The Aeneid
The Aeneid (original title: Eneide ) is a television film by Franco Rossi from 1971 in which the Aeneid is shown. In Germany, it was broadcast in four parts on November 5, 1972. The German part was produced by Bavaria Film . Virgil's Aeneid was used as a literary basis . Initially conceived as a miniseries, it was also released as a feature film. It was presented in four episodes on later broadcasts.
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A terrible storm sent by the goddess Juno left the few Trojans who escaped the ruin of their city years ago stranded off the coast of Carthage. Their king Aeneas is separated from his family and wakes up from his unconsciousness on a lonely part of the beach. His mother, the goddess Venus, speaks to him. She recommends that he entrust himself to the protection of the people living here in the temple. The woman whose form the divine Venus took is Anna, the sister of Queen Dido. She leads him to her sister, who has had a difficult fate herself - "Dido" means "the fugitive". Aeneas is still tormented by terrible visions. He speaks madly. Dido and Anna, who witness his fantasies, finally tell him that others had also been saved from the terrible storm. The reunion with most of his companions gives Aeneas courage again. When asked by Dido and her advice, he told his fellow sufferers what had happened to them in the long time from the fall of Troy until today. Aeneas' story is not yet over. He reports how differences of opinion broke out between the Trojans over the interpretation of the oracle. His father Anchises believes the oracle is my Crete, where Aeneas is finally going. The journey ends terribly. The plague rages in Crete. Discouraged, you sail on into the unknown. Aeneas loses his father on the way. With the storm that threw them on the Phoenician coast, Aeneas ended his story before Dido. Dido, who lost her husband to her devious brother Pygmalion years ago and was on the run with his treasures for a long time, feels a deep affection for Aeneas from the first moment. This becomes a consuming fire, not least through divine interference. Dido anxiously confesses her passion to her sister. Anna recognizes what the queen also knows: through the connection with Aeneas and through the reception of the Trojans, both peoples would be better able to survive in this world full of dangers. On the other hand, Dido announced to the world that she would never marry again. She is considered a holy widow. For this reason, she has turned down the advertising of the powerful African king Jarbas, to whom she has to pay tribute. Aeneas also loves Dido. The happiness of the two lasts for months, when suddenly a divine call brought by Mercury tears Aeneas out of his dreams. He reveals to him that he was destined to build his own empire in distant Italy and not to found Carthage as a servant to a woman. Aeneas gradually breaks away from Dido. He goes back to his companions and secretly prepares for departure. When Dido finally finds out about the departure of the Trojans, all that remains is despair. After a long journey, the Trojans land on an unknown coast. Not far from the beach, Aeneas finds Trojan weapons, and while he recognizes the grave goods of his dead father in them, a crowd of youths and young girls who pretend to be Trojans surround him. Shaken, he recognizes in them those now grown children whom he was able to save in Troy and entrust to his friend Akestes. Akestes and his wife raised them like birth parents. They live here in a prosperous country without war, and the longing of the companions of Aeneas to stay here too grows so great that the women set the ships on fire. Aeneas is at a loss and looks for the gates of the underworld to meet his dead father Anchises. Past the Sibyl, who is trying to sort out the fate sheets, he finds himself unmolested in the underworld, because another, the faithful Misenius, has just unwittingly made that sacrifice for him without which one cannot be let down alive. In search of his missing master, he broke off the golden branch in the Proserpine grove and died on the spot. In the realm of shadows, Aeneas met many figures that he saw alive, including his dead father. This gives him the instruction to drive on so that a new kingdom, a new city may arise and the promise may be fulfilled. Aeneas' hope for a peaceful coexistence with the Latins seems to be fulfilled. Only Amata, Latinus' wife, remains suspicious. She does not want to give her daughter to a stranger, as the prophecy of the Faun prescribes the Latinus, especially since Lavinia is already intended for the rotation by her. While Aeneas explores the interior of the country and seeks out the wise Euander in order to finally clarify his destiny, Amata incites a number of women to take Lavinia with them into the forest and to consecrate the girl Dionysus in a wild bacchanal thus anticipating a future connection with the foreign. The discord-sowing fury Allekto confuses the senses of the Rutuler Prince Turnus at Juno's behest and causes him to fall into mad anger from pain. When Askanius unsuspectingly kills the sacred doe of Lavinia on the hunt, this gives the external cause of hostilities and bloodshed between Latins and Trojans. The Trojans withdraw to their camp, waiting for their king Aeneas. The youths Euryalus and Nisus try to escape at night to warn Aeneas, but succumb to the overwhelming power of the Latins. When Aeneas returns with Pallas, the son of Euander, who has followed him, he immediately finds himself involved in the fighting. Mezentius assaults the unsuspecting. Aeneas mortally wounds him and also has to kill his son Lausus, who collapses senselessly on him. Pallas is shot on her back by the warrior Camilla and kills her, dying. Turnus proposes to face Aeneas in a duel to end the senseless bloodshed. Let the winner determine what happens. Aeneas orders his son Ascanius to return to the land of Akestes in the event of his death. In the other case, however, he already undertakes to continue to live as a Latino in Lazio and to respect the customs and traditions of the indigenous population, because his victory would prove to him that this is the original home of his fathers, the land of promise. Aeneas and Turnus face each other in a fight for life and death.
Web links
- TV Shows
- The Aeneid in the Internet Movie Database (English)