The influences behind The Last Days of Disco

1998

The Last Days of Disco

Film by Whit Stillman

American independent cinema. United States. In English.

Whit Stillman's 1998 comedy of manners follows two young Manhattan publishing assistants, Alice and Charlotte, and the men around them at an exclusive disco in the early 1980s as the scene collapses. It completes the loose trilogy begun with Metropolitan and Barcelona and joins Austen-style social comedy to an elegy for a vanished nightlife.

Where it came from

Where to watch

Rent Amazon $3.99, Apple TV $3.99, Fandango at Home $3.99
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In the US, as of October 18. Prices and services change.

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1977

Saturday Night Fever

Film by John Badham

New Hollywood. United States. In English.

Drama about a Brooklyn paint-store clerk who lives for weekend nights at a local disco.

What it handed down

To The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Saturday Night Fever fixed the popular image of disco on screen, a working-class Brooklyn version Stillman's film answers with the Manhattan elite club of yuppies and admen. Last Days takes up the earlier film's idea of the dance floor as the center of young lives, then stages that world's end.

Where it came from

Where to watch

Stream MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel
Free Pluto TV, YouTube, Hoopla
Rent Amazon $3.99, Fandango at Home $3.99, Apple TV $5.99
Buy Amazon $4.99, Apple TV $14.99, Fandango at Home $14.99

In the US, as of October 18. Prices and services change.

Find “Saturday Night Fever” on Amazon

1961

West Side Story

Film by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins

Late Classic Hollywood. United States. In English.

Film of the Broadway musical that resets Romeo and Juliet among rival street gangs on Manhattan's West Side.

What it handed down

To Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Commentators have long noted parallels: a hero named Tony, dance as the expression of urban youth, ethnic street rivalry, and a climax tied to a bridge over New York water. The debt is generally read as an echo of the earlier musical rather than a documented model.

Where it came from

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare c. 1595 (printed 1597)

Where to watch

Stream Hoopla
Free Tubi, Pluto TV, YouTube, Fandango at Home Free
Rent Amazon $3.99, Apple TV $3.99, Fandango at Home $3.99, Plex $3.99
Buy Amazon $14.99, Fandango at Home $5.99, Apple TV $14.99

In the US, as of October 18. Prices and services change.

Find “West Side Story” on Amazon

c. 1595 (printed 1597)

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Elizabethan. England. Written in English.

Tragedy of two young lovers from feuding Veronese families.

What it handed down

To West Side Story (1961)

Direct source, well documented.

Jerome Robbins conceived the musical as a modern Romeo and Juliet, and the film follows Shakespeare's plot closely: feuding gangs for feuding houses, the balcony scene on a fire escape, and a fatal message gone wrong.

Where it came from

Find “Romeo and Juliet” on Amazon

c. 8 CE

Metamorphoses

Ovid

Augustan. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

Epic poem of mythological transformations, including Pyramus and Thisbe.

What it handed down

To Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595 (printed 1597))

Thematic kinship, probable.

Ovid's tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, lovers kept apart by their parents who die through a fatal misunderstanding, lies behind the story's tragic pattern. Shakespeare knew the tale well and parodied it in A Midsummer Night's Dream, written around the same time.

Where it came from

Aeneid, Virgil c. 19 BCE

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c. 19 BCE

Aeneid

Virgil

Augustan. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

Epic of the Trojan Aeneas's wanderings and his founding of the Roman line.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost

Structural model, well documented.

Milton built his poem on the Virgilian model, with an opening in medias res, a council of devils, a retrospective narrative of war and a revealed future. The first edition had ten books, revised to Virgil's twelve in 1674.

To Essays (Essais)

Direct source, well documented.

Virgil is among the poets Montaigne quotes most often, and in 'On Some Verses of Virgil' he takes the love of Venus and Vulcan from Aeneid Book 8 as a starting point for an essay on sexuality.

To The Divine Comedy

Direct source, well documented.

Virgil is Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory, and Inferno's journey is modeled on Aeneas's descent in Aeneid Book 6. Dante calls Virgil 'my master and my author'.

To Confessions

Direct source, well documented.

Augustine recalls weeping over Dido's death in the Aeneid as a schoolboy while indifferent to his own spiritual death. His journey from Carthage to Rome inverts Aeneas's route.

To Satyricon

Direct source, probable.

The poet Eumolpus recites a verse Capture of Troy that reworks the fall of Troy from Aeneid Book 2. Petronius uses Virgilian epic as a target for parody throughout.

To Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE)

Direct source, well documented.

Books 13 and 14 of the Metamorphoses retell Aeneas's journey in a compressed, ironic form, answering Virgil's epic directly. Ovid also borrows Virgil's hexameter epic manner and turns it toward wit and transformation.

Where it came from

Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE
Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

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c. 725 BCE

Odyssey

Homer

Archaic. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

Epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy.

What it handed down

To Satyricon

Disputed link, probable.

Scholars have proposed that the novel's wandering hero Encolpius, pursued by the wrath of Priapus, parodies Odysseus pursued by Poseidon. The fragmentary text makes the overall design uncertain.

To Aeneid (c. 19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The first six books follow the Odyssey: a sea journey, a storm, a hero narrating his wanderings at a foreign court, and a descent to the underworld. Virgil fuses the Odyssey and Iliad into a single twelve-book design.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

Find “Odyssey” on Amazon

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To West Side Story (1961)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595 (printed 1597))

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost

To Essays (Essais)

To The Divine Comedy

To Confessions

To Satyricon

To Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Satyricon

To Aeneid (c. 19 BCE)

Where it came from

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