Ancient Myths in Contemporary Cinema: Oedipus Rex and Perceval the Knight of the Holy Grail in Pulp Fiction and the Sixth Sense.

THE GRAIL ROMANCE IS ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS TALES in Medieval Romance and a major source of inspiration for works in literature, theatre and music, from Wagner's Parsifal to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. (1) Explicit and implicit allusions to the tale also appear in many films: e. g. The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, US, 1991) is a sort of a continuation to the story; and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, US, 1989) is constructed as the final sequel to the story. (2) The same is true for the myth of Oedipus. Following the modern interpretation of the Oedipal myth suggested by Freud, one can find explicit and implicit allusion to it in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, and many more (Winkler). In this essay I shall demonstrate the manifestations of components of both myths in current North-American "mythology"--i. e. in Hollywood films. I shall show, through a close reading of Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US, 1994) and The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, US, 1999), that the Grail story offers, among other things, an alternative pattern regarding father and son relationships to the one in the Oedipal story. As an alternative pattern, allusions to the Perceval myth can be found in texts of popular culture alongside allusions to the Oedipal paradigm, 'independently,' or antagonistically to it.