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And the Greeks
quickly left Anatolia.

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And what was there
of Greek civilization

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and Greek culture, the Anatolian
Greek culture, disappeared.

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And about a million
Anatolian Greeks

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went into Greece in Europe.

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And there was a terrible
burden on those Greeks there.

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But there was a
tragic side to it.

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They were not welcome.

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There was an enormous economic
burden on the Greeks in Greece.

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So the hard part of it was,
I guess, psychologically,

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that the Anatolian Greeks
didn\'t feel at home in Anatolia.

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And then when they
went over to Greece,

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they didn\'t feel
at home in Greece.

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They were not
wanted either place.

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They were just a pain in the
neck, either place you went.

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Had to be pushed
out in one country,

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and were not welcome
in the other.

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And some of us, my father,
my uncles, went to America.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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The Owl's Legacy: Nostalgia, or The Impossible Return

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