Transcription
In the past couple of years, there have been two film adaptations of Homer's Odyssey starring Hollywood A-listers. 2024's The Return, directed by Oberto Pasalini, and starring Ray Fines, Juliet Binosh, and Charlie Plamer. And 2026 is The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Matt Damon and Haway and Tom Holland.
But which one, if either, captures the spirit of the epic poem that is Homer's Odyssey? I have thoughts. Probably lots of them.
If you're new here, hi, I'm Juliet. I'm a writer and historian. On this channel, I usually talk about classic Gothic literature, Gothic movies, and ghost stories, but I am by training a classicist. My original specialism was ancient Rome, and I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Beaowolf. I was comparing those three poems and the historical periods plural represented by them. So, of course, I have to talk about the Odyssey, even if it well, it does have the underworld scene in it. Um, or at least the Matt Damon one does, which is, you know, pretty creepy. So, it's not a million miles from my usual subject matter.
Before we get into it, quick spoiler warning. Obviously, if you don't know the story of the Odyssey, I am going to talk about the whole story and everything in it and spoil everything. And if you haven't seen either movie, but particularly the Christopher Nolan movie, there are a couple of kind of interesting things that Nolan does that you might not be expecting. Nothing major if you know the story, but there are a couple of, you know, surprises as it were. So, if you want to go into the movie spoiler-free, then click away and come back, bookmark the video so that you can come back when you've seen the movie. If you're not bothered about spoilers, then obviously crack right on.
This is the Odyssey, or rather an English translation of Homer's Odyssey. This is the Robert Fagel's translation. This is the one that my dissertation supervisor recommended when I was studying it for my dissertation way back in 2003. At the time, it was quite a new one. There have been other translations that have come out since. I think Emily Wilson's is the most recent major translation. I have only read it all the way through in this one. I'm not going to lie, it was a while ago. I've revisited it in bits over however many years. How long is it since 2003? 23 years. [laughter] I haven't actually sat down and read it cover to cover since the summer of 2003. Um but I have revisited it many times um in kind of sections.
Anyway, um so this is the Fagel translation. Uh my copy um got a bit warped. I I had one of those bubbly fish tanks with plastic fish in it and it sprang a leak and soaked all my books. Most of my books were saved, ironically, by my Jerusalem Bible, which was nearest the fish tank and took the brunt of it. Anyway, I don't know if the camera picks up on that, but it's kind of warped.
As you can see, this is a very, very long poem. The Iliad and the Odyssey are what we call oralderived. They were transmitted orally by bards or poets who would sing the the story the poems and they would compose as they go. This theory was developed in the 1930s by Milman Perry and Albert Lord. They studied poets who were doing this in what was at that time Yugoslavia. And they realized that whereas the Victorians had thought that the poets were memorizing every word of these poems and then somebody wrote them down. What was actually happening is the poets had the basic outline of the the story. They had kind of the core plot that they knew and they were then composing around it. And you can tell that from these poetic epithets that are used to describe things like the famous wine dark sea which everybody's wept blood trying to work out why the sea is the color of red wine and uh swiftooted Achilles and and that kind of thing. Um these are ways of fitting into the meter. Um which uh homeriic poetic meter is dactilic hexameter I think. I will check. Anyway, they would fit into the poetic meter. Um so they could put the ep in or leave it out depending how many syllables they needed at any given time. That was quite a revelation um when Harry and Lord kind of came up with this theory.
Now you'll notice this is extremely long. >> [gasps] >> Chances are nobody was recite not reciting but kind of composing the entire Odyssey all in one go. What's obviously happened is at some point between 800 and 600 BCE. Um they've been written down. I am going to refer to the author as Homer. There's all sorts of debate about whether it's one or two people. Is it one person for the Lad one for the Odyssey? Is it multiple people on both poems? For convenience, I just refer to the author as Homer and they have written down these songs. So, one version has therefore been solidified as the written version, but probably it would have been sections that would have been performed rather than the whole lot all at once. Possibly. I mean, who knows? I did Barbenheimr um [laughter] a few years that last time there was a Christopher Nolan movie out. Maybe they did just sit down for the day and do the whole thing. Um but anyway, that's the theory.
Something I want to get out of the way straight away as I start talking about this is I do not think any modern film adaptation should exactly adapt the exact story that's in Homer's Odyssey or any ancient mythological text because that is not the point of myth or folklore or legend in pretty much any context. Certainly Greek and Roman myth. They are meant to be changed with each new version. That is what the Greeks did. There is some evidence to suggest that Medadia did not murder her children until Uripides decided she did. And now that's the version. Apologies if I've spoiled Medadia. I don't think there's a major adaptation of Media coming out anytime soon. Anyway, um the Greeks retold their myths and deliberately made changes when they retold them. Now, they would have a kind of a core story. Um, I think I talked about this when I talked about the movie Troy a little while back. Uh, something like what the movie Troy does where it kills off a major character that does not die in any version of the myth. That would be less common, although frankly I wouldn't put it past Uripides. But they would have this kind of core of the story and then they would invent around that. uh if a Janiah is in this movie very briefly and there are plays where she dies and plays where she is magically rescued I'm pretty sure both by Uripides [laughter] there were lots of different versions of these stories they're not meant to be static.
Now I will grant that Homer the poems of Homer which is the Iliad and the Odyssey are as close to a canonical version of Greek myth as you get that later writers will constantly refer back to well Homer says Homer says Homer says, so I'll give you that if there was a canonical version of this is the correct version of a Greek myth, then Homer would be it. But this is just myth is not meant to be static. It is not meant to be exactly the same in every telling. It is meant to be rewritten for new audiences and in new mediums. Mediums, media, I've done Latin media would be correct. uh Uripides is writing Greek tragedy that is different from oralderived epic poetry. We have a character in the Nolan movie who's been imported from Virgil Zaneer which is also epic poetry but written by a single individual author and like existing as a written version first. We think the Romans did actually read aloud. So a lot of them would have experienced the anerided by listening but listening to somebody reading from a text rather than composing as they go. Anyway, I'm getting carried away. Sorry.
The point being that these texts are not supposed to be static. They are supposed to change. So, I am not going to go through like every single plot deviation that either of these movies make from what is in Homer's Odyssey. Now, I will mention plot deviations that are particularly interesting or important or like the death of certain king in Troy make you go, "Wait, wait, what?" Um, I will mention those. I'm not going to not talk about plot differences, but I'm not going to go through every single one. And I am not going to criticize either movie for making changes to the story because that's what you're supposed to do with Greek mythology. It is supposed to change and evolve over time and create new stories for new audiences within a kind of generally accepted core of the story.
The topic of my undergraduate dissertation, by the way, was to what extent do the poems of Homer represent the Bronze Age when they are set. The late Bronze Age would be when the Trojan War happened, if it's real. There was almost certainly wars between the city of Wucia in what is now Turkey and Greek citystates. That absolutely, I'm sure, is a thing that happened. The specifics of the story of the Trojan War, however, are I do not think there is any reason to think they have much of a relationship with actual history. There is a giant horse in this story. There is gods and talking horses, not the giant one, an actual other horse in the Iliad. Achilles fights a river. The Odyssey has all this fantastical stuff. I don't think that the specifics are historical, but I do think there probably was a war between Greek citystates and Wucia. That is the inspiration. Um, this the Hittite city of Wucia, by the way. Um, that I think was the inspiration for the myth.
Anyway, my dissertation looked at to what extent the poems seem to be talking about Bronze Age society and to what extent they're talking about uh the time the poem was written down uh which is the very end of the Greek dark ages around 800 CE. The dark ages are called that because there's a lack of written texts. In the Bronze Age, we don't have any evidence for Greek. We have linear B which is a different language. um Greek appears basically with the writings of Homer and Piod um around 800 B.CE. And then I compared that to Beaolf and the extent to which Beaolf uh represents kind of very early medieval pagan Denmark and to what extent it represents very slightly later still early medieval Christian England. Anyway, you don't need to know the entire content of my undergraduate dissertation. Uh, but the issue of the time period that the story takes place does come up in Nolan's movie, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
So, the first of the two movies I'm talking about is The Return from 2024. This movie adapts a specific section of the Odyssey. Actually, a lot of what makes up the Odyssey. Uh, this is something that I will be talking about when I'm talking about the the Nolan movie. Um, but basically the bit that is adapted in the return would be roughly books 13 to 24 of 24 books or maybe books 13 to 22 depending where you want to draw the line. Anyway, it adapts roughly the second half more or less um of of the Odyssey, but it does not adapt any of the adventures that are probably the most famous bit of the Odyssey. The most famous stories from the Odyssey are the adventures encountered by Odysius and his crew on their way home in a series of islands and sea monsters and storms and things. And these are told essentially in flashback by Odysius in books 9 to 12 of the 24 books of the Odyssey. So I want to get into this a bit more with the Nolan movie in terms of kind of structure and stuff, but basically the return skips all of that um and it adapts just that back half which is about the actual return of Adysius. Um the kind of part from where Adysius actually makes it back to Ithaca, his home. um and then what happens after that. So it is very much adapting um a a very specific section of the story.
It takes a very for one of a better word realistic tone. Um there are no fantasy elements in the return and no gods appear in the return. It is intended to be very grounded. We only hear about the Trojan War in people talking about it. We do not see any flashbacks to the Trojan War. Everything is tied to what's happening in Ithaca at that time. It's very focused on the relationship between Adysius and Penelope and of course also Adysius's son Tmicus played by Charlie Plameumber.
I haven't done a sort of a breakdown of the plot of the Odyssey because of its weird structure. [laughter] It's kind of um it's a bit of an odd one to kind of summarize this is the plot, but uh basically the present day action of the Odyssey is following first Tmicus, Adysius son and Penelope. They have all of these suitors, these men who are trying to marry Penelope who are getting really really angry and taking over their house. Leertes, Adysius father is still alive, but Leertes is not the king. Adius is. Tmicus was a very young child when Adysius left and is now early 20s. And there is this very tense political situation where the suitors want to marry Pineelope and take over as king as opposed to Tmicus who is obviously Adysius's heir. And then Adysius returns. He initially disguises himself as a beggar and then he strings the bow that only he can string. And then he slaughters all of the suitors who have been plaguing his household and all of the slave girls who have been in relationships with the suitors. Um and he kills them all. Um and then he has to go and find um a place where no one's ever heard of the sea and plant his ore. um which is a little bit of folklore that gets left out of both movie adaptations. So that's the kind of basic plot and the return essentially focuses on that like present day storyline um of the Odyssey as it were. Um, I don't think it included Tamicus visiting Menlouse, um, which happens toward the beginning of the Odyssey, but he does kind of go on a a trip, but mostly it focuses on the actual, like the title says, the return, the nostrus and the reun reuniting of Adysius and Penelope and the killing of the suitors.
Christopher Nolan's Odyssey aims to adapt a lot more of the poem. So, he doesn't structure it in the exact same way as the poem is structured, but the structure of the Nolan movie is a lot more similar. I'm fairly sure that Nolan just wanted to make this movie because he's allergic to linear storytelling, and the Odyssey is kind of the oldest example in Western literature of nonlinear storytelling. So, the structure of the Odyssey has this opening with Tmacus. Tmacus goes to visit Menelaus and Helen and they talk about what happened in the Trojan War. Then we go to Adysius who has been held captive by a nymph called Calypso for seven years. Adysius gets away from Calypso, washes up on the shore of a place called Fisha and is taken in by the princess Nika and her father. Then Adysius tells a bunch of stories. You know, first a poet called Demodicus tells the story of the Trojan War. Then Adsius tells his own story and that's books 9 to 12. He tells the story of everything that happened to him and his men, every single one of whom died except for him. Uh, which is their own fault as the movie does point out. And then Adysius gets back to Ithaca and it kind of goes from there.
So Nolan's movie um doesn't exactly replicate the structure of the book. Um Nolan's structure is messier is not quite fair because it's not messy. It's very deliberate, but it doesn't have the kind of chunks that the poem does where you sit and for three books worth Adysius tells his story. It doesn't do that. It's much more interspersed with other things. He's also cut the Fishians entirely and Adysius is talking to Calypso, which is something I want to come back to in a bit. But Nolan's movie does therefore adapt much more and in fact gives a lot more screen time to the Trojan War than the epic poem does. There are sections in the poem that talk about what happened in the Trojan War. Um I think there is a bit more time given to that in Nolan's movie than space in the poem. Um but it it is essentially it is telling an awful lot of the poem. He has cut down the adventures section a bit. He likes to spend quite a lot of time with the ones that he is adapting and then he's cut loads of other bits. So the island of the lotus eaters in Nolan's movie has been blended with Calypso. Calypso has been giving Odicius lotus flowers to eat which in the poem um it's a separate adventure and all of them eat lotus flowers which make you forget. Um that has been made much more of a plot point and blended with calypso. There are references to the winds being against them, but the whole thing where they get a bag of winds they're not supposed to open and then they open it and all this kind of thing is is cut. Quite a few of the kind of more minor islands and adventures have been cut. The Lystragonians are in there a bit more briefly, but most of the focus is given to the best known of Adysius adventures, which is the Cyclops, the oneeyed giant in a cave with a herd of sheep. the Sirens, who we see they don't spend as much time with as the Cyclops, but they do get a fair amount of attention. Skila and Kuribdis, which is where they're trapped between a whirlpool and a man-eating monster, who in this movie is kind of a rock monster looking thing. It's kind of cool. Cersei the witch who turns Adysius men into pigs. And of course, the underworld. I've said those in the wrong order, I am aware. Um, but those are kind of the main uh adventures that that get adapted. And then the part where Adysius's men eat the cattle of the sun. Um, which they were told not to do and then uh everybody dies in a storm. I missed the actual island with the cattle of the sun because that was the point where I ran to the bathroom. Um, so if there was anything particularly interesting about Nolan's adaptation of that incident, I apologize. I missed it. I I was I was in the the smallest room.
Something I found really fascinating about Nolan's movie was the way he tied it to real life Greek history. He talked a lot about how there was this threat of peoples from the sea. And they kept talking about our civilization's going to fall. The sea peoples are coming. The these people from the sea are threatening us. Now the bronze age in Greece kind of basically society collapsed. We know this from things like um population collapse. The physical palace centers are either destroyed or kind of go to ruin. Uh there's evidence of fire at a lot of them. So these huge rich palace sites at places like Mysini um which is where Agamemnon is meant to be king. Um they completely collapse. The language linear B disappears. uh once we get writing again about 400 years later, three or 4 hundred years later, it's Greek, it's a different language, and so on and so forth. And there's lots of theories about what caused the collapse of this civilization, but one of the most popular is it was invaders from the sea, often referred to as the sea peoples, which is not quite as exciting as it sounds. They're not like my people or anything. Um, it just means invaders who came over the water from somewhere, [laughter] speaking Greek presumably. So, that is is real history. And Nolan uses it to tie into the movie and he makes everybody very aware of this kind of impending doom for their civilization. And then right at the end, Adysius has this realization that it's it's him that um there's this whole thing where he violated guest law with the horse. Now, if I remember my Greek mythology right, um the gods were approving of the whole horse thing because they wanted the Greeks to win the Trojan War. The gods had decided the Greeks were going to win the Trojan War. So, this I think is more of an invention of Nolan's movie that actually the whole thing with the Trojan horse where they pretend it's a gift and then they jump out of it and slaughter everybody was an offense to the gods and broke all the laws of guest friendship which are very central to the Odyssey and are very important to the story. Um, and then he's like, "We are the peoples from the sea. We're bringing down the collapse of our own civilization type thing." It was an interesting way to adapt it. I did think it was really cool the way he was tying it to some real Greek history.
Obviously slight drawback to that. Um I know there are a lot of people who are very upset about the specifics of the design of the armor and I think also of the ships. I am not an expert in ancient Greek armor. I know about hotlight armor from the classical period which is this is too early for. I have seen images of bronze age armor and ships. Um but I am not an expert in that kind of material history. So I will leave it to people who know far more about it to pick holes in that. Generally speaking, I am not bothered by [clears throat] what the armor or the ships look like particularly in an adaptation of myth because it is a myth. Having said that, Nolan has placed it in a very specific period of history. So I do therefore have some sympathy with people who take issue with inaccurate representations of armor or ships if you're going to place it so specifically in a that very particular historical context of the very end of the Bronze Age and the impending collapse of Masonian civilization. Uh then yeah I can see why people might nitpick more about the armor and the boats and so on.
I should probably talk about the casting for the movie as much as I don't especially want to. As far as I can tell, I think both movies have gone with essentially colorblind casting. It's not particularly obvious what the casting choices were being driven by in The Return. Um, a lot of the cast do appear to be Mediterranean, but the three stars are not, unless Juliet Pino is from the Mediterranean bit of France. She might be, I don't know. Raith Fines and Charlie Plamer are not Mediterranean actors. Most of the other people in the movie are. I think it is important to recognize that you need a bigname star to open a movie like this. And Nolan's movie has a much bigger budget and is a much bigger deal and requires a star to open it. I think that's important to acknowledge.
I do think Juliet Binosh is probably older than Penelope should be. Um I'm not sure how much older than me she is, but I think she's slightly older than me. Um I haven't looked up her age. Uh, Penelope should be about Anne Hathaway's age because in ancient Greece, women would get married around the ages of about 12 to 15. Men around the age of 30 later in the classical period. I mean, for the bronze age, who knows really? We don't have that specific information, but an Odysius who is about 15 years older than Penelopey absolutely makes sense. And Penelope should be about in her late 30s. There's an interesting moment in Nolan's movie where the suitor Antinuis, who's like the bad guy suitor, um he talks about them having children of their own. And that is important to consider. Penelope, you know, Adysius has been gone 20 years, but if she was between 12 and 15 when they got married, then she would still be capable of having more children. that is quite significant to this whole business with people wanting to marry her with them pressuring her to remarry with her worrying about what's going to happen to Tmicus if she has a child with a second husband you know what does that mean for Tmkus is is quite a big deal so I I think probably is a tad older than Penelopey should be but I I'm not going to let it bother me and Hatherway as I mentioned is exactly the right age for Penelope Tom Holland is actually a tiny bit too old for Tmicus um but he looks very young So that doesn't matter. Um, I did find it a tiny bit distracting through no fault of anybody as an actor or writer, but he kept saying to people, you have the eyes of Athena and like in real life, he's married to Zenaia, the actress playing Athena. And I I just kept feeling like he was coming on to them all. That has nothing to do with him or the writing. That is entirely me [laughter] and my brain going to weird places.
But the other thing I need to mention about the Nolan movies casting is he has gone for as far as I can tell mostly colorblind casting. This is a casting approach where you cast whatever actor you want for whatever role regardless of race, ethnicity, hair color, age. does appear to have paid a bit of attention to. Um, but essentially it doesn't matter what somebody's origin is or what kind of the color of their hair or skin is. You cast whoever you want in the role. This has been around for a long time. The RSC have been doing it since at least the 1990s. You can see it in the movies of Kenneth Brer, not his Agatha Christie adaptations which are a bit different where he has black actors playing roles and they will kind of mention it if it's like, you know, it's set in the 1930s and they'll sort of allude to it. But in Brana's Shakespeare adaptations, in Thor and in Cinderella, he does colorblind casting. You just don't pay attention. Uh, a great example is 2019's personal history of David Copperfield that uses colorblind casting. That is absolutely down the line. We are not going to pay attention whatsoever to the point that immediate family members will be of all different ethnicities. Nolan's movie actually doesn't quite go that far because when we see if Janiah, the daughter of Clyon Neestra, played by Lupita Nyongo, she is a mixed race child. She's also been aged down a lot. If a Janiah is uh told she's going to marry Achilles, she should be about 12 to 15, still a child. Um but she's a tiny child in this movie. Um but with the exception of Ifaganaya um Nolan has gone for colorblind casting in this movie.
Now before anyone asks, yes, I am equally happy with colorblind casting for British and Irish history, mythology, legend, etc. I saw a great black actor play Henry V 6th in the RSC several years ago. It's most often used for things with a kind of heightened reality like musical theater, Shakespeare plays, and epic poetry adaptations. There are some people who don't like colorblind casting as an approach. That's fine. Um if if that's your opinion, that's fine. But that is the approach that the casting in this movie is taking. And I personally have no problem with it. I I think it's perfectly fine.
Lupita and Yongo is playing both Helen and Clay Nestra because in this version they have been made into twin sisters, identical twin sisters. In Greek mythology they are half sisters. So this isn't a massive stretch. It's a change. Um the main thing that it achieves is both roles are very important but in terms of screen time very small. Um it also of course sets up a parallel between the two um quite [laughter] I say angry women. Helen isn't so much angry in this version as sad.
Just to reiterate the spoiler warning just stop now if you don't want movie spoilers. Um, in this version, Nolan has gone with a Helen who is clearly very unhappy to be back with Menaus. This varies. In Homer's Odyssey, she's actually very happy to be back in Sparta. She says that the goddess Aphrodite drove her mad and that she had kind of got over that madness um at the point the war ended. And uh they they seem to be, as far as one can tell, fairly happy. In this version, that's not the case, but that does match other versions of the story, just not Homer's. And in this version, her face is scarred. Um, they quote, of course, Marlo's line, which is many centuries later than Homer, like millennia later than Homer, actually. Um, but that she's got the face that launched a thousand ships, and then Menaus makes this cruel jive about half or like 500 ships or something, because she's got scarring down one side of her face. This is obviously a reference to the versions of the story where Menelaus is extremely violent towards Helen. when they do finally recover her. She clearly does not want to be there. Her costumeuming almost looks a tiny bit Egyptian, which may be a nod to versions of the story where she was in Egypt the entire time, but that isn't what they've gone with and that isn't in Homer. And then Clyum Neestra has even less screen time. Um, but is important. They're important to the theme of homecomings and marital relationships. kind of half the point of Adysius and Penelopey is they love each other and they have a very good marriage and in the rather sexist tones of the time Penelopey is the good wife who waits and keeps Adysius's throne for him and she's loyal and all this stuff whereas Clyum Nestra now the movie I think like modern audiences tends to sympathize with Clayton Neestra but Clayton Neestra is the bad wife who murders her husband and Helen just depends on the version exactly what's going on with her but the fates of Helen and Clayton Nestra are important to the themes of the Odyssey, but they are in terms of screen time very small roles and it kind of mirrors them. So yeah, I I think it's quite an interesting change and Lupita Yongo is a fantastic actress. And of course, this image of her in the movie is in fact her playing Claytonestra, not Helen. The reason that images of her as Helen were not released is to hide the kind of spoiler that she has a scarred face as Helen.
I will move on from this in a second because it's really not what I want this video to be about. But just because this has been such a topic of conversation, the casting of Helen of Troy all over the internet for months, I do just want to add two more things very quickly. One, Helen hatched from an egg. Anyone can play her. And two, Gallen Gorg, a black actress, played Helen of Troy in an episode of Xen Warrior Princess in the mid 1990s. This is not a new idea. it's just on a bigger budget. And now I'm gonna stop talking about that because it is just not what I particularly want to focus on, but that needed to be said.
So, I mentioned I'm not going to go through like plot beat for plot beat exactly what each movie does. What I want to do is talk about a few core aspects of the Odyssey of Homer's Odyssey and how well I think each movie captured the spirit of the poem in a new medium and with some plot changes.
Both movies have a fairly grim tone. I mentioned that Helen and Menaus are much more unhappy. Um, you know, there is a clear you there is a dark tone to what's going on with them in Nolan's movie. Both movies feature the slaughter of the suitors. Both movies pull back a bit on the slaughter of the slave girls. There's one slave girl who's betrayed Penelope in Nolan's movie. I can't remember if we even see any of the women in The Return, but it does focus quite a lot on the violence of the slaughter of the suitors, but I think that is actually a pretty good representation of the source material. A movie came out a few weeks ago that I haven't seen yet called The Death of Robin Hood, based on a ballad called Robin Hood's Death, but I've actually adapted myself in one of my books. And I do want to see the movie, but I read a plot summary of it on Wikipedia. I just haven't had time to see it yet. This version of Robin Hood in this new movie with Hugh Jackman is so miserable and grim. And my immediate thought reading this plot summary was Robin Hood is specifically stated in the earliest ballads to have never hurt a woman and he goes after corrupt churchmen and corrupt landlords. Yes, Robin Hood is an outlaw and a murderer, but the tone of the ballads and the folklore and the stories about Robin Hood is not that. The Odyssey, on the other hand, is grim in the source material. The Iliad is even grimmer because the Iliad is the war poem. So, the Iliad is the war is Hades poem. The Anid by Virgil is also even grimmer. It kind of takes elements of both poems and sort of smooshes them together. But it does the Odyssey half first and then the Iliad half. And that one's pretty grim, too. The Odyssey is the lighter of the three, but that's not saying much. And Adysius is that violent. He does slaughter all the suitors without mercy. He is, as the Nolan's movie repeats many times, a veteran of the Trojan War. He did come up with the idea for the Trojan horse that resulted in the destruction of an entire city. So all of that violence and grimness is in the story. Oh, and he lost every single one of his men on the way home.
Something Nolan's movie pays a lot of attention to that is sort of mentioned more in The Return. But both movies have this kind of characterization of Adysius as he's traumatized. He's very violent. He wants to let go of that violence, but he can't. He's forced to take violent action again to protect his son and to recover his wife. So, I think the grim tone does reflect the source material, even if personally I would love a few more jokes. Even a sad or grim movie can still have some humor in it. Why is this something we have forgotten? If you watch Gladiator or Titanic, two of my favorite movies of all time. The other one is the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, they have humor in amongst the violence and/or death. Titanic has a small amount of violence, but either way, they have humor, they have moments of lightness, they have warmth and friendship. Now, the Odyssey does have the reunion of Adysius and Penelope, so it's not completely lacking in warmth, but [sighs] the move both movies are a bit unrelentingly grim, [gasps] which personally I would have liked a little more lightness. I suppose I could always just go watch Oh, Brother, where art thou instead, [laughter] which is a lot lighter. Anyway, I do think much as it may not be to my personal taste that that is a accurate is maybe the wrong word, but it is very much within the spirit of the source material. Um, so I think those choices do very much reflect um the the source material, the poem Homer's Odyssey, and also the various other sources. Nolan's movie in particular incorporates elements of other sources as well. Senon comes from the Inid that character. We see the line from Marlo's Foustus. It's definitely a different text. Um it does include kind of bits of other text. But anyway, either way, I I think the grim tone is a pretty good reflection of the source material.
The narrative structure of Nolan's movie is obviously much closer to the narrative structure of the poem because as I mentioned the poem has this kind of present day action with Tmicus Menaus telling stories about the Trojan War then a bit more present day action then Adysius telling stories about his journey home for ages then back to the present. Nolan's movie doesn't replicate it exactly but does replicate that kind of switching between present- day action and flashbacks. Interestingly though, I think actually it's the return that gets across the spirit of that structure. Even though the return is completely linear, what I mean is in the return, we never see flashbacks to anything happening outside of Ithaca. Everything we see is centered on Adysius and Tmicus and Penelope and Antinuis and the Suitors in Ithaca. But they do tell stories. They talk about what happened in the war. I don't remember how much detail Adicius gives. I've only seen the movie once. I watched it last week, but just once through. I can't remember if he mentioned anything about what was happening on the journey home. But basically, in the return, everything that is talked about from the past is talked about is told as a person telling someone else. It's not always Adesius. Sometimes it's other men telling each other the stories, but it is all told as stories. Whereas in Nolan's Odyssey, much of the flashbacks is not storytelling. It's Adysius remembering.
One of the challenges for modern adaptations is that Adysius spends a year with Cersei sleeping with her and seven years with Calypso sleeping with her. And we're meant to be rooting for his marriage with Penelope. And to a modern audience, that doesn't look quite right. To a Greek audience, Adesius is a man and he can do what he wants. And Calypso is an nymph and Cersei is a half-dine witch, so it didn't really count. Modern audiences less so. So, one of the things Nolan's movie does to make it kind of acceptable to the audience that you spent seven years with Calypso is that she's been feeding him lotus flowers and he has forgotten nearly everything. and he is remembering and he's telling Calypso what he remembers. Now granted it is a memory and memories are not necessarily accurate, but it is it is implied to be him remembering what to the best of his knowledge is what happened, not him telling a story. And there is a difference because Adius is Western literature's first unreliable narrator. We have no idea if we can trust anything he says. The whole of that section, that famous bit, books 9 to 12, is him telling stories to a princess and her father in Fisha. And then he comes back and he tells more stories. When he arrives in Itha, he's pretending to be a beggar, which both movies do. Uh, only The Return has full frontal nudity, which is poem accurate. But he tells more stories and he makes up a whole bunch of lies about his past when he gets back to Ithaca. And it's like, okay, we know he's Adesius because he can string the bow and he's got the scar that only his old nurse notices and so on that we're not suggesting he's not Adysius, but how do we know how much we can trust of anything he says? So, in that sense, although Nolan's movie is more similar to the structure of the poem, it's actually the return Pasolini's movie that is more true to what's going on in the poem, which I think is interesting.
One thing The Return is completely lacking is any fantasy elements. Now, as I say, I watched it once through. I cannot remember if anyone tells any stories about the [snorts] more fantastical stuff. I would have to watch it again, but there are no fantasy elements in The Return. We do not see any fantasy. The closest we get to fantasy in The Return is poor Argus, the dog, who lives for 20 years to see Odysius come home and then immediately dies. And I'm going to have to not talk about Argus anymore because I will cry. Both movies have that scene. It broke me both times. That is the closest The Return gets to fantasy. Uh both movies do include Penelopey's famous trick with the loom where she's weaving a shroud for her father-in-law and she weaves it all day and unpicks it all night and says she'll choose a suitor when it's finished. That's not fantasy. It's not magic. It is perhaps implausible that anyone bought that story, but it's not fantasy. Incidentally, The Return killed off poor old Leertes, and Nolan's movie didn't have him in it at all. This is Adysius's father. Um, I think they both just thought that was one too many characters. Nolan's movie focuses on um Oh, what's his name? Hang on. I want to say Umus. Yeah. No, I It's going to take me forever to find it. I'm pretty sure I mean Umus played by John Neguisamo. And The Return just really focuses on um Adysius and Tmicus above anybody else. But anyway, uh The Return has no fantasy. Um it has a bow only Adysius can string. It has the loom trick. Um but it does not have any magic or monsters. There is nothing that happens in The Return that is not possible and plausible in the real world.
Nolan's Odyssey, on the other hand, does include fantastical elements. As I mentioned, we have the oneeyed giant, the Cyclops, who is a son of Poseidon. He does call out to Poseidon, although I'll come back to the gods in a second. It has um Cersei, the witch, who turns Adysius's men into pigs. It has the sirens fairly briefly. We don't see them very closely. Maybe to avoid the fact that in modern popular culture, they're usually imagined as mermaids, whereas in the Odyssey, they're like birdlike creatures, not mermaids. The beautiful song that, you know, drags you onto the rocks is there and rather beautifully described. Um, but yeah, we don't see them very clearly, I think, maybe to avoid that issue. Calypso is sort of implied to be a nymph. She's kind of living on her own in this like desert place. H that's a bit less clear. We also see the monster Skiler who's been kind of combined with the clashing rocks into like a rock monster. So there is um definitely fantasy elements in Nolan's Odyssey. And because they're shown as Odysius's memories, it's actually removed the fact that in the epic poem those elements could be stories made up by Odysius. the poem, Adysius is telling that as a tale. There's no saying that any of that is true. Whereas in the movie, it actually commits to the reality of the fantasy stuff more than the epic poem does because it's memories. Oh, the other thing is the underworld, of course, which is very interestingly portrayed as like they're like these zombies that literally crawl out of the earth and they're covered in dirt. Also, all the women have been removed from the underworld. There are women in the movie in in Nolan's movie. You've got Penelopey, you've got Helen, you got Clayton Nestra. Um Ura the nurse, you know, but not in the underworld. Um there are, you know, a couple of female characters that Deius encounters in the underworld, but they've been written out. Interestingly, it's all men. It also ties in quite nicely with the way all of the fantasy sequences are filmed in a way that's like a horror movie. um in the poem they feel more like kind of folklore adventures whereas all of them like even the sirens where Adesius is tied to the mast and everybody else is actually okay and no one guy takes the wax out his ears and swims off apart from him everyone else right but that's played almost like a horror movie as well and Cersei turning the men into pigs the cyclops and certainly the underworld they all have a filming style that makes them feel like a horror movie. I think it might be partly Nolan's way of trying to ground the more fantastical action to make it horror rather than fantasy. Like those are two different movie genres. There are different ways of filming them. I'm not very good at talking about the technicalities, but basically the way they're filmed looks more like horror than like fantasy.
But one thing that's missing from both movies is actual appearances of the actual gods. Now, I know what you're thinking. Zenaia is playing Athena in Nolan's movie shortly. Well, yes and no. I reiterate the spoiler warning. We see Adysius talking to somebody who, as far as anyone else, notably Calypso, is concerned, isn't there, played by Zenaia. Is it Zenaia or Zenaia? I do apologize if I'm pronouncing it wrong. And we see him talking to her the way Adysius talks to Athena in the poem. Tmicus keeps saying that his companion has eyes like Athena and keeps saying that people might be Athena in disguise, which is a thing in the poem. Athena keeps disguising herself as various characters um and then kind of testing people a bit, but Tamicus' friend is just a human who gets killed. And in Zenaia's case, it is eventually revealed that the face, you know, Zenaia's face that Adysius keeps picturing as Aena is a woman he saw killed during the sack of Troy, presumably a Trojan woman, a Trojan princess or something. At first, I thought she might be Cassandra, but Cassandra is dragged off and enslaved and she's definitely killed. And then once Adysius realizes that, she disappears. He's the only person who sees her. Yes, Tmacus keeps thinking people are Athena in disguise, but Adysius is the only person who sees her and she's the face of a Trojan woman. So, the implication seems to be that she exists in his mind. Now, there's lots of references to Poseidon, the god of the sea, being angry because the Cyclops was his son. And they say, "Oh, we heard him crying out to Poseidon, and he's Poseidon's son." That the
Men decide that must be the case because the Cyclops was praying to Poseidon. And there's lots of references to Zeus. There's lots of references to the gods being angry if you violate the rules of guest friendship, which is indeed very important in the poems of Homer.
My dog is making noises outside the door. This is not the movie to hear pathetic dog noises when you're trying to review it. Anyway, please forgive the whining if you hear it.
Anyway, the point is in Nolan's movie, the gods are talked about all the time, but we don't actually see them. We see Adysius hallucinating a woman with the face of a Trojan woman that he saw during the sack of Troy. And we hear people talk about the gods. So although there are one-eyed giants and witches and sirens, there are not gods, which is a little bit weird to me because if you're going to have the fantasy elements, why not have the gods?
But then I suppose on the plus side, it does depict ancient religion as religion. Um, which it is clearly this is a live there are still people who worship the ancient Greek gods. It is still a living religion and it was very much so at the time the Odyssey was written down. Story is of course set in the Bronze Age which was a slightly different culture. Um but anyway, this is not the place to be on about like the kind of changing worship of the gods over time. But the gods are very much part of the Odyssey.
The role they play in Nolan's Odyssey is similar to the poem, but in the poems of Homer, the gods are real. Like the gods are there. They are acting in the poems. Both poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the gods take part in the action. The gods do stuff. In the Iliad, they take part in the war and they like kill people and so on. In the Odyssey, Athena does turn up and have conversations with Adysius and with Tmacus, often in disguise. The gods are participants in the story. Cersei is half divine and Calypso is very specifically a nymph. That's not really mentioned in the film.
The Return, of course, having got rid of all the fantasy, has got rid of the gods as well. I can't remember if The Return talks about the gods because there's obviously no reason that people shouldn't be religious and be participating in real ancient Greek religion. I can't remember how much The Return even has people mention the gods very much.
So Nolan's film is closer in the sense that everybody is, you know, their religion is ancient Greek religion. They pray to these gods. They believe in these gods. These are their gods and this is their faith. And Nolan's movie does depict that um you pretty accurately. It's just missing kind of actual direct actions of the gods as characters because Zenaia isn't actually playing Athena. She's playing what appears to be a figment of Adysius's imagination. Or maybe she's Athena taking on the guise of the woman from Troy. That would also be a valid interpretation considering Athena loves to disguise herself as people. Maybe Athena has taken on that appearance just to guilt Adesius. That's also a possibility. But I feel like that's not the interpretation Nolan was kind of going for. And then The Return just doesn't have the gods in it at all. So I guess you could say Nolan's movie expresses the spirit of the poem better in that sense, even if it isn't actually doing it the same way the poem does.
And finally, I wanted to have a quick think about the ending. Neither film does anything too drastic. There was a moment where I wasn't sure if Nolan was going to kill offices or Tmicus, but he he doesn't. Tamicus becomes king in Nolan's movie and Adysius and Penelopey go into exile together. If I remember the poem right, Adius has to go into exile. I think he goes by himself. There is this whole thing where he has to carry his ore in land until he meets somebody who doesn't know what an ore is and then he has to plant it. And that is his kind of final journey. And I don't know if the poem even specifies whether Penelopey goes with him. Um I I would have to have a look. Hang on. I don't think it really specifies because I think that's something that's implied to happen after the end of the poem. I don't know. Correct me in the comments if I've remembered that wrong.
But basically, Adysius is going to go into exile. In the movie, they make it because he's violated guest laws by massacring the suitors. I don't think the poem thinks he has violated those laws because I think the suitors violated them in the first place. Again, if I remember right, correct me if I've remembered that wrong.
Editing Jules here, just with a quick note. In Nolan's movie, The Odyssey, the reason for Adysius exile is partly that he has violated guest right by killing the suitors, but also he has consistently not buried people properly. Now, this is a big deal in ancient Greek religion, and it's mentioned in lots of different Greek myths. One of the most common reasons for ghosts to haunt people in Greek mythology is that they have not been buried properly. This comes up in the Odyssey. Elponor dies on Cersei's island and nobody realizes so they don't bury him. How they didn't notice. Anyway, um they don't bury him and he can't get into the underworld properly and then he tells Adysius when Adysius goes to the underworld and it's it's a whole thing. Petroas in the Iliad appears in a dream to Achilles to say, "Please stop cuddling my dead body all night and bury me. I can't cross the sticks until you bury me, etc., etc., etc." So, Nolan's movie has Adius go west, partly into exile for violating guest laws, but partly because this will somehow he's going to petition the gods and do something to make up for the fact he's been not burying people properly for like 20 years. I'm not sure that would really cut it for an ancient Greek. Um, the whole proper burial thing is pretty serious. Um, [laughter] so that was a little bit I'm not sure this works in an ancient Greek context, but it does provide quite a nice poetic ending. And Adysius and Penelope literally sail off into the sunset heading west. So, it's it's it's a nice idea and it does at least acknowledge this issue of proper burial, which is huge in Greek myth in general. But Adysius goes off into another exile kind of some point after the end of the poem. It makes sense for Penelopey to go with him.
The return does not include that at all. It has him return. [laughter] Would have spoiled the diet dog. Uh he returns to Penelopey and they decide to start fresh. Penelope in The Return is very upset at the slaughter of the suitors, whereas Penelope in Nolan's Odyssey is going for it. Like she that's what she wants in Nolan's film. Um the bit where she shuts the door on the the slave girl who betrayed her is kind of yeah cold. Um, one thing I thought was interesting was where Penelope realizes who Adysius is because in the return, although she doesn't say so, when it comes to the the part where he's going to string the bow that only Adysius can string, um, Penelope says to Tmacus in The Return, give your father the bow. So, she's obviously worked it out during their conversation.
Neither film included her dreams about Adysius and Gates and geese and stuff, which is a shame. I've written lots about those in my PhD. In Nolan's Odyssey, Penelopey is much less sure. She obviously suspects it's Adysius. She hopes it's Adius. You can see the cogs turning, but she's not quite sure. She has this wonderful look of hope on her face when he's trying to string the bow, and then the first time he tries, he doesn't quite manage it, and she's so disappointed. And then of course you hear the twang that's been set up earlier in the movie. So I thought that was really interesting choice. But then in the return Penelope is much more upset by the slaughter of the suitors. She's kind of horrified by this violence. There's a lot about you know Adius as the traumatized violent former soldier and kind of that side of his homecoming which is in Nolan's Odyssey as well. But there's also kind of other stuff going on in Nolan's Odyssey alongside that. But both do focus on that a fair bit. But Penelopey is much more bloodthirsty in Nolan's version.
Overall, I think it's probably six or one and half a dozen the other in terms of capturing the spirit of the poem. They capture different aspects of the poem. The return has the storytelling. It's completely grounded in the kind of present day Ithaca action. >> [sighs] >> It has a lot of the kind of melancholy of the story.
Both films feature kind of major moments. They both feature Argus the dog and Adysius and Penelopey having a conversation. Uracle the old nurse recognizing a scar and realizing who Adesius is. Adius pretending to be a beggar. You know, they both follow the basic plot points. Now, The Return obviously is not adapting the whole of the poem, and Nolan's Odyssey is. Um, so that's clearly a significant difference.
Nolan's Odyssey does keep some of the magic. It actually opens with kind of text on the screen saying in a time of magic, and then it does open with a bard telling a story. So, he is setting up that storytelling aspect, but then that sort of gets a bit lost over the course of the movie. and he has more of the ancient religion but without the gods actually being in it. They both have a kind of horrific element but the return is more of a just kind of war is Hades. Violence is bad general theme. Nolan's film has that as well but it also has this kind of horror movie undercurrent to it. Agamemnon is like a monster in Nolan's movie. It's an interesting choice. I don't know quite why they went with that particularly. Um, but in addition to all of the more fantastical adventures being shot like a horror movie, um, Agamemnon is this weird like he's covered in armor. You don't see his face properly. He's this kind of monstrous character. I mean, obviously the first time we see him, he's sacrificing his own daughter. It's like Agamemnon is a monster in the sense of a terrible person in every version of this story, but he's like physically monstrous. um almost kind of like the depiction of Xerxes in the movie 300, but not quite as extreme as that. Um yeah, it it was interesting. So Nolan's Odyssey has this kind of horror undercurrent along with the kind of the violence of war theme, whereas The Return is much more grounded as a whole and very much focused on that kind of the legacy of violence theme.
But I'm not sure it would be fair to say either movie represents the spirit of the poem more or less than the other one. I mean, I suppose if you had to, you'd say, well, Nolan's movie not only adapts most of the poem and not a bit of it, but Nolan's movie has the religion in it. Although it doesn't have the gods playing an active role, the ancient religion is important in Nolan's movie more so than in The Return. Um but at the same time I think the return has more of the sense of um the war as a story being told and I think the fact that Nolan's movie has Adius remembering the war and then everything that happens um later is quite a significant change that the return doesn't do. Although the return doesn't really show that.
By the way, I loved Himesh Patel as Adysius's right-hand man. Whatever his name was, can't remember. Urailus, can't remember. Anyway, he was great. He was a really good personification of all of these men that Adysius loses. I mean, it's kind of their own fault. Although, I did like the moment where he said, "Well, we just chose to drown instead of starve." Those were the choices. That was right when I got back from the bathroom. [snorts] Um, and Adius kind of chooses to go this unusual direction the other the opposite way from where Agamemnon's going at the beginning. And it's all kind of it lays on the guilt on Adius. And I thought Himesh Patel as this kind of the focus for [snorts] the fate of his men um was was really interesting and really well played as well.
If you couldn't tell, I basically loved both of these movies. I thought they were both great. They are both kind of emotionally draining. So if you want to see an adaptation of the Odyssey that is a little lighter and there are slightly lighter bits of the Odyssey, it is more grim than say the folklore of Robin Hood or even a lot of Arththeran legend. It Greek mythology as a whole does often tend towards the somewhat depressing. Um but Nolan's movie does have a some sense of triumph toward the end. Um the slaughter of the suitors is definitely a little bit more kind of triumphant. Robert Patatterson does a great sniveling bad guy as antininois. Um whereas the suitors are not great but less villainous. I they still you try and kill tmicus and stuff. They're not great, but they are less kind of just villains in The Return, and their slaughter is a lot more morally gray, whereas there is a sense of satisfaction um when they take down the suitors in Nolan's version. So, the the Nolan movie is slightly less unrelentingly grim than The Return is. And they do both feature Adius and Penelopey, you know, finding each other again and getting back together. So, they're not completely grim. Um, but yeah, if you want a lighter version, you do just need to watch her brother. Where art thou? But both movies are really good. I definitely recommend both movies. Recommend catching Nolan's movie in the cinema if you can. Um, it does look great. Uh, I didn't see it in IMAX, but I did see it, you know, on a cinema screen and it did look very good on the big screen. Um, so yeah, if you enjoy Greek mythology, if you have any interest in Greek mythology, or if you enjoy Christopher Nolan's movies, most of which I have seen and enjoyed. Um, then yeah, I definitely recommend going to see it. And The Return is also very much worth seeing. Do check it out on streaming services. I think I bought it on Amazon Prime.
Thank you so much for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, please do give it a like. If you would like to support the channel, I have a collection of short stories retelling Greek mythology. Uh, there's three stories in here, I think, that are retold from Greek history, but this is creepy classics, ghost stories from ancient Greece, and like 70% of it or something is Greek mythology retellings, and it includes my own retelling of Adesius in the underworld, as well as a story called Arrestes in Toris, which is a retelling of Uripides play Ephaganiah in Toris. This is the more cheerful ending for Ephaganiah and a lot more detail on the story of Arrestes who is mentioned briefly in Nolan's movie. So if you are interested in Greek mythology and Greek myth retellings and you would like to support the channel then please do pick up a copy of this or one of my other books, creepy classics, ghost stories from ancient Rome, medieval ghost stories or haunting tales for winter. They're available in paperback from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or in ebook from Coobo, Amazon, Apple, Fable, and various other places that I can't remember off the top of my head.
You can also support the channel by signing up for my Patreon. You get a dog walking vlog with my dog Loki once a month. And also, once a month, I retell a 19th or 20th century ghost story. That's in written form. on that one. You can listen to ancient medieval and early modern ghost stories retold on my podcast, Creepy Classics. So, do check any of those out that sound interesting to you. Thank you so much once again for watching. I do hope you enjoyed the video. And I will see you next time. I think over the summer I will be looking at the Greek version of the sitcom Ghosts cuz I haven't done its own video on that. And I have a ghost tour with Loki around the town of Dogly in Wales that I filmed ages ago and haven't edited yet. So that's going to be coming up in August. And then we'll have videos on The Woman in White and The Phantom of the Opera coming up in the autumn. So until next time. Bye. Good boy. Good boy, Loki. You can have a rest. Hello.