When I first heard that Christopher Nolan’s next film would be The Odyssey, as in Homer’s epic poem, I was somewhat perplexed. I thought it an odd choice for the director of a trio of Batman films (2005-2012), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), and Oppenheimer (2023). It was almost as if he’d decided to make a film of Treasure Island or Peter Pan. Actually, I realize I’d like to see what his versions of those two narratives would be like. It doesn’t matter if his choice of subject matter challenged my expectations, whatever those were. He’s a serious filmmaker who clearly doesn’t enter into new projects lightly. Whatever he does, he gives it a distinctive spin and it’s always worth seeing.

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I had read The Odyssey in college, the Robert Fitzgerald translation. The only thing I remembered was the climactic reckoning when Odysseus slaughters the suitors who’d spent years waiting for his wife Penelope to pick a new husband from their lot. I found this tremendously exciting. But I knew next to nothing of the scholarship that has gone into the study of this work. It was only with all the attention and hooplah attending to the run-up and release of Nolan’s film that I began to get a sense of how influential Homer’s Odyssey has been.

Per the University of Chicago: “Attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer, the epic has been retold, retranslated and readapted countless times. At UChicago, the Odyssey is a foundational text in the undergraduate Core curriculum.”

Per Wikipedia: “The Odyssey is regarded as one of the most significant works of the Western canon. The first complete translation of the Odyssey was in 1616. Adaptations and re-imaginings continue to be produced across a wide variety of media. In 2018, when BBC Culture polled experts around the world to find literature’s most enduring narrative, the Odyssey topped the list.”

There have been many translations since 1616. Here are just a few of the more modern ones.

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Just as Oppenheimer was the film I most wanted to see in 2023, The Odyssey was that for me this year. By the time of their release, both films had acquired the aura of an event. When I learned that The Odyssey was the first feature to be shot entirely with IMAX cameras and would be projected in 70mm IMAX at select theaters, I knew that’s how I had to see it. There are only forty-one theaters worldwide that can show 70mm IMAX. Twenty-six of those are in the United States, and one of those is here in New York City at the AMC Lincoln Square on Broadway and West 68th Street. Nolan has reportedly said that this theater has the best IMAX screen. I’m just glad I didn’t have to travel from another state or even another country (many have) in order to see it in this format. Not that that’s something that most people would actually do.

I ordered tickets for 70mm IMAX the first day they became available online, seven weeks in advance of the July 17 opening. Even then, the soonest I could get seats where I wanted in the theater was for July 23. After all that, and all the anticipation I’d cranked up, by the time I sat down in my seat for the 2:00 pm show that day, I’d been up twenty-eight hours straight without sleep, due to circumstances too complicated to lay out herel. Hardly ideal. I managed to stay awake, more or less, though hardly alert. I knew I should see it again, though by now all upcoming showings in 70mm IMAX were basically sold out (and, as I write this, still are). The Odyssey was playing at Lincoln Square in a variety of formats, so I managed to see it the following week in their Dolby Cinema. It was then I realized how much I’d missed, and how much better it was this time.

I saw it a third time two weeks later with my wife Nancy, who hadn’t seen it yet. This was in 70mm, but not IMAX. I liked it best in Dolby Cinema. This time, I think I was seeing it how I imagined it was for Nancy. It was a lot louder than I remembered, the music, all the sounds, a cacophony at times. Some of the sequences played like a horror film, such as Circe (Samantha Morton) turning Odysseus’ men into swine, or trapped in the cave with the Cyclops biting off heads, the sacking of Troy, and being attacked by the Laestrygonians, a tribe of armored man-eating giants, seemingly indestructable. All extreme and very intense.

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Some may have flashier roles, but Matt Damon as Odysseus  is solid, dependable and determined, an anchor. Regardless of the role he’s playing, whether as Jason Bourne, for example, or General Groves in Nolan’s Oppentheimer, Damon always feels totally authentic. Others in the cast who stand out include Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as her son Telemachus, Robert Pattinson as the loathsome Antinous, and especially John Leguizamo as the blind swineherd Eumaeus, Odysseus’ faithful servant and surrogate father.

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As I mentioned at the beginning, my knowledge of Homer’s Odyssey was basically limited to reading it once in college. By reading some of the many writings that have appeared in response to Nolan’s film, I was aware of a lot of what scholars and critics have said about how he did it, both good and bad. It’s interesting , for example to learn that Odysseus and his men encountered not just one Cyclops, but a whole group , and had conversations with them. I also noted that several critics thought Nolan should have had the gods be more of an actual presence. Athena (played by Zendaya) is the only god to appear on screen. Even then, I think it’s more the case that Odysseus imagines seeing her than that she’s actually there. Nolan gets away with having a Cyclops and armored giants in the film, but as with everything else, they feel very physical and have weight. Moreover, we don’t have to see Poseidon to know that he’s there, considering all the storms and weird shit he throws at Odysseus and the crew. The gods are definitely there, behind the curtain.

In any event, I’m only equipped to judge the film by how well it does or doesn’t work. For me it works. In his films Nolan has been working on an increasingly epic scale. His preference for practical effects rather then CGI results in the images having a physical feel, a weight. His commitment to shooting on film stock, developing new filmmaking technologies and ways of telling a story are part of being a total filmmaker, someone involved in every aspect, all of it.

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Per a quote at the beginning of this piece, Homer’s Odyssey “… has been retold, retranslated and readapted countless times.” Here are some examples of that.

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Ulysses (1954) Italian film with Kirk Douglas as Ulysses (Odysseus in Latin), Anthony Quinn as Antinous, Silvanno Magnano as both Penelope and Circe. I watched this last month. It’s very bad. The poster oversells it just a bit.

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The Return (2024) Directed by Umberto Pasolini, with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope. Very good, not at all epic in scope. Of course, in all versions of this story you’re waiting for the big finish when Odysseus wipes out all the suitors. The ending could have been a little bigger, I thought.

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Last month I happened to walk by the Bergdorf Goodman store on Fifth Avenue and 58th and saw this in one of their windows. It was probably done to tie into the new film, but the thing is, everybody knows the term “Trojan horse” even if they don’t necessarily know where it comes from.

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I don’t presume to have added anything new to the ongoing Odyssey conversation. Many people possessing more knowledge and sharper minds (some of them, anyway) have already done so. These are just some of the thoughts I’ve had that I want to put out there.

See you next time. — Ted Hicks

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