In the figure of Medea, the sorceress seduced and abandoned by the adventurer Jason, Pasolini saw an allegorical emblem, both for the defeat of the irrational by the rational and for the colonization of the ancient world by an expansionist West. In a series of nearly wordless sequences, Pasolini brilliantly conjures the primal realm of magic and sacrifice which Medea naively leaves to follow Jason, only to realize that she has become a steppingstone for his worldly ambitions in a coldly rational milieu of political power plays. Pasolini drew his inspiration for his second adaptation of a Greek myth, not from the canonical theatrical dramatization of Medea, but from anthropological accounts of the history of religion. In her only dramatic onscreen appearance, the opera star Maria Callas is riveting in the title role.