Review of Nolan's Odyssey

This is a special episode reviewing the new movie version of the Odyssey, produced by Christopher Nolan, published by Universal Pictures.

Transcript

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That man, O Muse, in form that many away, Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay, That wandered wondrous far when he the town of sacred Troy had sacked and shivered down. The cities of a world of nations, with all their manners, minds, and fashions, he saw and knew, at sea felt many woes, much care sustained to save from overthrows himself and friends in their retreat for home, but so their fates he could not overcome, though he much thirsted. Ah, those men unwise, they perished by their own impieties, that in hunger's rapine would not shun the oxen of the Lofty Gun Sun, who therefore from their eyes the day bereft of safe return, these acts in some part left, tell us as others deified seed of Jove. Hello, everybody, and welcome to a special episode of Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity Podcast. You are in for a treat today. We are going to be doing a review of the new Christopher Nolan Odyssey film produced by Universal Pictures. It currently holds a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience popcorn score of 97%. The late film critic Roger Ebert, whose website is maintained in abstentia by his former editors and fellow reviewers, gives it a 4 out of 4 stars, highly recommended rating. I would be inclined to agree with the overwhelming opinion of movie reviewers and audience goers alike. The movie was excellent, and I highly recommend it. Just like the epic, the movie begins with a bard telling the stories from the Trojan War in the House of Odysseus. We are about ten years after the sack of Troy, and the deeds of those heroes have already become legendary. The scene being shown is the one involving Sinan and the Trojan horse. Penelope is behind a curtain, not the traditional Homeric veil, though she says she does not appreciate the story being told. Mentes comes in, a wanderer from afar, and it's implied that this is Athena, but it's not explicitly stated like in the poem. As the story progresses through the Telemachia portion of the Odyssey, Telemachus leaves the main hall and goes on his journey to Sparta. Now we first introduced to Odysseus. Odysseus is on the island of Calypso, far out to sea, and the lotus eater is actually incorporated into this portion. Calypso is feeding Odysseus Lotus so that he may forget the psychological trauma as his body has healed. At this point, he stops eating the lotus and begins collecting driftwood, which is actually part of a wrecked ship. Calypso asks how he's doing, and the long story of the Odyssey begins. He starts by describing how after the Trojan War they had done a few raids, pillaging different towns around the world. Then the story of Polyphemus the Cyclops comes in. Taking a cue from the Euripides play, Odysseus follows a sheep up to the house of the Cyclops. Then they're all trapped in this cave, and the Cyclops starts eating the crewmen. It is here that we see what will become a running theme throughout the story. Odysseus has no choice but to leave people behind, unburied, unmourned, lying in the cave, as he and the rest of his crew make their escape after blinding the Cyclops. Telemachus arrives in Sparta and Helen is visibly scarred with half of her face being disfigured, the implication being that after the Trojan War, Menelaus took out his fury upon his wife. Just as in the Odyssey, Menelaus actually tells the story of the Trojan horse from within. He was inside the horse with Odysseus and the other heroes on the day when they sprung their trap. Helen figures out that Telemachus is Odysseus' son, but they don't actually tell the story about Agamemnon or mention that the old man of the sea told of Menelaus where Odysseus is. Instead, Menelaus simply notes that Odysseus was imprisoned somewhere. Odysseus continues his story with the Lys Dragonians. They arrive on a strange land, meet a small child, who raises the hue and cry, leading to the Lys Dragonians coming and slaughtering Odysseus' men as they make their escape. Next, Odysseus comes to the Isle of Circe. The crew says Odysseus should stay behind. In the epic it was actually Lots drawn, and Odysseus shoots a deer, which turns into a man. This is actually in the epic, and for my part I had always wondered, the animals on Circe's Island are in fact creations of the witch. So was the deer shot by Odysseus once a sailor marooned on Circe's Island as well? I had always wondered that, but it was here that they actually showed it very explicitly. Odysseus figures out that Circe is out to get them all and runs up to their house. Circe has already turned all the crewmen into pigs and acknowledges that her sister has been turned into a crow. Now the scene is actually flipped. No Hermes popping up to give Odysseus Mauly the herb which will protect him from Circe's charm. Instead, it's Odysseus' own clever words that lead to Circe's reveal. But the reveal is completely flipped. In the epic, Odysseus draws his sword and thrusts it at Circe, who collapses. In the movie, Circe takes Odysseus' dagger and puts it against his own throat. In the epic, Odysseus unwillingly is compelled to have sex with Circe and is thus assaulted. In this play, it is Circe who fears being assaulted by Odysseus' men. So the whole scene, you see, is somewhat flipped. I'm not sure how to feel about this change to the story. I understand why it was done. All throughout the movie, there are references to the precarious plight of women. This is most clearly exemplified by the change of Helen, who in the Odyssey is returned to the blushing bride of Menelaus, wherein the movie is shown scarred, even verbally abused by Menelaus at the feast. I understand why the movie chose it, but I don't agree with it. See, Circe compels Odysseus to have intercourse. You have an immortal, powerful sea goddess compelling the mortal to have intercourse. We find out in another lost epic, the Telegany, that Circe really wanted to have a child all along. But the point is that we have a powerful character compelling another person, much weaker than they are, to have sex with them. There is really only one way we can properly interpret this passage. Greek and Roman literature is one of a few places in the whole corpus of Western literature where the male body is even capable of being sexually assaulted. I fear that by inverting this plot element, they take away this moment of truth which we get to see in ancient literature. Next, Odysseus goes to the underworld and speaks with the Theban prophet Tiresias. Once he arrives, the ghost of Sinon appears. This is actually the role played by Elpinor in the epic, the youngest hero on Odysseus' crew, who had died most recently and is thus the first person Odysseus meets in the underworld. It is here that the guilt for Odysseus, all those men he had to leave behind, really is brought home. Agamemnon appears and tells the story of his own death. Then Tiresias appears and tells what is about to happen and how the rest of Odysseus' crew is also going to die. This is the moment where Odysseus has determined he will not let anyone else die. The prophet mentions it is not his call, but the gods. The host of the unburied crewmen then appear and really drive home the guilt of all those Odysseus had to leave behind as he was trying to survive himself. As in the epic, the story is interrupted here, Odysseus overwhelmed with the trauma of the deaths and monstrous things he has seen, and Calypso gives him a little more lotus. Next we have the story of the sirens and Scylla and Charybdis. It is really driven home here just how much of Odysseus' own crew doesn't actually trust him. He knows alone that the Scylla will eat some of the crew, or else the entire ship will be bottled up with Charybdus. So he makes the call to lose only six instead of everybody. But the fact that he knew this and didn't tell anybody was really a cause for the crew's distrust. Then they arrive at the island of the sun, and this time Odysseus actually does tell everybody exactly what's going to happen if they land there. And they still don't trust him, and they go ashore anyway. At this point, the crewmen eat the cattle of the sun, and are punished once they set back out to sea. Odysseus washes up on shore of Calypso's island, where it's revealed that the wreckage that he's been gathering is in fact the remains of his own ship. Odysseus builds the raft and Calypso explains that the lotus she had given him was to help ease the emotional pain while he spent several years recovering from the physical pain. An interesting spin on this plot device. Calypso also says that going into the raft is offering his own body to Poseidon, and that the raft home is a leap of faith. Odysseus arrives on Ithaca and is greeted by Athena. Telemachus leaves Sparta and Helen mentions that she is sorry for the Trojan war. Eumaeus meets Odysseus for the first time as he wanders up from Ithaca. In the epic, it's mentioned that off-screen the suitors tried to kill Telemachus, but he escaped the trap, though the details were never really shown. Well, here it's actually an attempt to kill him at a shrine in Pylos. It also includes Odysseus coming to the rescue. In this scene, Mentor dies, and it was never actually clear that Mentor was Athena all along. The second act of the movie has a lot of psychological drama and traveling about, but not as much action as the first, so this addition was somewhat necessary to balance it out as the end of the second act. Odysseus and Telemachus return home to Ithaca, and Argus the Dog identifies Odysseus, then dies. Immediately after Telemachus realizes the truth too. Once again, Penelope is contained behind a curtain. Odysseus makes his rounds as a beggar throughout the whole, and actually gives the lot once carried by Sinon to Antinous, who throws a stool at Odysseus. At the beginning of the Trojan War, Odysseus had put out lots for which men would be drafted into service and follow him to Troy. Antinous' lot came up, but Sinon had taken it so that he would go to war and not Antinous. Antinous is now taunted by this lot that was once his, and Odysseus uses the name Sinon at this point in the story. Odysseus talks to Penelope, who once again is behind the veil. He describes the pin that she had been given. In the epic, the pin actually is a hunting scene, tying into the theme of Odysseus as the great hunter, but here it's actually Athena wrapped in vines. In any case, the brouch pin is the linchpin for the story. At the same time, Eurycleia, the nursemaid, identifies a scar on Odysseus' leg, but is stayed from revealing the truth at this point. Odysseus has flashbacks to Troy while he's talking to Penelope, and Athena sits next to him while the flashback occurs. The Trojan War is mentioned as the end of the Bronze Age, and the Sea Peoples are mentioned several times in this scene. Then, in a slight spin on the original story, Penelope orders that all the weapons be removed from the hall and the doors be locked, and then the contest with Odysseus' great bow begins. All of the suitors try and fail to string it, and Antinous acknowledges the truth, not one of them can actually replace Odysseus. They all failed the test. Now Odessius picks up the bow and handles it, inspecting it, and at this point all of the suitors taunt him and throw things at him, but then Odessius strings it and plucks it. Every time throughout the movie that Odysseus strings a bow, he plucks it, and the string sounds like a lyre. This is a Homeric image and I love its inclusion. The jig is up, Odysseus is revealed, and he starts firing the bow at every single one of the suitors. It's important that, unlike in the epic, Odysseus alone is killing the suitors. Telemachus only attacks the goat herd who is getting weapons for the suitors. Once Antinous is killed, everybody left alive kneels before Odysseus, and the fight is over. Odessius and Penelope talk, and he admits that during the sack of Troy he broke the bonds of men by breaking the laws of the gifts and friendship. Troy is a song because nobody will ever be able to read it. He admits that the sea people are a byproduct of the Trojan War, and that now the Bronze Age is coming to an end. Now Odysseus and Penelope leave Ithaca off to the west, not as in the epic to placate Poseidon, but rather to placate and remember the souls of those Odysseus had to leave behind. Telemachus is made king of Ithaca, and Odysseus and Penelope go off into exile. I secretly wonder how many people start reading Homer's Odyssey in translation and put it down once they realize that it's not the greatest young adult adventure novel ever written, but it's actually a depressing story. The Odyssey is a story about pain and fear. It's about isolation and psychological trauma. It's about dead dogs. It's about the people you had to leave behind, people you could not save, as you were just trying to survive yourself. The Odyssey is about fighting incredible odds just to make it home. Then realizing you have to continue fighting just to be okay, and having to convince yourself to let down your guard enough to start feeling a bit of joy again. The Odyssey is one of the most human stories ever told. This is where the character of Sinon, played by Eliot Page, comes in. Though Sinon wasn't in the Odyssey, the narrative role is actually played by a different character named Elpinor. Sinon himself was in the epic cycle, just in other, later, more fragmentary and lost editions. The complete story of Sinon comes from later authors, like Virgil. Sinon was the young man who signed up to join the war, taking Antinous' lot so that he could join, and he was the one who was killed at the Trojan horse. This image of Odysseus dealing with the death of the youngest member of the crew is key to the character's development. It becomes more important later on when Odysseus meets Sinan in the underworld. This is the guilt manifested in the figure of one character. When Odysseus returns home, he takes the name of Sinan, saying that he was the bravest young man he ever known. Odysseus uses that lot to both taunt Antinous, and when he kills Antinous, he shoves it down his throat. This idea of the young sailor being one of the first deaths in the Odyssey. In fact, it's the first death in the entire movie, and it becomes a poignant reminder of what Odysseus is actually going through in the traumatic scenes. In this way, Sinon is one of the most important characters in the movie, reflecting Odysseus' own guilt and trauma manifested in the form of somebody whose life he could not save. For many people, it was the adventure of the Odyssey that drew them in, and while those parts certainly are memorable, iconic, and brilliantly framed as trials that Odysseus must overcome. For me it was always the meditation on pain and suffering, the thoughts about grief and trauma. That's what actually makes the Odyssey, for me at least, such an immortal text. It is all about what a person can do to survive, and how well surviving for yourself you might leave people behind. The Odyssey has been made so many times over the years. The very first was a French movie called The Isle of Calypso, Ulysses and the Giant Polyphimi, although it was in French, a five-minute movie made in 1905. In 1954, Kirk Douglas produced an epic fantasy adventure. One of my favorites was always the TV mini-series released in 1997, and probably the best one ever produced was the 1968 series, an Italian language program called Le Odesia, which is highly recommended. I don't have any frame of reference for how this movie will or won't stack up to any of them, but I know that this movie brought out some of those aspects which I was just talking about. The pain and trauma manifested at the very dawn of our tradition. Of course, anytime you remediate a story, there will be changes made. The act of taking an episode from an epic poem like Homer and putting it into a Euripides play means that changes will be made. It's just kind of how it works. But that's part of what classical reception allows us to do. There are some people in this world who view it through a lens more like, well, the book's always better than the movie, and the movie changed this and this, and they stop right there. This is a truly amateurish way of looking at things, whether you're an English teacher, a conservative news pundit, or a Twitter troll. The truth is, reception does not have to mean faithful to the original. In fact, it is in the differences that we see how the story gets reimagined in its time and place. There will be changes, and those changes reflect the values of the people doing the receiving. When Homer's works were transplanted into a medieval Arthurian romance format, they were definitely not faithful to the original. There will never be a better Homer. Though Virgil gave it a try, Homer is the best Homer. It doesn't matter whether you're taking it and translating the words into English or whether you're remediating it into a play, a movie, a video game, a painting, a sculpture. No one is going to out Homer Homer. That Homer is the best Homer is a truly infantile way to approach reception. That minorities are playing roles they're not meant to? Again, infantile. Helen and Clytemnestra were black, and in a world where the Greeks go off on ships, grab people, and abduct them, turning them into slaves, where that's the world we live in, the implication is pretty clear. This is not in the story. But it might as well have been. A Greek hero goes abroad and finds a woman he likes, abducts her, and takes her back to his palace, where she naturally becomes a happy housekeeper and dutiful bride. This is a plot device everywhere. And it is technically in the story of Helen, just it's not Menelaus or Atreus. In fact, before Helen got married to Menelaus, she was abducted by Perithous and Theseus before the Trojan War even started. This is part of the story, even if it's not in the exact way that was driven home here. Senan was expanded and changed a little bit. The character Senan is not actually in the Odyssey or the Iliad, but appears to have been part of the epic cycle, at least in the Sack of Troy and in the Little Iliad, and possibly elsewhere in fragmentary epics that we don't have. The character is definitely part of the story. And that the character was played by a trans actor is less than important to me than that the character was played brilliantly, both by merging Alpinor and Cenan into a single character and appearing in multiple formats to really drive home the guilt felt by Odysseus. This movie is excellent, and I would highly recommend you see it on the big screen. And I would highly recommend you ignore the trolls. I don't believe these people have actually seen the movie They Berate. I am pretty sure, based on their superficial discussions, that they never read Homer, even in translation either. That's all for this week, folks. I hoped you appreciated this dive into classical reception in a modern retelling of the story. If you like it, there are definitely more of these that we can do. There are both plays that have really upplayed the queer aspects which are already present in these ancient stories. Some movies have made reference to queer elements. Sometimes what is the latent queerness in the story is augmented, and sometimes it's simply reading a character or situation through a queer lens. There are many of these that we can dive into. We'll see you next week for our regularly scheduled programming, the episode which was originally planned for this week, on Hestia, the asexual. Hope to see you next week.