Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey"
I went to Chriostopher Nolan’s new zillion dollar epic “The Odyssey” with trepidation. Why the trepidation, despite the all-star cast and glowing reviews? Well == I’ve disliked every Nolan movie I’ve seen, and boycotted “Oppenheimer” as a result.
In “The Dark Knight”, I remember that when Heath Ledger’s Joker gets captured halfway through the film, I was thinking. “Pray to God this means the movie is almost over”. In “inception”, when that stupid van fell off the bridge, I remember wishing everyone would die, so I could go home. “Dunkirk” failed in the primary lure of disaster movies – the viewer has to care about who lives and who dies.
“The Odyssey” did nothing to repair the much-lauded Nolan’s reputation for me. It butchered the story; it was logically inconsistent; it lasted for three endless hours. Here are some complaints:
The attempts to “modernize” the story were disastrous. Matt Daymon’s Odysseus has a long monologue about regretting inventing the Trojan Horse, because it led to such (graphically depicted) death and horror. Then (a couple of minutes later) he slaughters the suitors in a fifteen-minute (boring) fight scene. Good grief! Myths (and fantasy) eschew the modern novelistic tradition (much lauded by literature teachers) of “character development”. Heros (and Gods) are well established in their characters. The dramatic tension of the story is not about how they change, but about how they deal with challenges.
Any wit in the Epic has been eliminated. Odysseus never tells Polyphemus his name is “nobody”, for example. The story of Odysseus’s feigned madness attempting to avoid going to Troy has been not only expunged, also but changed into a story of bribery and oppression.
The romance of the Trojan war has been unsuccessfully modernized. Of course I have no objection to Helen and Clytemnestra being portrayed by black women, but a monologue about how the war was “really” about Agamemnon’s desire to “control trade routes: is ridiculous. Where is, “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” Must everything be a conspiracy theory?
The Circe story has eliminated Hermes, and has portrayed Circe as a manipulative magician, instead of a mystical, semi-divine daughter of Helios. All the magic of secne has disappeared under Nolan’s heavy-handed touch.
A scene in which Odysseus and his men are attacked by giant knights wearing medieval armor has been added, for no apparent reason except to lengthen the already interminable movie.
In the Siren scene, Odysseus, bound to the mast, screams in pain and horror at the lure of the Siren’s song. Really? Is this the reaction anyone would have to beautiful, enchanting music?
The scene among the dead is a disaster. In the film, it’s become a zombie action scene, lacking any of the mystic terror with which it should be imbued.
The ending tries to glom on the great Tennyson poem “Ulysses”, but fails miserably. The action of the poem takes place years after the slaughter of the suitors, when Odysseus os an old man. He is giving the kingship to Telemachus. To rid myself of the sour taste left by the movie, I’ll quote the last lines of this masterpiece and be done with Nolan.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
