The Trojan Women (DVD)

For this ambitious screen version of one the most powerful works of classic Greek theater, director Michael Cacoyannnis (ZORBA THE GREEK, THE CHERRY ORCHARD) unleashes the talents of four of the screen's most exciting actresses(NY DAILY NEWS). Four time Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn (THE LION IN WINTER, A DELICATE BALANCE), Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave (JULIA), Oscar nominee Genevieve Bujold (ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS) and Greek screen legend Irene Papas (ANTIGONE, Z) seamlessly mesh into an unprecedented ensemble cast that one could never hope to see on stage (Pauline Kael, NEW YORKER).

After their ten-year siege, the victorious Greek army seeks to curse those Trojans whom fate has yet spared. Separated from their children, denied their mourning and destined for slavery, the women of fallen Troy huddle within the parched wreckage of their once glorious city. Beautiful Cassandra (Bujold) is betrothed against her will despite her vanishing sanity. Andromache (Redgrave) discovers her son is to be executed to end her royal bloodline. Helen (Papas) desperately wields the arrogant beauty that leveled a city as she pleads for her life. But it is Hecuba (Hepburn), widowed queen of Troy, whose enduring dignity and unfaltering strength makes cowards of Troy's captors.

Building on his famed New York stage adaptation, Cacoyannis shepherds this extraordinary cast through a richly cinematic rendition of Euripides' definitive anti-war drama. With a score by Mikis Theodorakis that rivals the spare intensity of his music for Z, THE TROJAN WOMEN is both a re-energized and evocative denunciation of human cruelty and a passionate chorus of redemption and survival.

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