Home Sweet Homer, Pt. 2 — The Odyssey | Next Picture Show

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27:13Why can't God speak in ways we understand? Who doesn't understand thunder? Fire. A child's smile. Good harvest. You hide yourselves from us. Look. Who's moving that cloud? Massing those birds. Who's moving the water? So what do you think? I mean, reading interviews with him, he just kind of talks about how he needed something epic to follow up the scope of Oppenheimer. And I mean, that almost seems like a pun. It seems like sort of a light thing that you throw at the media to the media to cover up like why this is an obsession. but how have you parsed kind of the odyssey fitting into what Christopher Nolan cares about or the way Christopher Nolan tells stories?

28:12I mentioned this a little bit earlier but it feels natural as a follow-up to Oppenheimer just in terms of these leaders having to make decisions that are going to cost the lives of many people that are going to weigh heavily on their consciences that are going to oftentimes be decisions that are going to be a decision between a bad outcome and a worse outcome and where all of that ends up leaving you, leaving your soul at the end of the line. And so I think, you know, those two films kind of match up quite nicely. And then the other stuff just has to do with, you know, those kind of old Nolan themes we talked about too, time being the most significant one.

28:58It's weird that he and Richard Linklater, those two, you don't necessarily think of them as similar filmmakers, but they just keep coming back to that theme. They just love to explore time and the impact that it has on people's souls, basically. This is a film that really effectively makes you kind of feel that way. Right. I'm using this term somewhat reluctantly, and I'm certainly not the first person to draw a comparison between Oppenheimer and this film, even on this podcast. But the Sack of Troy scene, the latter, the later version, the more drawn out version, I'm being a little vague here for people who have not seen the movie, connects to Oppenheimer in a way that they're both really apocalyptic.

29:43I mean, just really just scenes of devastation. But also, you know, I think they're both scenes that kind of make you want to question, do humans have to conduct ourselves this way in the world? Is there really no other path forward than just having civilizations clash and have violence and death and might be what the ultimate determinant of what shapes the direction of the world? We're really dealing with very big themes here. but as I know Scott's review for the reveal is really good pointing out also working on a very small scale it's a very human drama at the same time so and I guess maybe that's another connection too is that it is sort of like yeah I think there is sort of an abiding interest in how these very big things play out in the lives of just one or two people in a way you know you talk about we were talking about too the intimacy of scale when you then get to the end of the film and Odysseus finally has that really wonderful scene with his wife.

30:48It reminded me so much of the movie Sancho the Bailiff, which is another film about a very long tragic journey where family members are separated seemingly forever and find each other, and there's been so much loss and so much to kind of cry about, really. But it's also, you know, just this incredibly transcendent moment as well. And it felt so connected to that movie for me. So, and certainly that's a small moment in a sweeping epic historical, historic tale. To return to what Keith was pointing about, about the humanistic aspect of this being very Nolan-esque. I don't know if any of you got to read Bilga Abiri's behind the scenes making of piece of the Odyssey on Vulture.

31:39If you haven't, I highly recommend it. It's he got so much good stuff. But one tiny thing that it points out that I never thought about is before this, Nolan has never made a film to depict the supernatural. And you can take that in the context of, you know, the monsters, the Cyclops, the giants, whatnot. But also, I think it's interesting to think about in how this film depicts or doesn't the gods. You know, we only really get FaceTime with one of the gods, Athena. And I won't spoil what it does with that character, but it does add some, I guess, ambiguity to how you read her control over this narrative.

32:26And, you know, the Odyssey is kind of famously a battle between gods, you know, Poseidon and Athena, and they are much more active in the narrative. And this movie, like, it talks about the gods all the time, like they're being referenced constantly. But it always comes back to man's understanding of gods. And it there, I think there is a reading of this film where the gods don't even exist, you know, or it's faith, you know. And it's really interesting the way that Nolan layers in those different interpretations of what's happening. And it all does kind of center on the idea of this is a story about humans and what humans do to each other, and what civilizations do to each other and to themselves.

33:18And I don't even have my mind wrapped fully around it yet because I'm a few hours off of seeing this film. But it's definitely something that I felt only he could tell this story this way. I was surprised at the use of what I mean, there's definitely magic in this movie. There's definitely the supernatural, even if the gods are conceptual, the magic that turns men into pigs and then brings them back again is real. And if you if you take elements like the Cyclops and Skillow, which is such a very Christopher Nolan-esque abstractness of a monster. I was a little shocked to see on screen just because, A, I've really hard avoided trailers for this movie.

34:06I wanted to watch it on its own merits. I didn't want anything spoiled beforehand. So I didn't know what to expect. And there was a moment where I was like, you know, based on how he's handling the gods and their relationship with people, is there going to be nothing in this that couldn't be explained in real life? And then the Cyclops shows up on screen. I'm like, okay, no, we're definitely in the realm of myths and monsters here. But the Cyclops is not named as Polyphemus. the soldiers like say he's the son of poseidon or he'd say they think he calls out poseidon's name but like in the credits it's just the cyclops you know they're the direct link to poseidon is left up to interpretation oh sure but i mean he's also a 15 foot well it's a time of magic and monsters that's what they tell us at the beginning of the movie right is a time of apparent magic.

35:03Which to me, is like, maybe it's magic, maybe it's not. Or magic you can see versus the time we live in now where magic is not something that we can see. Which I think it's interesting to phrase it that way. Yeah. I think the ambiguity there is different and very deliberate. But God, that's just one of many, many rabbit holes we could go down. I want to talk a little about the look of this movie. It's kind of got that dark and desaturated thing going on that has become popular in fantasy movies in particular over the last couple of decades. And there are moments in it that really work. Like the entire look of Tartarus I thought was amazing.

35:45Not to mention sort of the interpretation of how that sequence all goes and how it feels. But apart from that, it was the one thing that I was maybe a little back and forth on is just how kind of like dim and dingy so much of this movie looks deliberately. And like the grubbiness and grime is certainly deliberate. The heaviness of kind of the way the world hangs over Odysseus in most places, the way that lifts on Calypso's Island where everything is very bright and clean. And, you know, she's a very pale woman with very blonde hair, wearing very white clothing. Everything is just lightened compared to a lot of the rest of the movie.

36:30What did you think about the look of this film? I mean, I'm a big fan of cinematographer Hoyt Van Hoytema, who shot the last few Nolan films, shot Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy. I think his big breakthrough was Let the Right One In. I just think he's just really good with dealing with those shadows. And like sometimes you get these really amazing contrasts as in the Cyclops cave where, you know, light just disappears once the cave is sealed. I'm kind of struck by also the scenes communicating with the dead outside Hades or Oceanus. Just a look of that, like the black sand. You know, you can clock it instantly as Iceland because nowhere else in the world looks like that.

37:10But it does have this really otherworldly feel to it as well. And the use of just fire amongst this mist in this was really effective, too. Yeah, I think it's a gorgeous looking film. And I've not seen it yet on IMAX. I'm seeing that on IMAX in a couple of days. Yeah, I was just going to say we need to go around and say how each of us saw it. Oh, my God. Tasha and I saw it on our... You were at that screening, right? Yeah, 70 millimeter. It was 70 millimeter. How exciting, right? which you don't expect at this AMC theater that I didn't even know was equipped. They must have brought it in. I saw this closure day in 70 millimeter theater.

37:49It looked really good. The problem is like maybe people aren't used to showing things on film because it was out of frame the entire way or should I say it wasn't centered and so maybe you were getting the whole image but it was unmasked and so the top chunk of the screen was just black. I was irritated. It took me literally 20 minutes before I was like, okay i'm just gonna make my peace with this because it was so irritating to watch uh but we definitely got the whole image i just want to throw that out there because you could actually see just like the the bottom line of the image because i did you were twitching were you not twitching i was not twitching but i could i could hear people around me uh grumbling about it in the first minute or so and i kind of had a moment of like well if we're getting part of the image cut off this is a problem and we need to speak to somebody and then i i looked and i'm like no We're literally seeing where the image ends and light begins.

38:42I mean, I was a projectionist. You would center the frame. You would bring it up to where you would. You'd probably have a little bit of black on the bottom, a little black on the top. Sure. But this is a perfectionist to note as opposed to this is a travesty. We were getting image cut off as part of the movie. It wasn't as big of a travesty. It was an irritant. But I'm glad that it's done in this format. And to kind of go back to the question about the look of this movie, what impressed me the most about it you know especially for a film with a lot that is going to have a lot of effects is is how physical a production that it feels like the immensity of it feels like you know intolerance or something it's a real boat they got a real big old boat it's a boat i always think about that to me to me like i always remember you know the year when when Master and Commander came out the same year as Pirates of the Caribbean and thinking about the boats in those movies and how much Master and Commander had just that unbelievable physical weight to it and the impact that that has on you as a viewer.

39:49And I think you get a lot of that here with the Odyssey of just trying to, even with all of these effects, trying to make it as physical a production as possible and making the audience kind of feel the impact of that because I think when you do need a lot of effects and you are dealing with mythical creatures and monsters and things that are not natural, you can kind of get lost in the sort of digital environments and this doesn't get lost in that at all. I did not see it on 70mm, but I did see it on IMAX Laser, which was actually gorgeous. I have no complaints about it And I think for a film that is, you know, as Tasha says, maybe a little dingy or dark by design, like it never felt washed out or hard to see.

40:42To me, it always felt very purposeful. I mean, if we want to go back to historical accuracy, you know, a very brightly colored Odyssey would perhaps not be the most realistic one in terms of light. lights like in the in back rooms just over everything yeah and both like lighting and production design uh and setting you know but um it makes use of that darkness or the you know monochromaticness uh at times in uh ways that feel purposeful and that makes them feel beautiful and not like a missed opportunity i guess well there's a lot more to talk about in this movie but we should move on to connections.

41:24And I think some of the things that I most want to delve into are things that would be interesting to bring up specifically in connection with Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. Anything you guys want to make sure we talk about before we transition off just talking about The Odyssey? Well, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou does have a dog, but it does not have the very best boy ever, Argos, which The Odyssey does. It's got packs of dogs. True, but They are no Argos. So Tasha, I sensed a little in our last episode, I sensed maybe a little skepticism toward the use of Argos in Odyssey. But I loved it. Not skepticism per se.

42:05I don't 100 % love the way it was handled in that, you know, I think of the Argos story as being about a dog that got the one thing that it wanted most, the one thing it was hanging on for. and the degree to which Argus, like I know it's meant to be a very old dog who's just waiting for his master to come home. And, you know, it's just the small reaction that tips Telemachus off to what he's seeing. But having Argus be so decrepit and getting kicked and stomped on and thrown on the dung heap and then lying there on the dung heap, apparently not being fed for God knows how long and then barely being alive to see Odysseus coming home.

42:47Is it weird to say it was sadder than I necessarily wanted out of a movie that's expressly about, you know, the immense loss of human life and the immense suffering of this journey? It's in the source material. That's all I can say. It's right there on the page. I mean, I don't disagree that it's very hard to see Argus treated that way. That said, we see other dogs treated much, much worse. How's Homer on hucking puppies off cliffs? Yeah. So, you know, it definitely, I guess, set the bar high slash low when it comes to dog endangerment sensitivities. But the payoff was, it worked for me. Good boy.

43:31It is always interesting to see the, you know, I know people have a soft spot for animals. I've got a soft spot for my own animals and for other people's animals. I am the kind of person that might go to a party and spend most of the time hanging out with a cat or the dog. But the vocal difference in the theater between several men get their heads bitten off while struggling and screaming for desperately for life versus a puppy gets hocked off a cliff, like the visceral noise in the theater when that happened. She's always remarkable. I don't recall any particular noise in the theater when the dog goes floating by underwater in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

44:14But that definitely takes us to a place of comparison between the two. So maybe we should take a break and then come back with connections.

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46:22Okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time? Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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48:04We'll raise the sail. Follow the southerly winds. Yes, sir. Agamemnon's rowing west on the known provisions route. He's got more mouths to feed. We'll find places to land. Are you sure it's a risk? unfollowed Agamemnon long enough. With a little luck and the right wins, we'll see some of the world still be home before Agamemnon. Now it's time for connections when we bring these two films together and talk about all the things they have in common. I mean, starting with the fact that they're both, yeah, epic journeys, like literal journeys, literal epics, you know, both about homecomings and about somebody struggling to get home against long odds.

48:43I will say that one kind of almost silly thing these two movies have in common is that I have no freaking sense whatsoever of the geography involved. Yeah, fair. I think in the Odyssey, you feel that as kind of a physical weight. You keep being told they're lost. The degree to which Uralakis emphasizes every time that ship sees land, he kind of turns to Odysseus and says, lucky bastard, because the chances of them finding land when they're at sea and in kind of uncharted waters is so high. Like they are hopelessly lost and don't know where they are. And we feel that. In Oh Brother, there are points where I find myself just thinking, like, I know they're like running desperately across fields and, you know, through byways, through towns, like wherever they can find themselves a car to steal or a pie to steal.

49:42At the same time, I don't know how they end up traveling for days and days and days and still winding up coming up on the chain gang, which seems like the same chain gang. There is a sort of feeling of like, are they going in circles? Are we meant to feel they're going in circles? Is this an epic linear journey or is this just like are they wandering around completely lost? So I don't think that this is a deliberate or important thematic connection. so much as just something I felt pretty viscerally in both movies, but with very different effects. Where are we? I mean, I guess they are stymied in Brother Where Art Thou in terms of, you know, they have to get to their destination before the dam wipes it out.

50:28So, but actually getting there, knowing where to go, having all these other obstacles in their way, sometimes so far off course that you do end up in a similar situation is with Odysseus where they're traveling and who knows what direction and to where and how in the world are they going to ever, what direction even is home. But they just keep kind of traveling until they find it, I guess. I think you mean on account of their obstacles, Scott. Yes, on account of their obstacles. But O Brother has a really specific rhythm because like we are in a like a fairly small geographic space so we're kind of like rather than going from island to island like in the odyssey we're just kind of like going from incident to incident what was really interesting to me to note was the the bonfire sequences at night when they're like camping out at night and there was like kind of this consistent returning to this same type of scene of them around the fire and it's sort of the the reset between the the antics and the eventful things that happen, you know, and there's some really nice just hanging around the fire, especially once they meet up with Tommy and he's singing and stuff.

51:47It's not an exact parallel to like Odysseus' men on the boat, like going from location to location, but just in terms of like the rhythm of the film, it creates kind of a wave almost, you know, or peaks and valleys of action and rest, action and rest, that works really well for the pace of a journey. One of the parallels here that I kind of find interesting is that both of these journeys are complicated in a way by our protagonist's choices. Like a departure that I found really interesting in Nolan's Odyssey is that when they blind the Cyclops in order to escape, it's very much presented as a necessity for survival.

52:30They do what they have to do. And Odysseus doesn't turn back and give a false name to the Cyclops in kind of a spirit of treachery and trickery. You know, he doesn't brag about, you know, who has blinded you and tell him it was no man. There's a lack of hubris there that, you know, to me, one of the things that kind of defines that beat of the Odyssey is Odysseus' pride in the gambit that he came up with. And in a way, he's mocking this creature that he's just blinded. Nolan just kind of drops that aside. We get a pretty strong sense of hubris from Ulysses Everett McGill and his confidence that, He doesn't need book learning to practice law.

53:18He doesn't need experience to sell Bibles. He also does not recognize a threat when it's standing in front of him, having just clubbed his compatriot upside the head and coming for him. He is a very hubristic character. And he is set upon this particular epic journey through fault of his own, through the bad choices that he made. So I feel like that's something that O 'Brother has in common with kind of the classic version of Odysseus, but maybe not with the version here. I'm not sure what Nolan's Odysseus could have done differently in order to not anger the gods in this case, except, you know, die and get eaten.

54:00And I think in Nolan's Odysseus, he's smart more than wily. Like he comes with plans and schemes, but he's not really trying to trick anybody out of spite or it is purely an escape, whereas I think in Homer, there's certainly more of a taunting quality to it. In both versions, I ended up feeling kind of bad for the Cyclops, to be honest. He's just doing his thing. You do in the Coen's version too? Oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, in both Homer and the Owens. Okay. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. No, no. You feel fine about it. There's no reason to feel anything good about it. I mean, if you do feel bad at all, it's because John Goodman does have a weird ability to like bring pathos to even like horrible characters.

54:46But it's it's pretty tough in this case, I think. Yeah, I don't I don't feel any sense of pathos for him here. And in part, it's because the character himself isn't trying to evoke it. Like he seems very pleased, you know, with his plans, he seems very pleased with his physical superiority at lowering these two yahoos out into the field, getting free extra dinner out of them, second lunch, I guess, and then clubbing them upside the head and taking their money. Like, there's nothing that we get from him to indicate, like, a sadness or a loss that would excuse these behaviors. This is just what he does, and he seems pretty pleased with it.

55:28So I can't sympathize with the Cyclops here. I feel like Nolan's Cyclops is unknowable. You know, he is he's not a large man. He is a creature, a creature of like unknown provenance that does come across as something that might have been like sired by a god on who knows what. And I feel sympathy for anything that has its eye poked out with a pointy flaming spear, because that sounds terrible. But again, I really can't fault the Ithacans, the soldiers for doing that because they don't want to get killed and eaten. I was talking last week about how watching Oh Brother through the context of the Odyssey sort of primes you to find like sort of like little micro connections that may or may not be purposeful.

56:14But talking about the Cyclops, one of those I thought of here was the like the soldiers escaping by pretending to be sheep. I felt an echo of that in the clan rally scene where Big Dan reappears with only one eye cut out of his mask. But then our trio, you know, they steal robes. So they are disguising themselves to try to hide from the Cyclops there. so you know it's a classic it's a classic physical comedy trope of like shrubs kind of like shivering as they're changing into the uh into the uh garb of the person they've just taken off of someone else uh good stuff maybe this is a nice a window into talking about this if we were talking about you know escape and you know what options they really have in terms of even trying to negotiate a situation like that but we haven't talked about one of my favorite sequences in all of the Odyssey, which is the one with Samantha Morton as, uh, was Circe, is that the name?

57:17Is it how you, yeah. And just, and just about, and how that is, um, how you get to a point where Odysseus can, can actually talk and negotiate and advocate for his men in a way that he doesn't in any other situation. Like it's a different kind of leadership and there's something kind of touching, I guess, about his acknowledgement of her perspective and what she's kind of going through and being able to kind of them being able to kind of see each other and kind of come to this moment of grace together. It's a nice shift from, you know, other conflicts that I guess that we have in the story. Shout out to Madeline Miller's novel Circe, which is terrific.

58:04I read it recently for the first time, not in relationship to this movie at all, but just because it's been on my T-Raid for a very long time, it will make you see Cersei very differently. And in my mind, this version of the character is more or less that version of the character. It explains a lot about her behavior. But boy, that moment when the soldiers are asked to leave their armor and weapons out back, and they look out back and just see a field of slowly disappearing into the grass and disintegrating like an army's worth of arms and weapons. And then they do it anyway. Man, what a moment.

58:43But talking about Cersei kind of brings us to a point that I really wanted to explore here, which is in talking about the Odyssey, we just really haven't talked about Antinous, Robert Pattinson's character, kind of the lead of the suitors, certainly the biggest coward among them, but also kind of the biggest leader, perpetually trying to direct traffic to get other people to do all the work, making sure that he's taking the least risk. Just a real snake of a man and seemingly the only one of the suitors to come to Penelope and try to kind of cozen her into believing that he's just a nice guy, y 'all.

59:21His parallel, I suppose, in Oh Brother, to the degree that there is one, isn't Waldrip, who, you know, is almost a background character. You know, he's a function of the plot, But apart from being able to best Ulysses in a Woolworths punching contest, he's just not that much of a character. I kind of wonder if a better parallel for him is the sheriff, who is kind of the big central villain of the movie to the degree that it has or needs one. And he is a character who seems, you know, more physically brave and confident, but also is, you know, using other people to get his way, is very much uninterested in the law or what other people want so much as he gets to destroy things.

1:00:08He just goes around burning down people's barns in order to flush people out, which, you know, leaves to a lot of, damn, we're in a tight spot. so I you know there are there are kind of a lot of of sub villains in both of these movies well the sheriff is the sheriff is neither a suitor nor bona fide though uh so he's pretty bona fide as a sheriff I guess maybe so but Waldrop is uh I think our our suitor here I I I'm glad you brought brought up Pattinson because he's kind I I don't know if the scenes back in that sphere back in that uh back home really have the pop they get without that character he's a true truly kind of juicy villain that we're just we kind of cannot wait yeah that we really wait an entire movie uh to get his uh uh glorious comeuppance uh so i think i was impressed by him in this in this film i guess he i guess he was inspired by james woods's character in casino oh wow which is kind of like all right he does have the one scene where he makes a pretty good case for himself too which he immediately undermines by going to to mac on mia goss character uh but but he does you know he does put a pretty persuasive uh argument out there for for why he should be the one yeah if only he wasn't just such a weasel and you know she's uh seen penelope has seen a lot more of him than we have and possibly knows that he's a weasel it's possible that he's come around and tried this before he's tried other things or she's just you know paying attention and and has seen like how he operates you know this is uh somebody who's perfectly willing to dump a dog on a dung heap but then is coming around you know with his his nice guy line so it's pretty obvious who he is and it's pretty obvious how she feels about kind of all of them collectively and yet not not not Not great vetting of Mia Goth.

1:02:03What happened? What happened there? What broke down in the hiring process? Well, it's very hard to check the Internet to see if they've, you know, been posting pictures of themselves with the suitors, you know, at the beach when they're sneaking around on their days off. I think one way to talk about one thing we want to talk about here is the casting of Travis Scott as the bard who gets the first line of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. and Nolan has said it's because he wanted to tie a very current oral tradition, which is hip-hop and rap, with the very old oral tradition, which is the oral tradition from which the Odyssey emerged.

1:02:39I think that's really smart and well done without being overdone. He's not making the Homeric equivalent of Hamilton or anything. But we kind of get that in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou 2, where we have all these folk traditions that are, I guess you can say it's kind of being the equivalent of written down in the sense that they're recorded, but they're being passed around. They're becoming a shared culture for everyone in this region, much like these stories of Odysseus and the fall of Troy are becoming widespread in a way, even without Odysseus' presence there. I guess he's, in a way, he's mass communicating.

1:03:23And he's also drawing on, you know, mass communication otherwise, you know, because he is telling, he is not telling the tale of the king of this place. He's telling the tale of the wily Odysseus who ended the Trojan War. You know, this is very clearly a story that's been passed around a lot already to the point where Menelaus just kind of says, you know, you already you already know this story. You've already heard this story because the assumption is like this is the song that the bards are singing. Everybody's heard it, of course. So, you know, we we as I said in the first half, we have this tale that has preceded him home.

1:04:02And it's the closest thing to mass media we have because it's it's everywhere. It's in other kingdoms. It's in other king halls. And yet we have the moment where Penelope hears it starting up again. And it's just like, no, not that story. I'm tired of hearing and being reminded that my husband isn't here by hearing this story about how smart he is that everybody's telling all the time. You know, Odysseus's journey has been, you know, being told in all of these songs that are referenced. And, you know, sort of the Odyssey itself is an epic poem is, you know, kind of a big song in a way. but if you think about it man of constant sorrow is kind of like a little odyssey in micro in its lyrics you know uh i bid farewell to old kentucky the place where i was born and raised for six years i've been in trouble no pleasure here on earth i'll find this world i'm bound to ramble i don't have all the lyrics up in front of me because it crashed my computer when i tried to do that but but you see what i'm going for here you know uh it i got no friends to help me know because they've all died along the journey you're the podcaster of thoughts and sorrow yeah so um it all just uh it goes back to what i said last week about a brother where art thou's sort of strongest connection to the odyssey outside of all the little plot elements is this idea of tales of men's trials and tribulations being passed down in uh spoken or sung form and And, you know, the Soggy Bottom Boys are our bards of this, even if one of them happens to be our hero, too.

1:05:42I feel like in addition to that, you know, we're we're running along as we so often are when we're talking about big monumental films that we have strong feelings about. We should just mention the degree to which both of these movies deal with with children and legacy. You know, the idea of who is the next generation? How do they remember us? What do they know about us? How much of it is true? How much of it is legend? How do they feel about us? You know, both of these films tap into that pretty heavily. And both of them do kind of contend with faith and religion and how humanity interacts with gods, what they get out of that relationship, how different that relationship is in foxholes, as it were.

1:06:22When people are in danger, they see religion as very different. And I think, especially in O Brother, there's sort of an ongoing feeling that because of the depression, the probation that people are living in, they're living in a constant sort of place of danger. And so they're drawing on all of this old gospel music. Or constant sorrow. Or constant sorrow. But I feel like the one thing we really need to explore before we call it a day, an end to this epic journey of ours, is the degree to which both of these movies deal with ends of eras. Keith, you added this to the connections list pretty late, and it does underline the fact that we really haven't talked about the kind of like big final theme of the Odyssey.

1:07:11So I'm curious what you're thinking about how both of these movies touch on the ends of eras. Well, we'll start with Our Brother, Where Art Thou? One thing I think about is you have the flood that sort of eliminates a whole area in the name of progress, in the name of bringing electricity. And we see at the end, we see Ulysses walking by a billboard about this whole new age that's coming in. But I think it kind of goes a little bit beyond that as well. Well, I think one thing that's doing with music is there's this, you know, tremendous appetite for old timey music. Right. And it's like the last moment when this stuff is is just going to be, you know, an oral tradition or like passed out, a folk tradition passed around people.

1:07:55It becomes sort of pop culture in a way. I think we've watched I mean, we've laughed a couple of lines about the like that we're mass communicating line. But it is going to change everything in terms of like how we consume art, what, you know, whether or not art is confined to a certain region, too. Like this could, you know, this is a regional hit, but soon, you know, with Airplay, something like this could be a national hit as well. I mean, the very fact that we're talking about, you know, we're talking about the soundtrack becoming this passed around cultural phenomenon is sort of like what happens in the film itself in a way where these specific cultures get, you know, recorded and passed around.

1:08:35And also, like, it leads to tremendous mixing of cultures as well. I think there's a little bit of optimism at the end of A Brother Where Are Thou? Whereas I think at the end of Nolan's The Odyssey, they're just really not. and I really kind of want to tiptoe around the spoiler, the spoiler-ness of it all, but directly to what we were talking about, about the oral tradition and whether or not what is passed along orally, you know, what is written down and what's like going on in various cultures at various points when writing versus the oral tradition dominates over the other. I think it's just some really interesting stuff in there.

1:09:12I think we're really, both these films leave their characters on the cusp of new eras and with a lot of uncertainty and, but at least a little bit, I think, of optimism in O Brother, Where Art Thou? I feel like with O Brother, the end of an era that we're seeing is, you know, the end of an era of poverty and separation, of, you know, the distance across the state being a tremendous, unsurpassable distance that takes days and days to transit and onto a more modern era. You know, the advent of electricity is going to be a good thing and eventually the depression is going to end. Politically, at least, you know, the return of Pappy does not suggest a whole lot of reform going to be going on and that people are going to have a better time of it.

1:10:00But we know happier days are ahead. With the Odyssey, I see Odysseus saying that this is a tragedy, that the era of Zeus's law has ended. But this movie doesn't give me a whole lot of respect for Zeus's law. Zeus' law is presented, at least by Odysseus, as a kind of civility and an understanding between people, you know, for truth and generosity. It feels like a very political message to me, a very modern political message, specifically about, you know, when you cannot trust people to to act in a civil manner, when you can't trust your leaders to tell the truth, when you can't trust people to not be corrupt, to not steal everything they can get their hands on.

1:10:51What does that leave us? Like, who are we? Who are we as a civilization? That's what I see that movie ultimately asking. But I do struggle a little bit to get that from the end of Zeus's law, which seems to be a law that forbids driving thieves out of your house, you know, that forbids being even slightly rude to people who come into your house and live there for three years demanding that you throw feasts for them every night. But that itself is a corruption of Zeus's law, or Xenia, to use the Greek word. And yet it seems like Zeus's law allows for that form of corruption, but doesn't allow for anybody to fight back against it.

1:11:32So that's where I get a little confused about exactly why it's a tragedy that we're ending this particular era. We're ending an era that puts the suitors on the right side of the law and puts the rightful king of Ithaca on the wrong side of the law. But the ideals are good. I mean, the founding principles are not just good, they're noble. Agreed. The principles are noble. You know, honesty in politics is noble. Not being a Klansman is pretty noble. Not being Pappy either, also quite noble. There's a lot of illustration of how to do things wrong in both of these movies for society, for individuals, for households, for parents, for people on epic journeys.

1:12:17I wish there was a little more in both of them in terms of illustration of how to do things right. I think it's interesting we're finding that ambiguity here too. I think there's a lot of ambiguity that runs through both films and maybe that's like the final connection too. These are not films that necessarily give you clear senses of there's not solid black and white morality in either of these. Odysseus is, I think we're coming away thinking Odysseus is a good man, but that's kind of in spite of all we see him do right i mean it there's there's a whole death kind of trails him and i would not necessarily i i might look up to him uh but i wouldn't necessarily want to be on the same ship with him um that doesn't work out well and and perhaps the same could be true of ulysses i don't know what the next chapter of ulysses life is there in in in the south but um i'm i guess i'm hopeful for both that's why both movies end with uh the end ellipses question mark

1:13:19you know maybe the big difference between them is in the end odysseus judges himself harshly for what he's done for what he's lost and for what he feels has been lost through him and ulysses seems perfectly happy with the way things have come out you know maybe it's just a question of how self-aware they are of the harm that they've done and how how determined they are to see themselves in the light that others might see them. Maybe there is an illustration of how to do things well. And if it's criticize yourself too harshly and send yourself into exile, at least that's better than just smugly saying, well, you know, now I'm very clearly bona fide.

1:14:04I don't know. If you want to fact check, Scott, on how these two movies end, you can find Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? available on DVD and Blu-ray. It's streaming on the Criterion, and it's widely available for digital rental. The Odyssey is in theaters now. We'll be right back with your next picture show.

1:14:29The Declaration, which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about Enlightenment ideals, does also have this darker history to it. Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution? Why is it important that Americans know about it? Well, if we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself. I'm Rebecca Nagle, Goheen Dawadon, Jalakayetli, Gayla, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big Chiefs fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment.

1:15:19Listen to First America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've all been there. We've had seasons that have shaken everything. The question is, what remains when the shaking stops? Hi, I'm Gary Valenciano, and on my podcast, Unshaken with Gary V., I sit down with amazing personalities and we talk about the seasons that nearly broke them, the lows that carried them to their highs. Listen to Unshaken with Gary V. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson.

1:16:08I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness Actually. Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some of it is awesome. And some of it is, well, actually, bullshit. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic like... What's the deal with peptides? What's the deal with GLP-1s? What's the deal with creatine?

1:16:40What's the deal with cupping? What's the deal with sleep? So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. It might actually be just what the doctor... Or the economist... Ordered. Listen to Wellness Actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:17:01Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?

1:17:39Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1:18:07Finally, it's time to recommend a film or film-related item that complements this set of episodes. We call it Your Next Picture Show in the hopes that it'll put some interesting choices on your radar. Keith, what do you have for us? There's a very easy, very fine supplement to watch if you really enjoy Oh Brother, We're Out Thou, and specifically the music of Oh Brother, Where Out There, which is a concert film directed by Nick Dobb and the reliable team of Chris Hedges and D.A. Pennebaker called Down from the Mountain, which fairly straightforwardly but effectively films a concert performance at the Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

1:18:47And it includes a lot of people from the soundtrack and a lot of the songs from the soundtrack, but also some people that aren't on the soundtrack and some songs that aren't on the soundtrack. It is, you know, it's great. It's a great concert of this music. The filmmaking is not flashy, but it's very, you know, it's very fly on the wall, as you might expect from that team. There's a moment that always stuck with me, though, that's sort of like between acts, and it's Emmylou Harris backstage, and she's singing one of her own songs, I think acapella. and she is completely captivating. It's sort of like, you know, it makes you aware of the performer is performing something and the effect it has is audience.

1:19:32They're not always on the same page necessarily because she's, you know, beautiful voice, beautiful song. And about midway through, she's like totally cuts off because she has sort of this pre-smartphone device that gives baseball score updates and she's just really excited about some update on baseball score. It's like, what are you doing? You're breaking the spell, Amy Lua Harris. But yeah, I'd recommend, I definitely recommend that film if you want a little bit more of that Oh Brother, Where Art Thou feeling. Absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for that.

1:20:06That's it for this edition of The Next Picture Show. Genevieve, can you tell us about our next pairing? Well, with the summer movie season winding down in Hollywood, we are also clocking out next week for just a little more time in the sun. But we'll be back the week after that, and we're cooking up a culinary pairing that will surely earn us three stars in Michelin, five stars on Apple Podcasts, and a James Beard Award. In his wonderful memoir, Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Mordain referenced his humble beginnings in Provincetown, where he cut his teeth as a dishwasher and line cook in a small restaurant while getting into all sorts of mischief.

1:20:38That formative piece of his life has inspired Tony, a lively new coming-of-age film by Matt Johnson, the director of Blackberry and Nirvana the Band, the show, the movie. Before his death in 2018, Bourdain had cited the Pixar classic Ratatouille as one of the best films ever made about the restaurant business, reserving special praise for how well it understood the passion and protocols of the kitchen. So on our next set of episodes, we'll look at Ratatouille and Tony and decide who's the least chaotic chef, an aspirational rat or a skirt-chasing college student on summer break. For now, we welcome your feedback on Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Odyssey, and anything else film-related you'd like to talk about.

1:21:14Email us at comments at nextpictureshow.net or leave us a voicemail at 773-234-9730. Before we close out this week's episode, where can we find everyone these days? Genevieve, let's start with you. I continue to be the TV editor at Vulture, mostly behind the scenes, and I continue to park on Blue Sky at Genevieve Kosky and occasionally post some completely non-film or TV related content on my Instagram. so if you want to see what my gardener dogs are up to go there scott i'm just looking up what's the last uh what's the last uh time we've gotten a uh an original genevieve cosby skeet and it's it's been uh seven months it's been seven months since we've gotten something uh but but uh maybe maybe maybe maybe a little bit more powerful the impact is powerful when it happens you can find me mostly at The Reveal the newsletter that I write with Keith Phipps that's TheReveal.film I'm going to by way of it hasn't happened yet but I'm going to will myself to do a ranked list of Christopher Nolan films for the newsletter next week so I have to do it so I have to it will have already been you've already seen it while you've been there but me saying it I'm speaking into existence now you're pulling a Tiresias predicting the future i'm good uh you guys want me in uh new york times uh vulture guardian and other fine publications and i met uh on blue sky at scott tobias uh tasha robinson oh you can find me over at vulture still writing about uh game changer the dropout show which i love so very very dearly and occasionally popping up on polygon where i just reviewed Moana.

1:23:02So if you believe Scott and want to know why I hate Moana so much, I don't hate Moana so much, but you can find out there. Also, July brought the release of the Criterion edition of The Crying Game with an essay by yours truly about Neil Jordan and the history of this movie and its complicated reception, shall we say, in Ireland and the UK versus its more straightforward and certainly very influential reception in America. Very, very interesting history of this movie and very interesting taking a big deep dive into the things that Neil Jordan has said about it over the course of more than 30 years of release.

1:23:44So you can find that essay online at Criterion.com. You can also find it in the liner notes of the actual edition of the movie, which I highly recommend revisiting or watching if you haven't seen it already. Keith, where can we find you? Tasha, I had to ask, though. I'm sorry. I apologize in advance. But after I read this essay, will I know all I need to know about the crying game? I mean, I know all there is to know about the crying game. It turns out it's really pretty simple. So, yeah, probably you will. I mean, you need to see the movie as well. And honestly, if you see the movie, you might know all there is to know about the crying game.

1:24:23I'm just a supplement. Well, as for me, I write about film and television wherever, in any place that will have me. Most, you know, currently at Vulture and TV Guide, occasionally some other places. But you can always find me at The Reveal, at thereveal.film. It's the newsletter that Scott already mentioned where I co-write. I co-write that with him. And as much as he willed his next piece into existence, I'm holding a Blu-ray of the film Ulysses, which is the Anthony Quinn, Kirk Douglas version of the Odyssey from the 1950s that I've never seen. But it's interesting that I think it's just the fact that it's the only other modern, you know, sort of like post-silent full adaptation of the Odyssey to film.

1:25:05And I think it's probably pretty different. It's only 94 minutes long, so I'm sure it's quite different from Christopher Nolan's version. Also, because there aren't enough film podcasts in the world, I recently launched with Mike Ryan, who I used to work with at Uproxx. He brought me the idea of doing a podcast about Harrison Ford movies. And I thought, that's a pretty good idea. And he's like, and we can call it Ford Focus. Like, oh, that's a great idea. So we are going through the filmography of Harrison Ford, you know, one film at a time. We're currently on a weekly schedule and we're having some guests on.

1:25:41You know, currently we got episodes up about The Fugitive. by the time this comes out, we'll have covered Mosquito Coast and The Devil's Own, kind of alternating the big hits with the lesser-known films. So it's been a lot of fun so far. If you were to join Patreon and get more content, what would you be called then, Keith? Oh, well, no, you're referring to our bonus episodes, which are called Ford Escapes, which cover, like, tangential topics. I thought you were personally called a Ford Explorer, if you subscribe to this. No, I'll put that idea to Mike, though. Maybe we need to incorporate that.

1:26:14That's great. We did rule out using the word Ford Probe in any context here, though. So that would not work. But look for that wherever you find podcasting, like this one. You can also stay updated on The Next Picture Show at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The Next Picture Show. Get bonus content and open discussion at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow. And as always, we appreciate your ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to this show. Thanks to Dan the Bake Jakes for his assistance in producing this podcast. The Next Picture Show is proud to be part of the FilmSpotting family of podcasts.

1:26:48Please tune in next time.

1:27:00That was a good movie. Yeah, seen here before once. On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the Jaws shark. Didn't always work, came with its own problems. That's what made it great. The cast of Obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 A Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes on all industry news. Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:27:40And for more, follow at Raiders of the Lost podcast and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. 30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas? This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough. But we're not stopping, are we? Listen to Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them.

1:28:25This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:28:47I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness Actually. You're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information, and some of it is awesome. And some of it is, well, actually, bulls**t. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Listen to Wellness Actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.