Which Odyssey Is Right for You? | Comparing All 4 Odyssey Movies

0:00 The Christopher Nolan film, The Odyssey, hits theaters today, and I watched it. Turns out that in the last 75 years, we've had three other versions of The Odyssey. And in the last three weeks, I have watched all of those. And I have also read the poem, The Odyssey, in English, supplemented by a little bit of Greek. I have thoughts about the Nolan film, and I want to get to that. First, I want to talk about the other ones. Let's talk about all four film versions of The Odyssey and which one might be right for you. [music] I'm Dave Butler. This is High LowBrow because culture matters and it's good to have fun. I know some of you are really mad at

0:45 Christopher Nolan. Believe me, I get it. There are reasons to be irritated about the new Odyssey film. In fact, there are more reasons than you likely know. If you have just watched, if you're angry about casting decisions or if you're upset about the rap that the uh the filmmakers released yesterday, there are things about this film that are um that would annoy you that I'm going to talk to you about. Okay. By the way, there's some great stuff about the film, too. So, I'm going to I'm going to spend more time than on any of the others. I'm going to talk about Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. I'm going to talk about that last because I'm going to talk about them in chronological order. So, we're going to start in 1954

1:32 and talk about three other Odysseies first because man, if you don't want to watch Christopher Nolan's, there are other film versions that you might like. Let's talk about these four Odysseies. I thought I thought I was setting out to watch four English language adaptations of the poem The Odyssey into film. Turns out in a couple of ways that's not exactly true. So So three of them are clearly the Odyssey. The the fourth is not quite the Odyssey. The fourth is sort of part of the Odyssey um deliberately chosen to tell a particular kind of story. Right. Nevertheless, actually, I quite liked it. We're going to talk about that one. Uh, there were also not four English

2:19 language adaptations of The Odyssey because one of them, to my surprise, despite starring Kirk Douglas, turned out to be in Italian. Okay. [laughter] So, so I watched uh I don't know how to characterize these, the the three easily streamable adaptations uh film adaptations of The Odyssey, plus the plus the one in the in the big screen right now. Maybe that's the right characterization. Uh there may be I make no representations that there are not other versions of the Odyssey on film. There probably are. Soviet cinema probably made some. There's probably a Swedish or a Hungarian or a Greek version. I don't know. I have not attempted to be systematic. I just went out to try and find what are the what are the Odyssey versions that are readily accessible out there and went went and watched them

3:05 all. Now I'm going to compare these. I thought I might tear rank them originally, but I I think that that's um probably not the right approach. So, I'm going to discuss these and I'm going to use Dave's patented helenometer. Uh what is a helenometer? It is a measurer, a measuring tool of all things Greek. Uh that which is helenic is Greek, right? And uh to as a way to sort of talk about these, there's a great deal of intuition and art in the use of the Helenometer. I wouldn't try to compare these rankings too directly, one to the other. Really, I just want to talk to you about these four movies and uh and so you you can think about which uh if any of them you

3:50 might want to watch. So we'll take them in chronological order, which means we start with Ulisses. Ulisses was or actually technically I think if you get on Amazon Prime which where I watched it cost me five bucks. Um I think you can search for Ulisses Kirk Douglas and it will come up. Technically the title is Uly because this is an Italian. This turns out to be the spaghetti western of Odysseies. What do I mean by that? Well, let's let's talk about spaghetti westerns. Right. In the 60s, there were Italian filmmakers who made westerns. They filmed them in Spain. They hired people like Clint Eastwood to be in them. And they produced some real classics like Once

4:36 Upon a Time in the West and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly might be sort of two of the sort of top. And there are also some really bad ones, right? Uh but they were they were uh dubbed into English. Uh, a lot of the minor characters might have actually spoken their lines in Italian or Spanish or whatever, right? Uh, spaghetti westerns. So, this Odyssey Ulissi was was made in a very uh similar fashion. It turns out Italian director. Most of the cast is are Italian actors. a couple of French actors, the the King of Fia, a couple others, I forget who, and then two bigname American actors who are Kirk Douglas as uh Odysius and

5:22 uh Anthony Quinn as Antininois, who is one of the chief of the suitors. By the way, Quinn is a real um I mean, I don't want to say waste, but that is that is the right word here. He's underutilized. He he's he's not only sort of one of the stars and he's got a lot of charisma and is a great actor and then like he's actually shows up late and is killed pretty early, right? So really [clears throat] you got Kirk Douglas and a and a bunch of you know a bunch of Italians. I understand the way this was filmed, by the way, is everyone spoke their lines in their native language, which I think must have been hilarious if [snorts] you had, you know, a scene with like the scenes in Fia where you have French and Italian and American

6:07 actors all saying their lines in in in different languages. So, 1954, uh, what does the film look like? Well, actually, let's let's start let's start giving it ratings. So the helenometer ranks whatever we're analyzing on four [snorts] characteristics. Okay? Mythos, logos, pathos, and ethos. Uh I'm not going to explain those. You'll understand by the time we're done. So let's start. Uh Ulyses, I give it for mythos a uh a five. It is it is meant to be the Odyssey. It it does have uh monsters and gods in it. It it cuts out quite a bit to to be a

6:53 90minute film. One of the I don't know strangest um sort of most thumb in the eye adaptations they make is they collapse Cersei and Calypso into one. [snorts] So there's only sort of one one magic woman on on the journey. Uh they also draw the necromancy episode into that so that uh Odysius is uh prisoner of and and I think she's I think they call her Cersei um and uh for for years his men give up waiting and they leave uh and the sort of necromancy episode is just that that the dead come to sort of give him a warning and are

7:39 part of sort of shaking him out of his trance and and and eventually um he gets away. So, this is this is a mythological it is a fantasy [clears throat] uh odyssey, but but that's been a lot of that's been uh uh been cut back. I will say [clears throat] the Cyclops is pretty fun. And this is 1954, so you know, you never really see the Cyclops in the same uh shot as the human scale characters. and he's kind of back in shadow, so you can't really see very well his face, but uh he's played by like a wrestler and uh he he he does a he does a good job. Give him five for Mythos. I'm going to give it uh three for Logos. At some points, this just doesn't make a lot of sense. So, I'll

8:26 give you two examples. Uh one, what is what does it look like, by the way? Well, it looks like somebody who would like to be making a CE deill film but has, you know, 1% of the budget and and and maybe is, you know, just got maybe is sneaking onto a film lot and using uh somebody else's scenery at night or something. So, there's a lot of sort of darkness so you can't see too much detail. Some some vaguely sword and sandal kind of sets, right? Except weirdly then the Fiaian women are wearing these costumes that look like maybe they're meant to be Regency England or maybe you know maybe Victorian England. These women are wearing these kind of krenolin dresses. It's it's very jarring. The king of Fia

9:12 is heavily made up that doesn't seem to match them at all. Um it's it's like everyone else is is a lowbudget sword and sandal and then now maybe maybe this is deliberate. The Fiatians are the people who are closest to the gods. So maybe in the director's mind, he's deliberately making them look something more like moderns. [clears throat] Maybe very strange. Uh I won't say off-putting, but but a little jarring. Uh another sort of kind of headscratching moment is uh every every every film has to figure out how to make Odysius clever, right? Actually maybe the one that doesn't is uh is the uh is is the Chris Nolan film. Odysius is

9:57 described as being polyutropos which means many turns and that's generally understood to mean clever and uh and so the filmmakers have made up extra clever things for him to do. So, uh, in in the Kirk Douglas version of the Cyclops cave, they get the Cyclops drunk so they can blind him, right? That's like the clever thing Adysius does. Except the Cyclops doesn't know wine. He That's why he's vulnerable to this is because the Greeks introduce him to wine. And the Greeks don't have wine. They didn't walk up into his cave carrying a bunch of wine. So they uh they basically get Polyphimas

10:43 the Cyclops to bring in grapes which they tread into wine which makes him drunk, right? Uh this obviously makes no sense. There's zero fermentation. It's just uh you know it's just grape juice dirty with feet is all it is. So it doesn't always hold together. Um for pathos I'm going to give a six. It is a lot of fun. It's a little bit scenery chewing in Kirk, including Kirk Douglas. It's a lot of the kind of, you know, big dramatic uh facial expressions acting that maybe would have been a little better on stage. Um, again, I think Anthony Quinn is a little bit underused here. Uh, he's he's Kirk Douglas also can. Uh, Anthony Quinn can be a more subtle actor than that,

11:30 but he's shows up late and is killed fairly early. So, a lot of fun. Uh, >> [clears throat] >> I'm not bothered by the oldness of the film or the cheapness of the special effects or or or whatever. Uh but just as a as a piece of theater, it was it was not as moving as some of the others uh some of the other odysseies were. And and for ethos, I will give it a seven. I will say that this is one of the films that is the story in its moral ethical heart basically is the Odyssey. It is about a man trying to get home. It in includes the contradictions in the the Odyssey, the poem, right? Uh Odysius is not a a whitewashed

12:16 uh uh figure. Uh and um on that point of view, it is it is pretty much straight up the Odyssey. Now, who who is going to like this? Who is this for? To be honest, I think probably pretty few of you. I think if you're a a completionist, you want to watch all of the Odysseies, you might go see this. I think if you're a spaghetti western fan and you think it's funny to see Kirk Douglas clearly speaking his lines in English while others are not and Kirk speaks in English but then he's he's being redubbed later so even it's not necessarily perfectly synced if if if you as as happened in some of Clint Eastwood's westerns right not the ones he directed the ones he acted in uh that may entertain you uh if you are a big Kirk Douglas fan a Kirk Douglas completionist or or less likely Anthony

13:03 Quinn uh this may be the Odyssey for you. This is also maybe the Odyssey for Italians, right? Because like I said, I thought I had I'd understood with my initial kind of research that this film was made by Italian filmmakers, but I assumed that I'd be watching a version like The Good and the Bad The Bad and the Ugly dubbed entirely into English. And it is not. It is. It is in Italian. Um uh it's got subtitles, but uh yeah, that's the Odyssey in Italian. 1954. Not for everybody, but uh but maybe there there are a few of you who might uh who might enjoy it. So that was our only odyssey for I mean it's relatively early 1954, right? Uh and this is this is of course well in advance of the special effects revolution of Star Wars. Uh so uh you

13:50 know fairly uh fairly early fairly impressive that that it existed with with all with all of its uh faults for [clears throat] 30 40 plus years. That was our only Odyssey in 1997. We got an Odyssey that it was a TV TV miniseries and uh [clears throat] this one is actually as of now I won't make any certification as to the future as of now is available in two 90minute chunks free on YouTube. It's called the Odyssey and there are some pretty big names. Actually from my money the biggest name is Christopher Lee. Okay. Who uh Christopher Lee who was Count Dooku, who is Sorrowan, who also played uh you know, Dracula and uh

14:40 uh Mr. Fle in the Gorman gasast adaptation and lots of other great stuff. Um he is the blind prophet Tyresius. Uh he is underused. He is in exactly one scene at the very beginning of the the second half. It's in it's in two 90minute episodes. Uh, Odysius is played by Armand Asante, who I think Asante is Italian, but he is appropriately Mediterranean looking. He's got a lot of charisma. He uh he is, you know, clearly athletic, but doesn't look like the Hulk. He he he's a great casting. He really looks the part. Athena is Isabella Roselini, which is great. She is of all the Athenas, uh, she is the, uh, hottest. Um, some of

15:26 some of the other castings are are a little interesting. So, it's mostly sort of European casting. The two magical women are Bernardet Peters and um Vanessa Williams and they're both Americans. So, so it's interesting, right? Because neither one of them Cersei is a witch on a mysterious island. That's Bernardet Peters. Now, if you don't know who Bernardet Peters is, you can go look her up. her voice is kind of a honk. So, um, and it is I think she's sort of playing it down a bit here, but nevertheless, it is kind of a honk. And, uh, so so, so she is a little, um, it's good that she's not supposed to be

16:12 playing a, you know, a Greek woman or or or or whatever, right? She is a supernatural character. She definitely stands stands out very very striking with the voice. Vanessa Williams, if you're young, you may never have heard of her. She was uh I should have looked this up to make sure I'm remembering this right. I think this is correct. She was Miss America and then some pictures that a some nude pictures that I think a boyfriend had taken got sold to Penthouse and so she lost her crown. Um and so she's not really an actor and she's playing Calypso and to be honest she does fine, right? I mean, really, she's supposed to be a sort of a beautiful woman. Um, but she stands and kind of says her lines in the tradition

16:58 of, you know, kind of a little bit subpar TV acting. Um, and she's and that's fine. And she and of course, Calypso is a is like a demigod, is a goddess. Uh, and so the, you know, the fact that she has an American accent is I I guess what I'm exp what I'm trying to say is these two accents would be a little jarring except that they're supposed to be a little jarring, right? Uh, they're they're not quite human. There's something something unusual about them. Cersei is a witch. Calypso is is a goddess. Um, all right, let's talk let's talk a little bit about the film and give give us some ratings. Uh, Mythos, 9.5 out of 10. This is the Odyssey. This is the only one of the four films that has all

17:43 three gods. It has Poseidon, little bit cheesy. He's like a face in a wave yelling at Odysius. Uh, it has Athena, Isabella, Roselini repeatedly. It also has Hermes. It's the only one that has uh that has Hermes. It's um it's sort of it's 1990s. the the the special effects and the look is all very much Zeno Warrior Princess. Okay. Uh and uh it never really rises above that. It's fine, right? If you can sort of if if you like can enjoy Hercules the legendary journeys or Zeno Warrior Princess or you know you can enjoy uh this as a spectacle.

18:28 Hermes is one of the sort of egregious examples. Odysius is climbing up a cliff. Hermes shows up. He's flying. I think he's been smeared with like gold glitter goop. So, he kind of looks like a pretty gay trophy top floating there in midair and, you know, giving the herb moly to Odicius to protect him against Cersei who has turned all his men into animals. Right. This has all the gods. Uh it it does shorten out some of the episodes and um uh you know they they all do they all cut out or or conflate or collapse something, but this is this is uh uh pretty good. Um the uh

19:15 it doesn't have everything that that I would want. Um only only two of these show the attempt to communicate with the prophet Tyresius. Okay. The Matt Damon and the Armand Sante one. Um and the the Matt Damon one is just better. So by which I mean it's truer to the to the original to the poem. So uh you know Odysius goes north uh north of the Chimearans who by the way nobody shows the Chimes. Fine. Um so so hell is you know the the the land close to Hades is a cold place and and what Odysius is supposed to do is he has sheep and he slits their throats and pours the blood into a trench and the dead want the blood and they come

20:01 forward and it's how he uh can get from Tyresius the the the blind prophet the road home. Okay. And in the Armandanda Sante version, this is turned into this kind of somewhat Egyptian looking but you know like fake Hollywood Egyptian looking with lots of flame [snorts] sort of palace or um or temple and he takes a ram and goes running alone into this at the end of episode one and he finds Christopher Lee as Tyresius and he's he's he's sort of down in a hole like some Somehow we we don't get any explanation of how uh the um

20:48 uh Odysius realizes he needs to leave the hallway and crawl through a shaft and he finds Tyresius in in like a pit or in like a cell next to a little flaming river. It's I'll come to this in a minute. This is one of the one of the [clears throat] logos failure moments of the film for me. like what why how did he find Tyresius? How did how did he randomly go down this air shaft in the palace of hell? Um and and he doesn't slit the throat of the sheep. He just [clears throat] throws the sheep to Tyresius, right? So So that fine, I get I don't know. They didn't want to have blood on TV maybe was the issue. [clears throat] But that's an

21:34 example of where the mythos um aspect of this film fell out. mostly great. I'm just telling you why did I not give it a 10. That now that scene bothered me for other reasons. As I said, why on earth does Odysius just decide to go climbing down the side shaft? He has no means to seek Tyresius if it's a if it's a labyrinth. Is he just randomly running into? It just it just seemed utterly random. But then what Tyresius says is even worse because [clears throat] what Tyresius is supposed to do is say, "Hey, you're going to sail and this is going to happen and this is going to happen and this is going to happen, right?" And tells him and tells him the stuff. Um, Christopher leaves Tyresius and Christopher like of all the actors in all four of these films, like he's probably my favorite of all the actors,

22:19 right? Way underused here. uh he gets just the one scene and his lines are dumb because he says something like uh go to the land where Orion is always above the horizon, [snorts] you know, and I was like, "Oh, I hope that's like I hope that's in the original." I went and looked I went and looked. I hope that's in the poem and that it is, you know, like it's a mythological idea. And I but I was pretty sure it wasn't. And in fact, it wasn't. Um if you are if you are scratching your head and like Dave, why is Dave so baffled? Uh why why is Dave styied by this? There is no land where Orion is always above

23:05 the horizon. Uh Orion is over the uh is over the it's south of us. It's over the equator. You can see it in the far south and you can see it in the far north. But the Earth rotates and so Orion is always every day uh uh going under the equator. It's it's just terrible. Um I Yeah. So, Logos, I'm going to give it a five. Uh that and some other kind of uh similar failures. Um I will say a Pathos nine. This was just fun. This was just fun. Yes, there are a couple moments where I said, "Man, oof, that's dumb." Um, but this is an entertaining film throughout. Uh, you have some fairly traditional

23:56 TV or bem movie acting, especially below kind of the top tier actors, but also like the aforementioned Vanessa Williams, not really an actor. Uh, but highly entertaining. And for ethos, again, I'm going to give it a seven for basically the same reason. This is the these first two movies are attempts to make the Odyssey basically straight. So uh and and and the Armand Sante version may be the straightest one. Uh I mean literally there's a scene where he's like lying in in Cersi's arms and she's saying you are thinking of your wife even while you're lying in my arms and he's like well yes right. It's like this is the Odyssey like you know Odysius wants to go home to his wife that

24:41 doesn't stop him from sleeping around with with several women right um but it so it it is uh it is ethically it is it is morally just an attempt to make the poem into a film. So, this Odyssey might be for you if well if you just want to watch the Odyssey and you don't want any kind of political freight, okay, and you're worried the current movie has some political take, which it does, okay, which which I'll talk about in a few minutes. This might be for you. If you need to show the Odyssey to a lot of people and you don't want to pay five bucks per person for to have them watch it on streaming or you don't want to go to a movie theater and pay whatever movie tickets are where you

25:27 are, I think my ticket was 12 bucks, right? Uh this is currently uh free on on YouTube. If you are anybody who just wants to watch the Odyssey just to have fun, just to have fun, this again uh might be the Odyssey for you. And I will say I I had fun. I thought it was great. All right, that's 1997. So, uh almost 30 years later, right? So, we have like a 40-year interval and we got a and we got a 30-year interval. And now we get two backtoback because in 2024 we get a film called The Return. This is the one that is not really the Odyssey. Now, it's not not the Odyssey in the way, oh brother, where art thou is not the Odyssey. Some

26:13 of you were like, "What about Oh, brother. Oh, brother. That was not the Odyssey. They just put in a cyclops and some sirens and right just there's a couple of things that are kind of like the Odyssey. Okay. Loosely inspired. This is The Return is much more thoroughly based on the Odyssey than that. The return is uh Ray Fines and Juliet Bino are the actors I know by the way as as Penelopey and um and Odysius and and they're terrific. Um this is just the part where Odysius comes home. It's zero desri zero has any of the journey. In fact early on in fact this is a line where I heard this line and I

26:59 kind of clenched a little I was like, "Oh, I might I this might be a movie that I hate by the end." I will tell you it is not a movie I hated by the end. I quite liked it, actually. But but there's this question about uh people don't don't realize yet who he is. And there's a question, oh, did he do all these things? And he says sort of contemptuously there stories, right? So, this is an Odysius who has not blinded the Cyclops, heard the siren song, uh, you know, been rescued on the beach by the Fiatians, imprisoned by Cersi, and then Calypso, right? This is not that guy. This is a guy coming home from the war now. Um,

27:46 all right. So, let's so let's get a little bit into it. So, mythos, I'm going to give it a two out of 10. There are no gods here. There are also no monsters. This is just a this is just a naturalistic story. Now, I will say that as I was watching it, my wife and I were watching it and we were nearing the climax and I said to her, "Man, I don't know how they're going to play this climax." Because of course, in the climax of the Odyssey, Adysius kills all the suitors. And in this movie, you know, there are several dozen suitors and like how is Rafe Fines gonna kill them? Well, we've already had this dismissal of stories, so it's not going to be the archery thing. I bet he's just

28:32 going to lock the door and burn the burn the building down, right? So, we get it. We get and then then and then the story is told of, you know, the shooting stringing the bow, shooting through the axes, killing all the suitors, right? Um, actually, no, they played the climax pretty straight up. Pretty straight up. In fact, of the of the four, the climactic battle, they played the most straight. Now, no gods, nothing magical, but you know, the stringing of the bow, by the way, I have no idea this is real, but they sort of gave a gave a reason why nobody else could string the bow, right? is they they had him take the bow over and like warm it up over a fire and kind of caress it like oh this you know

29:19 this wood is has tightened up in the years and needs to be re you know heat needs to sort of limber it up. Um but they, you know, the stringing of the bow, the shooting through the axe handles, uh the uh killing all of the suitors, the the bit. So in in the in the Odyssey, Adysius does not actually fight alone. He fights alongside Tmicus and also the two faithful male servants, Umus and the swine herd and uh Filo, I think is the name. something like that. Who is the faithful cattle herd, right? The goat herd melanthos is switched over the side of the suitors and therefore he dies. So it's not Odysius alone. It's

30:06 it's the four men, right? And two of them are not warriors cuz they're servants and Tmicus is young and untested, but but they're they're side by side. Um that is actually how this the climax plays out. So, um, so it is in in in some senses, uh, very true, uh, to the Odyssey. The climax is is is virtually right right off the page. Um, Logos, uh, I'm going to give it an eight. Going to give it an eight. The the story, as told, all makes a great deal of sense. Um, man, the one moment for me where I was like, "Oh, come on. You could do better than that." It was shot on location. Uh, by the way, so was the Armand Sante one. So was the Matt Damon one, right? I mean, it's the

30:52 Odyssey. You got to go. Um, I I think actually the the Kirk Douglas one uh says that it was too, right? Um, you got to go shoot it on, you know, the rocky beaches of Greece or whatever. Uh, but the first shot of the the castle, Odysius's Hall in Ithaca, I said to my wife, that is a crusader castle. like that is not that is not a a bronze age Greek residence. And we look it up and I've forgotten the name now, but sure enough, it is a crusader castle built like 1220s uh AD, right? It looked really weird. Um and uh but but other than that, you know, the the film was all logical, held together as a as a as a story without

31:39 gods. Uh on a POS level, I will give it a nine. Terrifically acted. Ray Fines, Julia Bino are both just absolutely killer. And and uh and let me say this, I'll give it a nine on ethos, too. And let me sort of talk about what is this movie about? Why would you make a film about the Odyssey without the Odyssey part? Just the bit where he comes home, which is like, you know, four of the 24 books of the Odyssey or something. [gasps] This is really a story about a warrior coming home. And the question of how does a warrior who comes home reintegrate with the family and the people that he left?

32:26 And and partway through the watching the film, I had a terrible feeling that I might end up hating the movie depending on how it kind of played out its last third because there's a there's a long from like the 70s there is a tradition in American film making of films that portray our own veterans as pathological. as damage beyond repair, as monsters, right? They come home and they're heroin addicts and they kill their family and they sit around listlessly watching television or whatever. And there are honorable exceptions,

33:12 but there are also, and this is not just true in movies, it's true also in songs and other other media we produce, right? And as I'm watching this and realizing that the story is about this, there's no gods here. That's all that's all just stories these characters tell each other. This is a man coming home from a war. I thought, "Oh man, I don't I don't know how this is going to go." Um, but the answer is that it has it it has it's it it's the odyssey, right? The end is the odyssey. he comes home and uh and and he hasn't stayed away because he is actually a monster. He has not done there's no there's no sense that Odysius is actually a war criminal. He's just a

33:59 he's a warrior and he's done things that he didn't think he would have to do and and and we're not there's no sense that he was like murdering children or something, right? But he was in war and he has had he's struggled to come home because uh he feels is he feels separated from from the the wife and the son he left behind. Uh but the answer is actually that they need him to come home, right? And the answer is actually that some of the things some of the things he learned to do as a warrior, some of the man he became in war is what they need to rescue them. And so, um, again, I give it a nine for for POS.

34:46 Wonderfully acted. Um the the the ending uh is is terrifically true to the Odyssey and fun in a sort of a serious action movie kind of way, right? Not not an Avengers, but like a more of a straight action movie. Um and uh you know, and and the and the moral of the story is not only can warriors heal, but our warriors are necessary for us, right? So, um, so that was The Return. Quite enjoyed The Return. [clears throat] All right, fourth and last. I watched The Odyssey yesterday. And by the way, I guess, man, let me just say a word about this. I I know

35:31 [snorts] I know this happened. I did a thing about the poem. I did an episode about the poem The Odyssey a couple of weeks ago and a whole bunch of people clicked on it just to post on a non comment and go, I'm not going to watch the movie. All right, fine. I get it. That's going to have happened again with this episode. That's fine. I hope that some of you who posted that and who feel that way have watched to this point. Um, a because if you were unaware of the Armandanda Sante or the Rafe Fines movies, you might really like them and I I hope you'll go watch those. Um, by the way, I think I watched the Rafe Fines one on on Amazon Prime also, like you know, again, five bucks or whatever.

36:18 But also, let's let's talk about why people have objections um to the film. Um, and I'm going to I'm going to start out, I think, by giving you some additional objections. This is not a perfect film at all. Um, of the four, I'm I don't think it's my favorite actually. Um, though I though I did enjoy it. So, people are unhappy. I I think in the first instance about casting uh Helen of Well, first there was a there was a belief a rumor that Elliot Page had been cast as Achilles. Now, let me say categorically there were reasons to be skeptical about this claim up front because the Odyssey

37:04 is not about Achilles. So, if Elliot Page had been cast as Achilles, it would be to be on the screen for 30 seconds while we see Troy. Guess what? It turns out Achilles is never on the screen in this movie. Okay? Nobody was cast as Achilles. Elliot Page is cast as I think this is a madeup character. If not, maybe it's a character whose name exists and has been borrowed for a a role, a story function that is definitely made up. Um, Paige plays a character who is like a shepherd boy and uh and there's sort of a there's a there's a drawing of lots to see who's going to go to war with Adysius when King Agamemnon calls for ships. And um the drawing of lots gets sort of fixed. I'll talk about that

37:50 in a minute. >> [clears throat] >> This drawing of lots is all all of these have e even you know our mandante version which is really trying to be true to the story. You adapt a a poem to film you're going to make some adjustments to try to make the best movie you can. This has happened here too. So this drawing of lots is not in the not in the homeriic poem, right? But it gets kind of uh fixed and so uh sinn uh the the the Elliot Page character goes with Odysius uh and and dies. Okay. I think Elliot Page is on screen a total of five minutes. We don't see Elliot Page do anything heroic. The function of

38:36 Elliot Page is to play a character who is dear to Odysius but who dies. In fact, Odysius basically kind of sacrifices Cinnan the shepherd the shepherd boy turned soldier. Okay. Um that's it. Elliot Page on the screen maybe five minutes. Um oh I don't remember the name. Lupita Nongo or something. I'm sure that's not quite right. is cast as Helen of Troy and also Clynestra. [clears throat] So people are upset because Elliot Page is a trans man, right? Um I don't know that they would be particularly I I think it was the claim that that Elliot was cast as Achilles that was particularly aggravating people and like that isn't true. Turns out so, uh,

39:24 Lupita is a black woman and she's cast to play Helen of Troy, who is supposed to be a Greek woman, uh, and also Clayum Nest. She plays Clayum Nestra, their sisters. Um, so she plays these two Greek women. Now, again, if you know if you know the poem of the Odyssey, you said this if if this is going to be made straight up into a film, this actress is going to be on the film on on the screen for just a few minutes only. Okay. And and that is the case. She's barely barely on the uh uh on the screen. We see Clynestra objecting to her daughter being ifia being sacrificed. We see her murdering her husband in revenge. Uh we uh see Helen when uh Tmicus goes to

40:11 visit Menaaus and they she's in a couple of scenes very briefly. She probably has five lines in the whole movie. Okay. Um, now you I Okay, I get it. You're It's not really about this one character. Okay. But but but just just realize, right, Penelopey is played by an actress who is a very Greekl looking woman, right? uh the uh you know this Helen Clynestra is is a way smaller role than Cersi or then or then Calypso who is played by Charlie's Theren. Okay. Uh very very tiny role. Now the objection

40:57 I'm going to articulate what I think sort of the objection is and and fundamentally I don't disagree. Okay. I I in fact fundamentally I agree with this. The objection isn't this one casting at one time of a black actress to play a white woman. The objection is here we go again. This has been done over and over again constantly. And I'm I'm being told that Tolken's elves and dwarves and hobbits have to include, you know, black characters. And I'm being told that there are black female Viking chieftains and right again and again and again. Here we go again. Yep. I Yep. It is tedious, right? race and gender swapping is is an old phenomenon in

41:44 adaptations. I don't object to it. The irritating thing is how it is always one way in the last 20 plus years, right? So, if you do not want to see the movie because of that, I get it. Um, there's an objection that that this odyssey was based on Emily Wilson's translation. I don't know what that has to do with anything. Um, I don't think I could point to a single mo moment in the film and say, "Oh, look, if they use Richmond Latimore's translation, if they use Robert Fagel's translation, they wouldn't have done that." Like, yes, I know that she con that she translated polyutropost, which

42:31 which is many turns uh and which is understood generally to mean that Odysius is clever. She translated it as complicated, but like so what? That's on the page. That's not dialogue anybody speaks. And in fact, in the movie, people don't describe Odysius as being complicated. They say he's clever. Menaus a couple times says he's the smart one. He was the smart one. My brother Agamemnon should have listened to him if anything even more than he did. He was the only one Agamemnon listened to because he was the smart one. He should have listened even more. Right. I don't I don't know what the translation what Emily Wilson's translation uh what effect it had on the film if any to be honest. Okay, maybe some someone

43:17 can point it out to me. I'll happily look at it. I I don't I I don't believe it. Um there are reasons that you if you haven't seen the film. Look, let me give you re more reasons to be a little annoyed actually. Okay. Uh here are two things that I watched and I was like, "Okay, yep." Um, one there is there is a uh and maybe this is sort of what where the Emily Wilson influence came in indirectly in the in the poem in the sto in the story there are a number of times where a modern reader reads it and goes man the female character here is getting a raw deal right Penelopey is in some sense

44:05 getting a raw deal. Okay. Um Clynestra, yes, she murders her husband, but like first he sacrifices their child, right, for favorable wins. This is Ifagenia at Owas, right? This is not I don't think this is mentioned at all in um in the uh in the Odyssey, but this is but it is in the Tragedians. This is the background. on the way to Troy, he sacrifices his daughter to get a favorable win. Um, that is a raw deal for Clyde Nestro. Yet, maybe she shouldn't have responded by murdering him, right? Um, it's a raw deal. So in the in this ma in the Matt Dame and the Christopher Nolan film what happens is uh we get to those sort of moments and

44:52 the female character gets a raw deal but unlike in the poem she uh observes she says I have this is this is not cool for me there's a dialogue between Penelopey and her son Tmicus about this and and she sort of points out to him because he's not understanding this what what it is to be her, right? And there's no one ever thinks, oh, Penelopey will rule, right? Penelopey is being faithful to Adysius and holding uh the hall for him with guile and with cunning and with great perseverance and courage. But no one's ever like, you know, but but oh, but Tmkus will be king, but not,

45:37 you know, but not her. right now. Now, um this is I if you if you're looking for immersion and imagining you're in, you know, heroic age Greece. Yes, this is sort of a little bit of a modern intrusion and it happens several times. Okay? And you might be annoyed, right? I didn't love it. Um but two things. one, I think, frankly that that those moments, and there aren't a lot of them, uh will help some modern uh viewers watch and enjoy the film and enjoy the story. In other words, you might find that it jars you out of the story, but I think some some watchers, some some

46:23 viewers will find that it helps them stay in the story. If someone can just acknowledge this is sometimes described as hanging a lantern over something in the text. If there's something difficult in the text that the re that might take the reader out might cause them to suspend disbelief rather than just ignore it. If you actually have the characters notice it um you point it out yourself then uh that may help them take it in stride. Right? So this is hanging a lantern over um o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o over over the fact that this is a masculine and you know we would we would we would say sexist world, right? By the way, also these are these are not accusations or observations that go unanswered, right?

47:11 Um it's not clear that the this is probably um uh not quite the right characterization, but it's not clear that the feminist critique is the is the last word. Right? So, uh Helen of I'll give you two examples. Helen of Troy suggests um the and by the way, she's all scarred up. And by the way, Menaaus treats her like property, not like his queen. Um, she suggests uh I forget exactly how the dialogue goes, but her but Mena says something like, you know, you ran off to, you know, uh to Troy and she says something like the war was really over

47:57 your brother's commercial interests. Well, maybe it was. She does not denying she ran off to Troy right? uh or or the story of Cersei. Uh Adysius's men all go up to Cersei's hut. I actually love this sequence, by the way. Really well done. The sort of Cersei's magic scene is very cool. Um uh she turns them into pigs and then Adysius comes up and uh defeats her and and it's it's different, right? There's no Hermes. And the way it works in the story in the in the poem is Hermes uh gives Adysius the herb moly which protects him from Cersei's magic and

48:45 then he gets her cooperation by threatening her, right? Um uh which is by the way very old counter magic, threaten or harm the witch to end the spell. So that's not how it goes at all. He realizes and therefore, you know, the like eating the food is what turns you into an animal. He realizes and does not eat the food. Um and and basically talks her into giving the men back. And um the some of the dialogue is she says, you know, I didn't make them pigs. I removed their disguises. That's who they are, right? And and uh she says, they came here to harm me. I'm a woman alone. Right. And Adysius points out, so this is kind

49:33 of like the this is sort of the, if you will, kind of the sort of feminist take. S Cersi is striking a blow for all women, right? And Odysius correctly points out that these men did not try to harm her. These men just wanted to go home, right? So, if you're boycotting the film, I get it. Know that there is like a little bit of sort of some feminist dialogue worked in there and that might make you even more angry if you were to watch the film. But also realize it's as part of a dialogue. It's not the film itself is not feminist deconstruction of Odysius or of heroic Greek culture. Okay.

50:18 The other thing, now this is this is the one I have to say this this was a thing where I was like uh I actually am annoyed at this. Um in the well I'll I'll I'll talk about that in a minute. Um there's a scene where Adysius is home. He's a beggar. He's talking through a screen to Penelope. She doesn't know he is he's in disguise as a beggar. She she accepts the disguise. Does not yet realize it's him. Uh and um he tells and this is where we first really get an extended scene like five minutes or something showing the sack of Troy and and Odysius basically is a war criminal. Okay, he's not the worst. He's

51:06 not the one who's slitting the throats of women and impaling children, but other people are doing that. And it was his clever idea which which let them do it. And by the way, his clever idea is he doesn't use this word, but it was impious. It was it was a it was a an it was a trick he should he he regrets doing, right? He is a he's he's not Ray Fines who just was a warrior. He's he actually did an an evil thing. And uh this is the sort of um moment of deconstructing the Trojan War. if you will. Um, and so if you're boycotting for this film for politics, like this is a scene that you

51:52 will hate. Also, it's five minutes long and like if you pull it out of the film, you probably wouldn't even notice it. You could substitute 10 seconds of dialogue or or you could just cut after after he talks about Adysius wearing his Athena pin so that Penelopey realizes this man has indeed seen my husband. You stop right there. It wouldn't change the film. um at all. In other words, again, the film is not deconstructing the Trojan War or Greek mythology. There's just this one scene that does. So, look, I say all of that to say I I understand the objections. Um I share some of the annoyances. Let's talk about let's let me let me rate and let's talk about the uh film.

52:38 So, uh Mythos I this I got to give this film a nine. Okay. Uh, it's great actually from the sort of Greek mythology point of view. It it plays the gods down a little bit. We don't see Hermes. Hermes does not help save Odysius from Cersei. We don't see Poseidon. There is sort of the idea that um that Adysius has enraged Poseidon and Poseidon is therefore obstructing the return home because we do have the sense that the Cyclops is a child of Poseidon. Okay. But we don't see Poseidon acting. And there's also a little bit of a muddy later on for for just a little bit.

53:25 There's this there's this muddied bit where um well I'll tell you Tyreseius basically says to Odysius your men are going to die. Here are the next few things that are going to happen. This is actually fairly straightforward adaptation of the poem. Here are the obstacles. Your men are all going to die. And and and you know you could choose this, they'll die that way. You could choose that. They'll all die the other way. It doesn't matter. They're going to die. And Adysius says basically I refuse to let them die. and uh well you will be defying the gods then I defy the gods this bit is this idea that he's defying the gods and he right that's not in it seems surplus to requirement I I don't know why you need it that's not in the um that's not in the poem and we do

54:10 have the idea that he has offended Poseidon although it's a little I think that's downplayed to make room for this funny idea that only lasts for like 20 minutes maybe half an hour that he's defying the gods by trying to help his men survive um notwithstanding the prophecy of Tyresius. So, we don't really see the gods. We do see Athena Zenia. Now, some of you were like again, "Yeah, that's another terrible casting." Yeah, I don't get Zenia. She's being cast in way too many things. She can't act. I guess she's attractive. I don't know. I don't especially think so. mostly as Athena. Odysius is the only one who can see her. Mentor is a character. He's just mentor. He's a guy. Tmicus says,

54:56 "Your eyes are wise like Athena's." At one point, there's this slight hint, but Tmicus doesn't see uh doesn't see Athena. Uh and uh only Odysius does. And often when he sees her, he just sees her and she's just we get a number of shots of Zenia just kind of smiling or looking sad and and that's it. She has again she I don't know how many lines but does she have a dozen lines in the movie? Does she have five? Not very many. Uh so so the the gods are here. It's pretty light but the monsters are here. And of all the adaptations this has the most monsters. This is the only one that does the le the Lestregonians who are giants and who kill a bunch of Adysius's uh men uh

55:42 pretty horrifically. The Cyclops is absolutely fantastic. He's um man, I want to tell you about him. I I will just say he is as as you know, the Cyclops is always gruesome. He like picks up men and eats them, right? He double double fists men. Uh and um uh this one is more gruesome than the others. This is a very unnerving, freaky Cyclops. So, by the way, if you were thinking about should I watch it in an iMac screen, it might be worth it. There there is some pretty cool spectacle. Uh this is I think the only one of the adaptations that deals with the cattle of the sun and Odysius being and his men being driven onto the island. Uh no worries. We're just going to uh you know

56:29 we know that if we eat the cattle of the sun, we'll die. Um we but we we won't do that. We'll just we'll just pick some berries and get some fresh water and go. But then the bad weather keeps them stuck on the island. They cannot leave and eventually Odysius's men give in and uh eat the cattle of the sun and this is the thing that results in them all having to die. Right. Um uh the monster Kuribdus and we we see Kuribdus also in the Armand Sante one. I think we also see it in Kirk Douglas. Um they are it's always basically the same. you're you're sailing past cliffs and something like serpent heads come down and uh grab the men. Um I don't think that's quite how it's described in the in the poem.

57:14 Actually, in the poem, I think it's uh that there are six heads and 12 arms. We never see arms. We just have these like snake heads come down and grab uh grab men. The the monsters all look great. Um, this uh is uh the only it's the most faithful portrayal of the necromancy scene. Um uh which is which is terrific. The Adysius lays a shield on the ground. They pour the blood of two rams into the shield. The dead come forward. We see Tyresius uh Agamemnon. By the way, this is the only one. When I when I talked about the poem a few weeks ago, I talked about how in the poem there is a sort of brooding, repeated, even constant

58:00 presence of another story behind the Odyssey, which is the story of the Orestia, the story of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter, coming home and being murdered by his wife, and then she and her lover Aistas being killed by arrestes as justice. Right? This shows up repeatedly in uh in in in the Odyssey in the poem uh eight or eight or nine times including Agamemnon, the shade of Agamemnon tells this story to Adysius when he shows up in in the necromancy scene. Uh, and he also tells it in the end when the dead suitors in turn show up in Hades and and Menaaus and Helen

58:46 tell it to Tmicus and Netor tells it to Tmicus and it's over and over again in the story. Of the four movie adaptations, this is the only one that mentions Arrestes and the murder of Agamemnon at all. Uh, and and it in fact does uh, interestingly it it tell it tells the story. It doesn't doesn't show the sacrifice of Ephagenia, but it it shows scenes around it. So, we sort of understand that sacrifice is there. So, this is very very homeic. Give it a nine for mythos. Um, I'm going to give it a five for logos. Man, there are just some other sort of logical problems. Yes, I don't I don't like the sort of war criminal deconstruction of Odysius. Not great. It's only five minutes. The framework they put that in is a little silly. So um it's sort of like they are

59:34 trying to uh give people who have had like you know one semester of uh ancient Greek or biblical history or or something like that. They're trying to like throw a bone to those people. So they are conscious so they are they're aware of the sea peoples. The sea peoples are out there and they are knocking down civilizations one by one. Okay. Now, of course, the sea peoples are a real thing and we don't really understand who they were there. Maybe they were the civilization in Sardinia. Maybe maybe we don't know. Um and in the end of the 13th century the bronze age came to did come to an end with some

1:00:21 kind of migration or mass warfare you know moving armies of these sea peoples who went and you know brought down yurit for example um and uh so so we start out with this fear we we get mentioned a couple times that the sea peoples are out here uh and then after Odysius talks about sacking he says we are the sea peoples. Now, as a matter of history, that's not true. Um, as a matter of like poetry, he's like he's say he's saying, "Oh, we have become, you know, our civilization is ending because we have become the barbarians that end civilization." And there's some extremely self-conscious and anacronistic and silly writing around this. He says, "Our age of bronze is

1:01:09 ending." Really? He's like, "I wonder what will come next. I wonder if this new fangled iron will be a thing. Maybe we'll skip straight to plastic. So, um [clears throat] I I I wish they hadn't done that. Uh like the war criminal stuff, it's completely unnecessary uh uh to the film. Uh it it just it just is sort of this anacronistic history 101 kind of oh and the sea peoples are going to put an end to this and the Bronze Age is going to end and literacy is going to be lost. In fact, Matt Damon at one point says something like it's at the end and he and he and Penelopey are kind of sailing off into the sunset and um which I like. That works for me. Uh and

1:01:56 um because he has agreed he hasn't been able to bury all of his men and so he has he's he's promised he would sail far west as he can the unknown lands and and offer sacrifices on their behalf for all the men he couldn't who who he left unburied in the Cyclops cave or on the beach of the Lreonians or whatever right and he's talking to Penelopey and she says something about um there's some line about this will only be remembered in song, I think. And she says, "Why?" And and he says, "Well, you know, pe the people are going to forget how to write and later on they will rediscover it." And you're like, "I I I don't think that [laughter] again, this is just like so someone who's had one class in Greek

1:02:44 history will go, "Ah, yes. In fact, they did write in, you know, uh linear A and linear B, and then apparently they forgot how to write for a few hundred years." and and then later they they got an alphabetic script from, you know, the the Phoenetians. Uh we haven't seen Adysius write anything. I don't think it just comes out of nowhere. So, uh that's all kind of dumb. On a logos level, I'm going to give it a bit of a five. I will say for Pathos, I'm going to give it a nine. Also, this was fun. If you don't care about any of the politics, you're like, "Dave, I don't mind a little bit of sort of, you know, modern commentary being injected into the film." Um, uh, and it it's not it's not too egregious. Uh, you know, this is this is fun. Uh,

1:03:32 Damon's great. Uh, by the way, bit of trivia for you. The Odyssey several times describes Odysius as having blonde hair. Fun fact. Uh Damon does a great job. Uh I forget who the name of the actress who plays Penelopey uh does a great job. Tom Holland is is is good as uh uh as Tmicus. The the guy who plays uh Menaus is um oh shoot I forget his name, but he played the Punisher. He's terrific. He plays him as kind of like just a little bit brutal, a little bit unreflective, right? Um he's terrific. Uh Robert Patson is great as Antinuous. Antinuous here is really played up as a coward. Um uh and Patton I mean I wish I wish they

1:04:19 let him be a little bit more heroic. Uh he so the story of the of the lots this is all not in the Odyssey but Agamemnon calls for men. Adysius h draws lot so only some men will come with him and Antinuis draws the lot that says he will come uh and he but doesn't want to and so Adysius switches the lot and gives it to Sinnan this is the shepherd boy who will become the Elliot Page character so Cinnan goes and it dies and is effectively sacrificed by Odysius instead of Antinuis and Antinuis is kind of a draft dodger so he he's fundamentally a coward we during the fight um and and the climactic fight is

1:05:04 is not so straight up as the version with Rafe Fines, it is mostly just Matt Damon's Odysius fighting all these guys. Um one one cool feature is that unlike any of the other versions, including the poems, as the fight goes on and it's clear that Odysius is just killing these guys, he's the superior man by far. some of the suitors start submitting and so you see men starting to just kneel down and lower their heads acknowledging Odysius as the as the rightful king. So it does not end yes a pile of corpses but also a bunch of men who will continue as the local nobility and gentry who have submitted to him. Right. I like that. Um Antinuis the coward the

1:05:50 whole time is basically hiding behind a column yelling at other people to pick up the spear, grab the shield, stab him, right? rather than fight himself. And then finally, Odysius just goes over and I think he stuffs the the lot in Antennis's mouth and stabs him to death. Um, but Robert, anyway, that's an aside. Robert Patson is great. The cast is great. The the look of it is great. Um, uh, look, you know, films can only make the special effects that the technology of their day will allow them to to produce. Um, you know, Advantage Nolan coming last, he has the ability to really do special effects. Uh, it I I quite enjoyed the film as a film. Um, uh, on an ethos level, I

1:06:39 for me, and I've I've basically already said this, this is sort of where it falls down. The the film is very self-consciously modern, which is fine. uh the film uh wants to present a feminist view which again I think is fine especially the way it's sort of it's handled that the whole thing is not a feminist deconstruction there are just feminist voices within it in dialogue with other voices um the whole Odysius is a uh war criminal uh and we are the barbarians that have destroyed our civilization like it's dumb it does not work for me. It is a uh it is a I think it's a fundamental betrayal of the Odyssey. So, for ethos, uh I'm going to

1:07:26 give this uh I'm going to give this a four. Again, if you were one of those people who uh was not watching this film for because of your perceived uh political grievances, um I think those are those are, you know, you're perceiving a real thing. Uh and um I I hope that someday uh you know when the film is free so you don't feel like you're contributing to the financial success of something that you disagree with that you you go back and watch it uh notwithstanding these error the not errors notwithstanding these things that you and to some extent also I object to it is a really en enjoyable film and by the way all of that stuff the the sack

1:08:13 of Troy every scene that Helen/clumnestra is in every scene that Zenia in is in every uh sort of moment of hey let me point out that the woman here is getting a raw deal like it might add up to 20 minutes three-hour film it might be 20 minutes it's and and it is all extrinsic to the film you could literally produce a version in which you cut all of that stuff well cutting out Helen would be tricky But I think you probably could still do it. Uh and uh and and you wouldn't notice or you would barely notice it came out at all. That is not what the movie is really about. It is. And by the way, I might be being unfair to it on an

1:08:59 ethos point because I will say um not only is the film about a man who wants to get home, although there are a couple of moments where we're sort of we're sort of led to ask the question, does he really want to? Did he let Calypso hold him? Um you know, did the sirens instill doubt in him? Um it's about a man who fights hard to get home. It is also about a father and son and and this part is if anything a little bit played up. It is about Tmicus. Uh a little bit of the plot minor plot changes are to sort of uh is a cool scene in a temple in Pyos where Odysius intervenes to save Pmicus from the

1:09:48 Tmicus from the suitors. Very cool. the father-son plot if anything is is strengthened, right? And this is Tmicus learning to to become a man like his father learning to step up and uh and become a king. Um which I think frankly if you're not watching this because uh of who got cast as Helen of Troy, I think that's probably a subplot you would really you would really enjoy. So um who is who is the current Adysius for? Look, if you are just not concerned about the politics, if you just want want to see the big fun film, if you are a Matt Damon fan, right, um if you're a Chris Nolan fan, uh uh if if you just

1:10:34 like spectacle, right, then like this movie is for you. The the theater that I sat in was pretty full. I went to the very first show I get to. Um we'll see how it goes. My guess is that the film's going to do uh is going to do well, which by the way is great in that what it means is we will we're therefore more likely to get an anid or an Iliad or an Orestia or something else in the next five years. All right. Um [clears throat] so pick your poison as to which Odyssey you want to watch or like me you can watch them all. it will it will take you you know uh 10 hours or so to to see all of them. Uh look forward to discussing getting back to books. We'll talk books again next time. Uh in the meantime uh

1:11:21 thanks for being here. This has been Dave for Hy Low Brow because culture matters and it's good to have fun. [music]