"The Old Vines Are Buried Deep": Classical Motifs in John Frankenheimer’s Seconds

John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966) is the story of a middle-aged banker who abandons family and career, purchasing from the secretive Company a new identity, vocation and surgically altered youthful appearance. The rejuvenated banker hopes to find fulfillment in his life, but learns to his cost that the Company has little success in adjusting clients to their new identities. The film’s points of contact with the classical world, when taken together, frame the main character as a candidate for sacred knowledge who instead becomes a pharmakos, or scapegoat, for the Company.