Is THE ODYSSEY truly epic? With SIR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

0:00Now, Mark, I don't know why all these trendy podcasters need to sell such tat in their online shops these days. You'd have thought the show would have been enough for them. I mean, look at this tea towel. Simon, I think that's our shop you're browsing, isn't it? Oh, so it is. Actually, those Kermode and Mayor director's chairs are very nice, and it's all incredibly slick and easy. That's probably what confused me. That's because it's powered by Shopify. Shopify is where you go to start your business. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day one, which means our top production team can concentrate on, well, whatever it is that they do.

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1:13You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced government-sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe.

1:48While your neighbor says, I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org slash getting better. Because your beliefs are yours, and theirs are theirs. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions. Viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in Questions Schmestions. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to extratakes.com for non-fruit related devices.

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2:53So we'll kick off with some non-synthetic sincerity, shall we, Mark? Very good. That's an answer. So I feel like I was just overheard you were talking about... Hello, Ben. Hello, by the way. Hello, Ben. Hello. Hello. I overheard you talking about a jacket that you're waiting for there. But I feel like listening to the last few shows, don't you have a suitcase full of clothes that's somewhere else? so have you discovered that now? Is that? That finally arrived. So that was the lyric of KLM. Yeah, so we went to this film festival in Lopud, the island of Croatia and we flew out KLM. We changed to Amsterdam.

3:38They lost our bags. So we got there, the bags weren't there. Then they found the bags just in time to give them back to us to get back on the plane to go back to Amsterdam where they lost the bags again. Again? They lost the bags, yeah, yeah, twice and then they lost them for 10 days. KLM Eternal. Exactly, yes. As everyone keeps pointing out, I would have been better flying KLF. But I don't know whether you remember, you're probably too young to remember this. There used to be, British Airways used to have a jingle which went, we'll take more care of you, fly the flag. Do you remember that? I don't remember that.

4:16And in the playground, we all used to sing, we'll take the fare and you'll lose your bags. So anyway, now, and yeah, anyway, so since then there is a, there is a Barracuda jacket, which has been, which has been sent to me, um, coming. Is that like a flying jacket? No, no, no. Is that what that is? You know, it's a Harrington. Is it? No, no, it's a Harrington. Okay. And, um, but, but it was, it was dispatched, you know, many weeks ago. And I had a thing from them saying it's arriving tomorrow at nine o 'clock and then it didn't, then it didn't. Well, it turns out it's been, it's been impounded at customs or something.

4:51And as I said, it's been impounded at customs because it's just too cool. It's just literally, they've taken one look at it and gone, no, I'm sorry. You can't have that level of cool. I'm sorry, that cannot go through customs. And I keep getting these emails from Barracuda saying, honestly, we've never had this problem before. We really don't know what's going on. So anyway, we'll wait and see. It'll arrive eventually. But no, the suitcase had turned up. Thank you for caring about that, Ben. Yeah, I just caught the tail end of the conversation. I was intrigued by the jacket. The jacket. The jacket.

5:26Sounds like a beauty. It's a beautiful thing. It's a G9 and it's a thing of, well, it will be a thing of great joy when and if it finally turns up. Anyway, how are you? Are you modeling a... I'm okay. Is that an English shirt? I am wearing my favorite England shirt, semi-lucky England shirt. because obviously when everybody hears this we'll know that England have crashed out horribly from the World Cup but as we're recording it's the day of the semi-final England versus Argentina yeah yeah it's this thing called it's the World Cup and it's like all the countries in the world are allowed to have a go to enter and you win this big gold globe basically at the end of it the best team wins play with a round leather sorry You don't want to win because it's going to be presented by Mangum.

6:18Yeah, I mean, that's a tricky thing. Yeah, Infantino and Trump, the sort of figureheads. Wow. It says here that you're going to talk enticingly about three things today. What are those three things? Well, there are three things we're discussing. One of them is Ride or Die, which is this new TV series, eight-part TV series, which is a bit of a romp. Another is a documentary called Synthetic Sincerity, which is a small release but a very interesting documentary. And then this is the week that finally sees the release of The Odyssey. Yeah, and our special guest is the film's director himself, Sir Christopher Nolan.

6:58Simon spoke to him last week. So it's pretty exciting. And you can get our take two as well without the ads by heading to our Patreon page. all you have to do is search Kermode and Mayo Patreon and you'll find us and Mark are you going to have your jacket in time for Bristol on the 6th of December? Well I'm certainly hoping so we're going to, we're doing the Christmas show and we're doing it in Bristol we've done it in London before we're doing it in Bristol we're putting our big boy trousers on getting out of London very big deal for Simon who doesn't really like to leave showbiz North London as you know so we're going to be the Bristol Beacon on December the 6th at 7pm you can get tickets there's a link in the show notes and indeed if my jacket has arrived by then I will be wearing it in December come and see the Barracuda 6th of December check out the links for tickets, the Beacon is that what used to be what was it called something hall is that the one they changed the name of after they tore the statue down I'm not sure but the good lady professor her indoors is from Bristol so I'm going to check with her it's going to be fabulous it's going to be listen I might actually come along I've got a lot of friends in Bristol Colston Hall that's it Colston Hall is that what you're thinking of that's what it is it used to be Colston Hall great venue good name change wonderful city what a fun place there's also there is a brilliant art centre in Bristol which is the Bristol Watershed which is a great cinema great art centre that's a great place Amazing stuff there.

8:35Yeah, really, really good stuff there. And actually, I think, is it in take two when we'll be celebrating some more Bristolian bits, won't we? Yeah, because the ongoing Aardman animation re-releases are happening. This is all part of the birthday celebration. So there's more Aardman on the big screen. And the thing with a lot of these, the Aardmans, is many people will only have seen them on the small screen. It's always worth seeing them projected in the cinema. So yes, the Aardman anniversary celebrations roll on and indeed will continue to roll on for a few weeks. So yeah, I sort of did a tiny throw ahead at the very top of this show saying that we were going to fake some sincerity as the Bonhomie ensued.

9:19But actually, it was a reference to this very intriguing little documentary, Synthetic Sincerity. You going to tell us about that, Mark? Yeah, so this is a new film by Mark Isaacs. is a filmmaker who's best known at the filmmaker's house examined the way that documentaries, whilst they kind of appear to be objective, are actually narrative construction. And it's funny, I think the last time you were on, we had a conversation about, there's a book by Janet Malcolm called The Journalist and the Murderer, which is actually, I think, the most interesting kind of analysis of the relationship between a subject and their interviewer.

9:57And it's all about the kind of the way in which none of this stuff is ever not fraught. Anyway, on that documentary, Filmmaker's House, Mark Isaacs started collaborating with Adam Gantz, and then he made Blessed Plot. And now this, which he's described as the third documentary fiction hybrid of the trilogy in which, quote, we look at film data and what is happening in the documentary film and the world it depicts as AI cinema becomes a reality. So the poster, which is actually a really good poster, the poster has got two gentlemen who one assumes to be cinematic pioneers, the Lumiere brothers.

10:37And one of them is saying, you know, August, sincerity is the key to documentary cinema. And the other who's sitting down knitting says, yes, Louis, if we can fake that, we've got it made. So what that implies is that the film is like a kind of playful meditation upon authenticity and verisimilitude, but particularly in an age in which AI means that, you know, while the camera may never lie, the moving image does all the time. So the film is this kind of very knowing mix of documentary and drama that purports to draw on the filmmaker's own back catalogue and then plays out in what sounds like a Cronenbergian institute, the Synthetic Sincerity Lab, which is part of the University of Southern England.

11:22And here we are told that scientists are striving to create authentic AI characters. And the project is headed up by Professor Song, who, via a virtual AI assistant, presents the director with a unique proposition. Here's a clip. Professor Song and I would like to make you an offer. What kind of offer? The university will pay to license your corpus of films to help us to make our synthetic characters more human. Great. I mean, I'm just happy that people are still interested in these characters. In return, we want to invite you to document our working process. I'm not used to filming in workplaces, but I'd be more than happy.

12:10Please do not disrupt the team, though, as they are all under a lot of pressure. So you hear from that, that kind of, that slightly weird robotic voice, and you see the image of what appears to be a virtual AI presence. and presenting this thing about, okay, we're going to do this thing. So the filmmaker agrees, hands over his back catalog to be duly scraped by the Research Institute to teach sincerity to their AI models through the use of real documentary interviews. And then there's also this very independently-minded researcher who then selects, and I guess Chef, to be the main focus of the study, to be photographed and to be interviewed and to be interrogated by machines, in order to create an AI version of him that apparently will be able to say the things that he cannot say.

13:13Now, at the centre of all of this, there's this Bergman quote about how the essence of cinema is the human face. The human face is the most expressive of things. And it begins by saying, you know, in the past, we captured the human face with paintings and paintings would only be done for rich people. And now, of course, then we've moved into photography. Now everybody has images of faces. We're always looking at faces in order to sort of to see what somebody is thinking. And we look into the eyes of somebody. Everyone says, if you look at the eyes, it's the window of the soul. But what happens when you look at an AI generated face, which has eyes, but obviously it being AI generated, it has no soul.

13:52And there's this weird thing in the director's statement, which says, in the past, to film something was to witness it. But what will happen to documentary when film loses the power to document? And what will happen to a society that cannot be documented? it and one of the way the film asks that question is by making us as we're watching the this documentary drama hybrid constantly wondering whether what we're watching is fake or actual so for example at the beginning when we when we meet the ai guide and we are told that this ai guide has been created in conjunction with an actor but i'm looking at it thinking i don't well I don't know whether I, you know, it's moving in a strange, you know, that slightly Max Headroomy way, but I don't know, maybe that's just somebody acting.

14:41Are any of the people that we meet in the documentary footage, are they real? Or is that stage? Are any of the people that we meet at the Institute who we presume they're all acting, but I don't know, you know, so you spend the whole time watching it and thinking, I don't know whether any of this is real. I mean, I know that a large portion of it is staged because it is this sort of theatrical convention. In fact, there's one moment in it in which the filmmakers are in conversation with an AI and then they stop and go, oh, hang a minute. And then they look at the script that they're reading from and they're reading from this script.

15:18Do you remember, have you ever seen that Stuart Lee gag? When he does a gag, right? And then he goes off on a tangent. and then he says and the funny thing about this is is that this tangent it's it's all written it's all scripted yeah yeah yeah i remember it and then he goes and then he goes and so is this that i just said now and and so was that and then he does this whole thing that everything so in a way there's this kind of meta thing going on that the whole thing is a construct and it's telling you that it's a construct and it's playing with the fact that it's a construct and then it's but it's still doing it while it's a construct and it it made me think i don't know whether you remember but back i think it was during lockdown um simon and i interviewed adam curtis and i think he'd just done um can't get you out of my head and there was it was kind of there was a lot of ideas around that we were discussing about you know the what what the images in the documentary meant and in the case of this i mean i really enjoyed it i thought it was it was entertainingly head-scratching stuff not least because what you spend an awful lot of it doing is going okay hang on so that's that's no that's not real that is which of course is the way that you should raise those questions funnily enough just a couple of days before i had a conversation with jason isaacs who of course is very very interested in what's happening with ai and how ai is going to fundamentally change all film you know he's he's kind of obsessive about this stuff and i it just reminded me that we really are on the cusp of of something in which you know i as a film critic i'm looking at this you know i said this playfully made and intelligent and entertaining documentary that raises more questions and answers and that's the whole point what it's what it's meant to be doing is making good well firstly it it has to be entertaining it has to be enjoyable which it is but secondly it is meant to leave you thinking i don't know what how much of any of that was real and that's kind of the point yeah i think what worry you as an actor are you concerned absolutely absolutely i mean i had a had an interesting conversation just a couple of days ago a charity event um when uh a guy who runs a big uh sort of creative digital ai company like gleefully told me about um this project that he's working on wherein uh actors and singers sign over their likenesses to his company and he can create anything in their likeness as long as they agree to it and have it completely protected and make money for them so you'd essentially have an avatar going and doing work for you while you sleep and he was Is that something that you'd be interested in?

18:09And I was like, well, as a SAG member, equity member, I don't know if you remember the strikes. And he was like, of course. He's like, I was, you know, a big part of that. A big part of that was the determination not to have this happen. And he said, yeah, but what I'm talking about is giving you all the rights and all the say. And I was like, I understand that, but don't you think it'd be a bit of a weird, maybe a slightly bad look once I've been a part of or once I've supported these strikes to also have, oh, by the way, you can buy a Ben Bailey Smith and he'll do your little tap dance and a moonwalk for$5.99.

18:49You know, I just, something about it, just, I was just like, it sounds, I'm glad that you've got the artist's feelings and all of that at heart, but it's just, it's not for me. But the thing with this film that I thought was kind of perfect is exactly what you were saying. The way that even as you're watching it, you're in this sort of uncanny valley place where it's like, is that acting? Is that an actor? Is that real? And I immediately, after, as soon as it finished, started Googling everybody. And of course, the AI is an actress. she's a romanian actor with a very unusual face and she does a lot of unusual stuff so that's a great piece of casting but then the very opinionated filmmaker who's sort of the center of it i think she's lebanese yes is a very opinionated filmmaker she is that person but in a way okay but in a way in a way here's the thing so i did exactly what you did okay after watching it.

19:56And part of me is kind of thinking, I mean, part of me doesn't even want to say any of that because what I want is for people to see it. No, no, in the same sense - That's almost a spoiler, you're right. No, it's not a spoiler, but it's like I did exactly the same thing that you did, was when, okay, hang on, hang on a minute. And funnily enough, when you start doing that, there is a whole really interesting story about who or what you have been watching. Do you remember at the end of Dad's Army, you have been watching? So there is an interesting narrative about who or what you have been watching.

20:32Did you enjoy the film? Did you like it? Massively. In that weird way you enjoy stuff that also slightly puts you on edge. I never felt at ease with the film, but not because it was working. It was working, which is why I wasn't at ease. I was constantly recording lines from it into the voice notes on my phone because there was little things like nostalgia being this thief of joy and things like that there was just lots of things that made me think a lot and I don't know about everybody else but that is what I want from my cinematic experiences I just thought it was really thoughtful and a great way of sort of introducing this really complex constantly evolving topic that is so prevalent right now a really brilliant way of presenting it good I'm really glad you enjoyed it and I'm really glad you had the same feeling as I did and I'm really glad you did exactly the same thing that I did the minute it had finished so yeah good and also if they are all actors in that film I'm sorry, but that's some of the best acting I've ever seen.

21:49Because I thought maybe the AI is an actor. I had no idea about anybody else. And I won't discuss anybody else. But if they are actors, then they are incredible. And if they're not, that throws up even more questions. Yeah. But do you know what I mean? In a way, you don't want the thing solved. Although, of course, you do. because there is a so what i would suggest is see the film and then do what we just did yeah which is go you know go because there's a whole other story behind it about how much how much of what you are told is actually what you have been told it is yeah and also double double triple quadruple check everything anyway as a matter of course in in life with every bit of information that you that you hear or presented.

22:44Ben, I remember really clearly, I'm sitting here wearing a Rock Against Racism t-shirt, right? Nice. I remember, you know, the Glasgow Media Group and that whole idea that was kind of pretty prevalent in the mid-1970s, which people were saying for the first time, you need to ask where the information's coming from, which newspaper is telling you it, and why are they telling you it? And I remember first ever coming across that idea of the things that you see written, And you need to ask where that's coming from. And I do feel like this is all part of that ongoing discussion that we were always having is who's saying it?

23:19Why are they saying it? What are they saying? And how much of it is true? Anyway. And how many conversations have you been in that turn into slight debates and no one has the answer and someone goes, okay, okay, let's solve this. Google's the question. Google it. And then just reads the very first result, which is an AI scraping of everything. That's not even a source. You know, one of the great AI hallucinations recently was, there's this band, The Panic Brothers, that I absolutely love. They were kind of comic musical duo. And I gigged with them back in the 1980s in Edinburgh. And I was trying to find out if there was any record of the gigs.

23:58And I googled Mark Kermode, The Panic Brothers, and the AI thing came up first. And it said, Mark Kermode is a member of The Panic Brothers. No, I'm not. I mean, I'd love to have been a member of the Panic Brothers, but no, I'm not. There was two people in the Panic Brothers and neither of them were me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the internet. Go on my Wikipedia page. My name and age and place of birth are all wrong. I mean, that's the beginning bit. That's the very first thing. That's what you're starting with. Anyway, God help us all. Let's get on to the greatest story ever told. What's still to come after the break, Mark?

24:34Still to come. Well, we will be looking at the chart. We will in the future be looking at Ride or Die, which is the TV show. But coming up in the not too distant future is the interview with Christopher Nolan and our review, because we've both seen it, of The Odyssey. Can't wait. All right. Keep it here and we'll see you in a sec.

24:59Hey, Mark Kermode. Fancy a fun quick fire quiz? I thought you'd never ask. Great. How do you protect yourself from spoilers? We never watch the end of the film. Well, a bit impractical, but fine. How do you protect yourself from getting wound up by noisy cinema goers? There's no need. I'm a very tolerant man, as you know. How do you protect yourself from getting bored of The Exorcist? It's impossible. Anyway, shall we start this fun quiz? What's more fun than being well protected? OK, is that part of the quiz? I'm doing the questions, thank you. How do you protect yourself from online scams? Ah, finally, a sensible question.

25:34NordVPN's next-gen antivirus. Blocks, scams and phishing before they reach you. Fake texts, dodgy links. Your account is locked. Emails, same app as the VPN. One tap, the biggest protection in the game. Correct, upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app. Head to nordvpn.com slash take to get an exclusive NordVPN deal plus four months extra risk-free.

26:04This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey everyone, this is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not.

26:40And it surely isn't about having one forced government-sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe. While your neighbor says, I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org slash getting better. Because your beliefs are yours and theirs are theirs. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays? Here's a tip. The Apple Sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules.

27:17And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone.

27:35Welcome back. Or if you are a Patreon, a Vanguardista, of course, we never went anywhere. Right, box office top 10. At number 9 in the UK, 11 in the US is Jackass, best and last. Where do you stand on Jackass, Ben? I just it's just not on my radar never saw the originals never saw any of the sequels I don't know it's not really my thing I don't think no well it's not really my thing but of all of the jackass movies this is the one that I liked the most or disliked the least and I do think that there is something interesting in it about male friendship I can do without all the sick and poo yeah because I don't like sick or poo but I think the male bonding stuff is actually quite nice nice uh at number eight in the uk uh nine in the u.s disclosure day this is as i said when i did it it's you know it's a film made by a man in his 70s that looks like a film made by a man in the 70s i mean it is it is so much for throwback i mean it's a spielberg movie and it's got some great things in it but it is also very very old fashioned and i enjoyed it i enjoyed it but i found the end kind of disappointing have you seen this i haven't um child one uh film student extraordinaire has seen it and she watches everything she was slightly disappointed by it as well i think she went in like enjoying the nostalgic elements but also felt that it she what she said was it felt a little bit tired um so i don't know i i have nothing to add because I've not seen it, but I was very excited until I got her review.

29:15Yeah, a little bit tired, I think is fair. I mean, there are things in it that are great, but it is a little bit tired. And I think in the end you go, oh, okay, all right. And that's not what you should get from a Spielberg movie. But there we go. Another big blockbuster here, number seven, here and in the US, Supergirl. We had a lot of emails about this last week because I saw it and thought that it's got a very good central performance and it's just a shame that the rest of the movie isn't anything like as good as the central performance. We had a lot of emails from people saying that they had enjoyed it more than I did.

29:51Obviously, it hasn't set the box office alight. I know that a lot of people have been concerned that some of the really negative reactions to it have been the standard boys-y thing about, oh, it's a girls' movie, therefore we'll be rude about it. I mean, as I said, I think strong central performance, weak film. And it is always a shame if someone's doing really good work, you know, in the middle of it all, but the film itself is just not anything like as good as they need it to be. And that was how I felt. That's quite a frustrating experience, I find. I'll tell you what is doing well and refuses to leave.

30:31a film that's obsessed with the top 10 it seems at six in the uk eight in the us is obsession yeah ninth week of release and i mean the film cost nothing and it has made an absolute packet and it deserves to because it's a really really smart horror movie this came out kind of pretty much back to back with backrooms but this is the one that stuck around because it's got it because it's about something it's it is genuinely really scary but it's also satirical and it's got a really strong central theme as all the best horror does and and it's just it's just going from strength to strength i mean it is just holding on in there and good for it yeah with with like all these huge blockbusters on either side of it as well it's pretty impressive i know um it's great uk number Number five, US number six, is The Invites.

31:24Which I enjoyed very much. And it's one of those kind of toe-curling comedies, two couples in a flat, and the couple upstairs visit the couple downstairs, and the whole thing turns into a socially excruciating nightmare. But I thought it was well done, very well played, very funny, very sharp. Has that kind of... You can listen to Simon's interview with the filmmakers. because it's got that very kind of sharp, old 70s Europe. When people used to make adult comedies that didn't mean something else, it meant grown-up comedies about grown-up issues as opposed to, yeah, we had a long discussion about the fact that in America, the word adult doesn't mean adult.

32:03It means something else. I was listening. And, you know, I ended listening to that section with a big smile on my face thinking, it's nice that we're still getting the odd, proper grown-up comedy out of the US. Because I thought that was kind of dead in the water. Ben, I think it was Dead in the Water. I think one of the things that's really interesting about the film is that it does not fit anywhere in the landscape of modern Hollywood production. It really doesn't. It sticks out like a sore thumb. So, you know, good for it. Yeah. And at number four, here and over across the pond, is Evil Dead Burn.

32:39I hated Evil Dead Burn. I really didn't like it at all. And one of the things that's been quite interesting is, under the um on our youtube channel uh people put you know comments underneath and a couple of people really took issue with they said well mark kermode said that uh evil dead was marketed as a comedy no it wasn't evil dead wasn't a comedy evil there was a really terrifying movie and it was a quote from steven spielberg saying you know most ferocious that yeah no i know i know all of that but believe me i also have interviewed sam raimi many many times about it sam raimi's phrase was the evil dead is a comedy it's a three stooges comedy with blood and guts standing in for custard pies.

33:14You don't believe me? I've actually got the tape of him saying it. There's no question that The Evil Dead is a terrifying movie, but it's also a comedy. It is a terrifying horror comedy. That's what it set out to be. Yes, Evil Dead 2 made it more explicit, but it was there in Evil Dead 1. So please stop lecturing me about things which you weren't around for when I was, because I was there when the film first came out, and I was there when the police impoundings happened, and I was there when the Snaresbrook trial happened, and I did do a massive amount of research into this i will now get off my bike i love that i love that so yeah yeah you leave them alone it's just like for heaven's sake you know i hear you yeah i hear you um and and actually we've got an interesting uh back and forth here at three and two in terms of franchises haven't we because at number three in the uk two in the us is minions and monsters and at number two three in the US is Toy Story 5 so two animated franchises doing very different things for you I feel yeah Toy Story 5 I found very disappointing I actually quite dispiriting um I've been you know having so much invested in Toy Story Minions and Monsters I just think is fantastic and yes there's loads and loads of cine literate jokes and somebody had written in the thing which is you know it's Minions and Monsters it's got a whole bunch of jokes about silent cinema Mark Kermode is going to explode but it's just i mean it's have you seen it ben i haven't i haven't but i mean you need to you it honestly i was genuinely surprised when i heard your review why surprised because because i know you're a big minions fan and i think you've probably gone easy on a couple of minions related works in the in the past and when i saw this coming out um and i heard the interview with the director saying he didn't want to do any Minions films, I thought, I feared for this film.

35:05And then I heard your review and Simon's interview and how infused Simon was about it. I thought, oh my God, this actually sounds like it could be one of the best Minions films. So I am definitely going to watch it. I didn't, I had very low expectations. Yeah, well, believe me, it's a laugh a minute and it's a film made by somebody who loves cinema and it is a love letter to cinema and the Minions are the great slapstick, you know tradition of the present and if you if if like me you grew up loving Keaton and Lloyd and Chagdon and all that stuff yeah then honestly Ben I'd love I'd love to know what you think about it because I laughed like an idiot the whole way through as did Simon as did Simon and we've I think it was Simon who said it was like airplane levels of jokes yeah it is that many jokes which Which airplane level of jokes with Keaton Chaplin Lloyd slapstick.

35:59I mean, that is... That's just poetry in motion for me. Toy Story 5, not so much. But at the UK number one and US number one, another former animation that's a bit of an animation anyway, the live action Disney Moana. So an interesting thing about this, which was I thought that of all the... I mean, I do think that all the live action remakes are pointless. And when I reviewed the film and Simon interviewed the director, I said, okay, look, if you assume that all the live actions are pointless, of all of them, this is my favourite one. Because I just love Moana. I love the songs. I love the story.

36:42I love the characters. I love the fact that Dwayne Johnson animated and Dwayne Johnson real life, basically the same thing. um but it's it's had really really hostile reviews um although it's number one it has underperformed spectacularly and the trades are now saying it's on course to lose a huge amount of money and they're wondering whether this is the point at which the the live action remake bubble burst i mean it won't be but i think it's kind of interesting that a lot of people were saying i mean because obviously i mean i hadn't heard any reviews of it but when you know when I reviewed it.

37:15I just thought of all of them, it's like, okay, fine. I find Moana impossible to dislike. Of course, it doesn't add anything to the animation. Of course, it's not as good as the animation. Of course, we don't need it because the animation was pretty much perfect. But if you're going to have it, this is the one that mithered me the least. And whilst watching it, because of the story and the characters and the songs and all the rest of it, I found myself laughing. I found myself crying. I found myself being moved. And I was sitting on the South Bank just before going into NFT1 to do MK3D on Monday.

37:46And a woman stopped me and said, oh, I just want to say I went to see Moana and I thought same as you did, which was perfectly fine. But there's so much negativity about it. I mean, the news have not been good at all. To give a young person perspective, my two daughters, who are 21 and 18, both boycotted it. because Moana means so much to them. The original film, like if you think of their ages and when Moana came out, I mean, I had to take them to see that film numerous times. And then of course, by the DVD and the toys and everything. So it's, for them, it's a real emotional connection to the original.

38:30And they've been getting angry and angry about all these live remakes, live action remakes. And they feel a little bit like they're jackass-ing all over the legacy. you know yeah I mean I completely understand that because my principal thing is you don't need to do any of these things because the animations of course need to be remade this is the best of a bad bunch is for me it was the one that mithered me the least and it's interesting that actually it's the one that's had the roughest ride and it may just be it's fatigue it may just be that people have got fed up and it may be exactly what you just said that people Moana means so much to people that you just don't mess around with it I mean if somebody said to me well how would you feel if somebody remade your favorite movie immediately immediately my hackles are up so i do understand it i do absolutely understand it yeah um kieran has had a pretty uh intense reaction to it as well he says uh i always wondered what it would take for me to walk out on a film well the day has finally arrived i tried watching the live action moana and after reaching the halfway mark decided i'd seen enough and left i always thought I'd walk out if the film angered or upset me.

39:42Instead, I just found myself thinking, I know where this is going. I've seen it already. Why don't I just go and do something else? It felt like pausing a YouTube video and closing the tab, except with£10 I'm Never Gain Back. There's nothing left to say or feel about these live-action remakes. They're not art from Kieran. I mean, that's quite strong. I think everything is art, but yeah. Yeah, but you know, I, I, I, I, like I said, I do get it and I do get, I mean, I'm not trying to be perverse by me saying, you know, of all of them, it was the one that I did. I dislike the least or like the most, because it just, it's the one that when I was watching it, you know, I had the least problem with, but I think it's because, and I, the comparison I made was like Mamma Mia.

40:26Those ABBA songs are indestructible. You can do what you want to them. You can have Pierce Brosnan murdering a song, but it's still an ABBA song, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's very true. And, and, and, and, And for the sake of parity, I should say, we've got just as many pieces of correspondence that are positive about Moana as well. There's one here actually from a head teacher called Daniel Woodrow, who says, Dear Heihei and Pua, I've emailed before once in your previous incarnation when you read out an Ofsted report I'd written. I actually remember that. And Simon very kindly awarded me a pay rise on air that our governor sadly declined to implement.

41:05I actually remember listening to that. You may have seen the recent story about Dwayne The Rock Johnson surprising a UK primary school with a cinema screening of the new Moana. Well, that was us. Last Friday, 200 pupils plus 500 friends and family took over all nine screens of a local cinema. The children were treated like VIPs with photos on arrival and every seat stocked with popcorn, sweets, drinks, Moana cupcakes and signed posters. Dwayne also recorded a personal message that played before the film. It was truly magical. The week before, we took 60 children to the Moana experience in London where they met Dwayne, Catherine Lagaya, Auli Cravalho and Thomas Kyle.

41:51The children didn't even know that they were going to London. Dwayne was as warm and generous as you'd hope. He filmed a video with the children and kindly told me we were two big, bald, beautiful men. As for the film, I loved it Particularly the heightened emotional pull Of Moana and Grandma Tala The children will never forget the day Dwayne Johnson took us to the pictures Best wishes, Daniel Woodrow, head teacher I mean, you think about what you know about The Rock And then you think about just your Kind of ingrained opinion about The Rock You know, based on the fact you've never met him This sort of ties into all of those things for me You can just imagine him doing it.

42:34He just seems like a stand-up guy. Seems like a stand-up guy. Absolutely. Celebrating baldness as well. Love that little touch. Fantastic. All right, we're going to go into another break now. But when we come back, it's going to be Simon's brilliant interview with Sir Christopher Nolan.

42:56Hello, Mark Kermode. Hello, Simon Mayo. Quick question. What's your autumn signature dish? Why are you asking? Because I suspect the answer is a takeaway. That is deeply unfair. But is it? Sometimes it's delivery. Well, perhaps it's your pans that are holding you back. Food sticking, pans burning, uneven heat. That's unusually generous of you. Gordon Ramsay uses hex clad at home and in his restaurants. You could try them. They combine the searing performance of stainless steel with the convenience of non-stick. so you get great cooking results without the usual cleanup headache. They're dishwasher safe and easy to clean.

43:35Plus, every Hexclad product comes with a lifetime warranty so they could genuinely be the last pans you'll ever buy. Upgrade to Hexclad and make everyday cooking easier. For a limited time, listeners get 15 % off with our exclusive link at hexclad.co.uk slash take. That's H-E-X-C-L-A-D hexclad.co.uk forward slash take. Offer excludes bundles and other items already on sale. Support the show and let them know we sent you. This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey everyone, this is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life.

44:20Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced, government-sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe. While your neighbor says, I believe something completely different.

44:55And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org slash getting better. Because your beliefs are yours and theirs are theirs. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays? Here's a tip. The Apple Sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone.

45:39Okay, our guest this week is legendary director Sir Christopher Nolan. He spent much of his career exploring the limits of cinema, as you'll know, from the future in Interstellar all the way back to history in Dunkirk. And now he's turned his hands to something even older, Greek myth. His new film, The Odyssey, adapts Homer's epic tale of Odysseus's long journey home after war. It's a story of monsters, gods, no minions, and the consequences of his own choices. Nolan has described it as foundational, a story that contains all others. And you can hear Simon's conversation with him after this clip.

46:38And then what?

46:42We want more.

46:50Help me go home.

46:56This is a household waiting for Master. I want you to choose me.

47:06Ithaca's king is coming back no he's not

47:14and that is a clip from the odyssey I'm delighted to say we've been joined once again by Sir Christopher Nolan Sir Christopher how are you I'm good thanks how are you doing I'm very good and thrilled to be talking to you again thoroughly enjoyed the weekend mainly because I got to see your film. So how long after Oppenheimer did you settle on doing The Odyssey? It's a world that I've been interested in for a long time. About 20 years ago, I was briefly attached to direct Troy at Warner Brothers, the David Benioff script based on the Iliad. And even though it's the Iliad, he'd included the Trojan horse.

47:51So I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to portray that, how to bring that to a modern audience, how to make that sort fresh, incredible. And I came up with this idea of seeing this horse half buried in the sand about to be swept away by the waves. And I got very excited about that. And it sort of stayed with me for about 20 years. And coming out of Oppenheimer, which succeeded far beyond our expectations, I mean, frankly, it was a great thrill. And it gave me an opportunity. You know, when you've had a success like that for a studio, you have an opportunity to make something you wouldn't otherwise get to make.

48:29And so to take on, you know, not just that ancient world, but also the Odyssey, that kind of original foundational story that so many of us know and love, and do it on a grand scale in a way that's never been done before, that's an opportunity that's just wonderful for a filmmaker. Can you explain just a bit more about it being foundational? I mean, you've said that this contains all stories, which sounds as though it's quite scary for a filmmaker. but just explain just a little bit about that significance. Actually, not so much scary as familiar. I mean, you find these stories within the poem, like old friends, you know, and I look at my previous work, like Interstellar, and I realize how much that story drew from the Odyssey, or the Dark Knight trilogy draws so much from the Odyssey.

49:15It's a tale that is deceptively simple. It has a beautiful structure, a nonlinear structure, the kind of structure I love. It's about stories within stories, flashbacks within flashbacks. But it's the story of Odysseus coming home from the Trojan Wars. It's this homecoming story. And that's a narrative I've been interested in for many years, as a lot of us have. It's very relatable. But it's also a coming of age story. Tom Holland's character of Telemachus is coming of age in the absence of this father that he barely remembers, if at all. And you have the character of Penelope at home trying to keep things together in Ithaca, waiting for 20 years for Odysseus to come back.

49:56So it's a love story as well. And it's a war story. And so many different things are elements of fantasy and harsh reality to do with love and death and loss. So there's really a lot in there, but the story is incredibly cohesive. And I think very cinematic. When I came to look at the original text again and really, you know, burrow in on the specifics of the epic poem. I found amazing cinematic payoffs. I mean, just gold to a filmmaker. There's just so much in there. And shockingly, it hangs together with all of that. And so, you know, for me in adapting it, and I love the process of adaptation.

50:35It's really a fun thing to take a different kind of text. Like in the case of Oppenheimer, I was working from a, you know, know, a 700-page, very academic book about the life of Oppenheimer. And I'm trying to find the movie in that. And with this, a very different kind of challenge. But it was a process of reading it again and again and again and really internalizing it and then sitting down and just trying to make the cinematic narrative that it needed to be. And at what stage in the writing process and in the adaptation process, as you're working your way through the different translations, did Matt Damon occur to you as the perfect choice?

51:14Not until I was finished. And the reason is, part of my writing process is to not ever think about actors while I'm writing. And I do that because if you think of an actor whose work you know, or you've even worked with before, you're going to limit the character to what you've seen them do before. Not intentionally, but you're just going to write to them and what they've already done. And what I want to do is write a character who's true to the needs of the story and that I discover through the writing that I can then give to a great actor like Matt that hopefully challenges them and ask them to do something they haven't done before.

51:50And, you know, I've worked twice with Matt, and I know what an incredible actor he is. We all know what an incredible movie star he is as well. And Odysseus is a very, very complicated character, very complex not your traditional leading man more of a supporting character you know i like to say if we're looking at star wars you know odysseus is han solo he's not luke skywalker he's not a simple hero he's a wily wily is the adjective most commonly associated with odysseus he's a wily character and that's not normally what your hero is and so i needed an actor who could open that up to an audience without compromising the layers, without simplifying the character.

52:31But Matt has this wonderful empathetic ability to just open a character's dilemma to an audience and carry them with him on his journey and never needed as much as on the Odyssey. In the original story, the gods, Zeus and co. are part of the story. Was there any part of you that wondered about having the gods in there, or was that just not really feasible? Well, no, I looked at it. There's so many different ways to approach this. You know, I'm a big fan of Ray Harryhausen. I loved Clash of the Titans when I was a kid, where he has, you know, Lawrence of Olivier and Maggie Smith kind of arguing and moving characters around like chess pieces as the gods.

53:11But what I found in the poem is two possible approaches. Yes, there's the approach where the gods are squabbling over humans and living in their own world. But it also presents this very, very resonant idea of the gods walking amongst us. And it relates it to the concept of Xenia. And Xenia is the idea of Zeus's law, as we refer to it in the film. It's this idea that in ancient times, when you left the house, you were at the mercy of strangers completely. And so there was this code that said, treat others as you would be treated, because they might be gods in disguise. And so in that way, I got interested in the idea of viewing the gods the way that the characters would have viewed them.

53:57And that is there in the text. And so Athena, for example, is appearing to Odysseus in the guise of other beings, sometimes other characters. And so this idea of portraying the gods as they walk amongst us or amongst those characters has great thematic resonance for something that became very important to the adaptation. It's there in the poem. And it coincides with this other interest that I had in the world of the film, which was to turn around and say, in a pre-scientific era, everything in the world, the sun rising in the morning, the tide coming in, the wind blowing, that's all absolute evidence, clear evidence of divinity around these characters.

54:44So they're living amongst the gods. It's not a question of belief. That's the world they're in. And so those two things together felt like something that we could get across very strongly cinematically and keep us in the mindset of the character. It wasn't really about tone overall because, you know, we embrace the fantasy elements of the poem. We certainly do. So really, for me, it was more about trying to experience these gods the way people would have back in the Bronze Age. That felt like it would be more powerful and more relatable. For your score, what were your words to Ludwig Göransson?

55:22What did you want from him? Well, I went to Ludwig, and I worked with Ludwig in a way that, because I don't use temp music when I'm editing the film. I want to use his music, bespoke music. So I always started working before I actually shoot the film. So I showed him the script. And in the case of The Odyssey, I said, look, I've examined this poem. I've adapted this poem. I find it to be earthy and grounded and accessible. So I'm casting and I'm talking to the actors. And we're talking about doing this not in the style of a Hollywood movie from the 50s and 60s. So, for example, the actors aren't going to speak with sort of mid-Atlantic or British accents arbitrarily, things like that.

56:04We're sort of taking the references to kind of 19th century art that permeated those Hollywood movies. We're ignoring all that. We're trying to go back to archaeological sources, go back to a more accessible version of what this could be. So when we look at the music, surely that means we shouldn't embrace the 19th century romantic tradition in music that really is the foundation of modern film schools. You know, this sort of Rachmaninoff meets Wagner kind of thing that drives most of our films. And Ludwig loved that. He's like, yeah, let's take the orchestra off the table and then look for different approaches.

56:42And what he started doing was saying, OK, it's the Bronze Age. Let's look at instruments made of bronze. is there somebody who can play the aulos, this twin flute instrument, or the lyre, this stringed instrument that we see illustrated on pottery that was in existence thousands of years ago. And he started to put together this incredible soundscape and this incredible way of approaching a score that did not come from this sort of 19th century tradition. A few years ago, when you were on Desert Island Discs, you chose Vangelis' score for Chariots of Fire and the phrase you used for it was nostalgia for the future.

57:19Is there any element of that in the score for this film? Yeah, definitely. And thank you for noticing that phrase. I was pleased with it at the time. Yeah, definitely. You know, he's taking the most ancient instrument, the Aulos, and he's having a player express the emotions of the character with it. And then he's underpinning it with the 808 drum machine from the 1980s. And then he's sampling all kinds of sound effects with the synthesizer and making these extraordinary soundscapes from it. Not unlike some of what Vangelis was doing back then. And I think what Ludwig embraces in that is this idea of timelessness.

58:00And the thing about something being timeless, the thing about synthesized scores is they can create voices you've never heard before. and what Ludwig has in here is his ancient voices you've never heard before and then he has absolutely modern voices you've never heard before and so yeah you're creating this emotional feeling this emotional landscape of the characters and this incredible soundscape that's I think timeless really if we're talking about the music you have a bar to Travis Scott who's who's there what was your because obviously this story was passed on orally for so many generations, what were you hoping for there?

58:41I'd worked with Travis on Tenet. He worked with myself and Ludwig contributing to the score and in particular song for the end of that film. And as I was analyzing the poem and analyzing particularly the element of how these stories are handed down. So for about the last hundred years or so the academic community believes that oral formulaic poetry. One bard singing a song, another bard growing up listening to it, making his own, adding to it. That is the way that the Odyssey is thought to have been handed down to Homer, who then wrote it down. That's the current theory. The academics, when they talk about it, even to this day, they'll relate it to Yugoslav folk poetry that was recorded in the 1920s and things like that.

59:27To me, it seems stunningly obvious that we actually have a much closer analog for that. You know, we literally have bards of our own. We have rappers who use language in a very, very similar way to the way that the academics believe, you know, this story may have evolved. And so it felt very apt to go to Travis and say, look, let's have this character of the bard. Let's embrace this element of what lies behind the Odyssey and try and approach it in a different way. A final question. In listening to an interview with Matt Damon talking about this film, he said a few years ago he would have been complaining about being uncomfortable.

1:00:09But he said, every day I felt joyful on the set. I haven't heard any actor use that word before when talking about how he was on set every day. Almost like setting an example for the other actors. Was it, is joyful a word that you would use for making this film? Yeah, I would. And Matt inspired a lot of that in people. And I think Matt and I, you know, we're the same age. He's been doing this longer than I have, but we both got some years under our belts. And I think when you start out facing difficulties in making large-scale films, that can be frustrating. It can be overwhelming. You deal with it a lot in negative ways.

1:00:53When you've been doing this for a while, you start to realize, frankly, how damn lucky you are to be doing what you're doing. You start to really count your blessings a bit more. And I think what I saw in Matt is every challenge that we presented him with, he was realizing that's an opportunity for problem solving. He's just doing what he loves, what he was born to do. And I feel the same way. And so, yeah, I think he certainly inspired in me a feeling of like, yes, it's difficult, but it's supposed to be difficult. We're making the Odyssey. It's meant to be hard. And how lucky are we that we get to experience those difficulties and try and sort of find a way through?

1:01:34I mean, it sounds a bit Pollyanna-ish, but I mean, it's a very strong feeling coming from your leading man when you're putting him through everything we were putting him through. And he's accepting it with good grace and trying to really use it to fuel an incredible performance. I mean, I just love what he's done with Odysseus. And I think he could only have done it now at this point in his life. if he's right where he needed to be to find the truth of this complex, weary, middle-aged character. Well, it's such a wonderful film to experience. In fact, it's like an experience of total immersion.

1:02:10We're all on the boat. We're all in the sea. We're all in the cave. And I don't think I've ever thought in a film ever, I don't think Poseidon is going to be very pleased with what you've just done. So anyway, so that's where I was. Chris Dunn, thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you very much. Wow. Great interview. Great interview. I can't believe that he referenced rap music. I'm really impressed by that. That's great that rap had some say in the production of that movie. you know it's one of those art forms that always takes a it's always takes a bit of a beating in terms of like levels of intelligence that people even think it has or hasn't so it's lovely lovely to hear why Travis Scott pops up at the beginning and the end of the Odyssey yeah quite an experience what did you make of it okay well look I think we'll go long on this Ben we've both seen it so there's much to be said so okay um the the first thing to say is that uh it's it's the first film to be shot entirely on imax first feature film shot entirely on imax film cameras it's a long standing dream of nolan's he he did individual imax sequences and the dark night and wanted to do a whole movie he said in fact he'd wanted to do it since he saw imax at the museum of science and industry in Chicago at the age of 16 and thought, wow, one day I'd love to make a movie doing that.

1:03:43And in order to do it, they had to develop this blimping system to make the IMAX cameras, which sound like a lawnmower, apparently, to make them quieter. And then you have to change the film cartridge every three minutes. So it's a really complicated, difficult thing to do. It's also one of the most expensive R-rated movies ever made, R-rated in America, 15 rated over here. Bear in mind, however, that Oppenheimer was also R-rated and went on to do nearly a billion. But I mean, the sweet spot usually, if you're spending$250 million, is PG-13 in America 12A here. This isn't that. It's 15 and R. So a lot of risks being taken.

1:04:25Also a bit of history, the story of the Odyssey on film is as old as film itself. I mean, there's a Melies short from 1905 that's inspired by the Odyssey. There's an Italian Odysseus, I think 1911. There's, you know, the Robert Wise film in the 1950s. There's Ulysses with Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. There's Ralph Fiennes in The Return recently. I mean, the story in all its many different formats has been with cinema as long as cinema has been around. all very, very different films, all drawing on similar source material. Nolan in that interview says, well, it's foundational. It's a foundational story.

1:05:08And that he himself could see echoes of it in the Dark Knight trilogy in Interstellar. He says, it's a coming home story. It's a coming of age story. It's a love story. It's a war story. It's a story of death and loss and fantasy and reality. And also, there's a thing about him being attached to the David Benioff script for Troy, which is the weirdest thing because, you know, that's got the Trojan horse in it. And then he talks about obsessing about the Trojan horse since then. Of course, that movie ended up being not very good. And I think it was a bit of a bullet dodged, frankly, because we had Christopher Nolan done Troy, then he wouldn't now be doing this.

1:05:47It is impossible to imagine the Trojan horse that Chris Nolan, Christopher Nolan, Sir Christopher Nolan conjures for this film, having any place in a film like Troy. Because, of course, traditionally, the image of the Trojan horse is the kind of, you know, it's almost the lighthearted beware gifts bearing Greeks thing. Yeah, I always picture four wheels on it. Four wheels on it. Also, picture the giant wooden rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You know, that's what, but this is the Trojan horse story seen from inside. And it's a source of pure horror, half buried in the sand. As he said, that image is really arresting, about to be swept away by the waves.

1:06:34And in fact, the Trojan horse story, as we see it here, is closer to that sequence, which you'll remember, in Dunkirk when they're in the hull of the ship taking fire, than it is to any sort of sword and sandal epic. and also contextually as with inception which nolan pretty much got to make because the dark knight had done so well interesting that he said here that this came into being because oppenheimer which looked on paper like an art house project was so massive and was one half of barbenheimer the biggest box office bonanza of evs and then he's using that to go fine well now Now I'm going to make this.

1:07:15So he's now making this Grant foundational story on a scale that hasn't been done before because it wasn't possible. He said in that interview that this is a version in which the gods, they walk amongst us, in which they incarnate in our treatment of others. Because that thing about, you know, be kind to strangers because you never know whether they might be a god in disguise. And indeed, one of the main characters, I'm going to try to sort of dance a little bit around spoilers here, but one of the main characters who is a vision of a god, their appearance, as we discover, is in fact very, very earthly and is rooted in something which our hero has experienced.

1:08:00and i think in many ways i don't know whether you agree with this i think in many ways it's a film about post-traumatic stress disorder i mean it's a film about somebody who goes to war and who's apparently a heroic endeavors leave him feeling so removed from heroism that he cannot go home and instead i mean that of course is the kind of core of the story instead becomes this kind of you know lotus eater and somebody who's just retreated into themselves yeah and it's also And I think you can say this in the same way as Oppenheimer is, and arguably so is Inception. It's a film about guilt. It's a film about facing up to the Oppenheimer thing.

1:08:35It is a film about facing up to what you have done. It is a film about somebody who on another level has become death destroyer of worlds. And if there are gods in this story, they're the elements, they're the storms, they're the, you know, as Christopher Nolan was saying in that interview, that's how you would experience it. So it's doing a really interesting thing with the story and it's turning the kind of idea of heroism on its head. And the question then is, does it pull it off? Now, I would like you to kind of to just jump in whenever you agree or disagree. OK, OK, so here's my feeling. If we can rewind slightly, then I would just add to when you were talking about themes, I would add imperial hubris as a theme.

1:09:27Because, you know, just before I watched this movie, I just finished reading this incredible book, probably one of the most exciting books I've ever read in my life. It's called The Wager by David Grant. He also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, which got turned into a movie, as I'm sure all our listeners know. And the wager is about a true story. So this is a historical historical fact. It's about a naval fleet that was sent out from the UK to ambush a Spanish armada off the coast of Chile in the in the late 18th century. and this British fleet was sent out there to a place they'd never been, never worked out how to get that far.

1:10:13Really, really dangerous part of the world in terms of the way the sea behaves. But the British fleet was sent off because, hey, of course we're going to do this. You know, we'll get down there. We'll kick the Spanish in the butts. We'll steal all their treasure, nip back, jobs are good. And of course, job is not. Job is not a gooden. And what it unfolds appears to be, even though this is all historical fact, you read the book thinking, this is punishment for eating the cattle, you know? Don't kill the cattle. And it felt like the perfect setup for watching a movie like this. I think, so I would just add imperial hubris because the way that Odysseus behaves is not, it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

1:11:05He is a king. He's a lesser king. Because it's Ithaca, it's not the whole of Greece. It's a small island. But he is a king, and he has a mini empire of his own. And when you are a king, and you have people following your every decision, hubris can be a thing that gets hold of you. In fact, I think hubris is an ancient Greek word, now that I say it. if I can remember my Mark Forsyth well enough. And so I was well prepped for this film and I was worried, I was saying to the redactor, sometimes I think of Nolan a little bit like a football manager called Pep Guardiola who is widely accepted is possibly the greatest football manager operating today, one of the best in the world.

1:11:55But sometimes with really, really big games, he sort of overthinks it over intellectualizes it and the game becomes a bit of a mess and hard to follow I'm thinking of Tenet here I think I genuinely think The Odyssey is the most accessible Christopher Nolan film that he's made I cannot wait to watch it again I watched it with Robbie Collin in the IMAX and he was watching for the second time and I want to take the whole family anyway so thematically I just wanted to go backwards No, no, no. Fine. Great. Okay. So now, so here's my experience of watching it. And I've seen it once. I saw it in IMAX.

1:12:35I saw it at the BFI IMAX in Waterloo. And the first thing I would say is, see the film in IMAX. 100%. I have a friend who saw it in a different format, and they felt that they were missing something crucially. See it in IMAX. That is how it was designed. So here's what I thought as I was watching it. Okay. And feel free to agree or disagree with any of this. I thought it started poorly I thought it started in somewhat plodding fashion stories within stories yes but an awful lot of front loading an awful lot of setting up and establishing and it felt at the beginning to me like a trudge ponderous a little clumps I mean yes it's got the Nolan time shift stuff but it felt less interesting than before so at the at the beginning I I had a slightly heavy heart it was a massive image and a and it felt like a massive lumbering thing then it moves into and because christopher nolan's got such admiration for ray harry house and i have no problem in saying into ray harry house and ish territory and it really finds its feet when you get into the cave and uh and the and you have the encounter with the cyclops okay um again this isn't a plot spoiler everybody knows that that's in the film but that scene is brilliant that scene is you you look at it and you think that's actually there that's actually there in front of me and i have no idea how they're i mean it's i'm partly your brain is going puppet uh i don't know you know i don't but it's there and i believe that i'm in that cave because it's so massive and that that is actually happening.

1:14:12I thought that sequence was breathtaking. Same. It triggered a core fearful memory for me, which is that when I first started reading on my own, you know, when you sort of moved on from your parents reading you stories and you start reading chapter books. I started with Roald Dahl, like a lot of people, and I must have been about seven or eight and I was reading the BFG. And that concept that he instills at the beginning, that if you're still awake at a certain time, this huge hand is going to swoop in and grab you. That absolutely terrified me as a kid. So when that big hand came sweeping down in the cave, absolutely, it was the second big gasp moment.

1:14:59I think I had a gasp moment before you. I understand what you say about the opening of the film, but two things really worked for me within that period. one I didn't look up who was in this film I genuinely didn't know sure so as each face appeared I was like oh right you're going okay oh my god wow like it is star laden and it feels like everybody's really grafting so I had that little thing to sort of keep me going in that section and then it was the um the sight of the horse I literally the first time you see the horse that is i had a little gasp so no no of course i think that is the no that is absolutely defining image so that sequence as i said i grew up on harry hausen and it was like as somebody who you know i grew up watching stop motion and then i was never that impressed by cg a lot of the time and i just couldn't believe my eyes it was just like i this is astonishing this is astonishingly good and then i thought it lost its mojo a little bit again and i became quite conscious of the fact I think it's at two hours 50, I'll be honest, I think it's 25, 30 minutes too long.

1:16:06But then again, it's like, yeah, which 30 minutes you're going to lose? I'm sure that, you know. And then Samantha Morton turns up. And the whole. Oh, my God. Now, here's my contention. That entire sequence, when Samantha Morton is on screen, the whole film goes into a different level. And the reason is this. Firstly, it had me thinking of Brian Yusner's Society, which is one of the kind of foundational texts of a horror fan like me. You know, because Society is a film in which this sort of fleshy shunting reveals the rich to be this bestial thing, the true nature of the rich. and in the case of this everything everything about the scene from the minute that sam what i also don't want to do is i know people may know this but i don't want to say who sam morton is playing because one of the things that the film does is it kind of reveals identity slowly and i'm very glad that i saw it having not known same exactly where we were but that sequence the rhythm of it the tenor of it the nature of it is it felt like the whole movie was suddenly elevated to this level of of dreamy wonderment and it's really interesting because there is i mean one of the things about this the story is maybe the whole thing doesn't happen i mean any sort of soul survivor narrative is well maybe the whole thing doesn't happen i mean maybe the whole thing is is is playing out in somebody's conflicted head but in that sequence firstly samantha morton i'm sorry if she doesn't win an oscar i will eat my hat in verna herzog eats his shoe manner it's that performance i mean she's brilliant she's always been brilliant she walks on water as far as i'm concerned but the the level of it and i came out of the film and i texted a friend of mine said two words samantha more yeah yeah and and it was just like it's funny and then so i subsequently read an interview with christopher nolan who said he's only ever seen the cast seen the crew applaud on set twice and the first time was heath ledger doing the joker and the second time was samantha morton in this no that doesn't surprise me that whole sequence it's a cameo that is beyond it's not it's not a cameo ben it's not it's not really but i mean if you think about it in terms of that movie's three hours long it's not enough Samantha Morton and I'll tell you something else if you go back to the original poem Odysseus actually ends up spending a year with her with that character and I could have spent a year with Samantha Morton but everything about the rhythm of the film everything about the feel of the film I'm going to invoke The Exorcist, I'm sorry there is a sequence in The Exorcist in which Karis is asleep and there's a 45 second dream sequence, which is almost the most powerful thing in the whole film, because it's the point at which the film seems to turn into like a magical incantation.

1:19:10It slips into something. And I felt that the entire sequence when Samantha Morton is on screen was that. And then it sort of comes down again a little bit. and then it comes to the final act which is about 40 minutes which is so good and so romping that at the end of it and does so much stuff about tying the themes together and overturning things you know and explaining to some extent why we've had this stuff that you forget just how much at the beginning it was on uncertain ground now i will concede this seeing things the first time quite often it's because you don't know the arc of the film it may well be different the second time around but I came out of it thinking okay on a performance I mean Matt Damon is surprisingly good in the lead I mean I was surprised when I heard that he was that piece of casting and then you go oh no that's perfectly yes of course he's absolutely right he's absolutely right and that thing that he said about he's not you know he's not Skywalker he's Han Solo Anne Hathaway knocked it out of the park I mean just you know a terrific performance and the thing about the empty throne which isn't empty which you know I think it's so hard it's so hard to be in a film of that size playing a part of Anne Hathaway's character's size because Penelope I mean it's the idea that she keeps alive just like in the poem the idea of Penelope is important even though she doesn't feature all the way through and Anne Hathaway is so strong in this movie that you are constantly thinking about the few words that she told you 45 minutes ago because there's such a huge part of it I agree, I thought she was unreal everyone brought their A game Matt is a really interesting choice I think because when I think about him as a jewel not just a Jason Bourne, I'm a hero like a bit more of a complexity to him I think of The Departed you know and evil Matt Damon is good is good Matt Damon because it's it's like he's the guy he's such a hero in your eyes your understanding of Matt Damon outside of outside of cinema he looks genuinely haggard absolutely he does he looks genuinely haggard and that's what you need he looks genuinely old enough to be Tom Holland's dad great You know, he looks ripped but tired.

1:21:54Great. You know, that's what you'd expect from a middle-aged king in that time. They did all their own dirty work. So physically, he just looked right for it. But again, you know, to go back to the original text, Odysseus, I don't know if he's a hero or an anti-hero. Maybe he's neither. things are happening to him and there are decisions that he could make that could make things a lot better that he chooses not to take and there are other decisions he makes that are just downright foolhardy and dangerous you know so he's a very complicated guy and they actually keep out some of the nastier elements from the poem don't appear in the film because maybe that would make us lose him as a hero altogether I don't know but um you know the text is there for everyone to see i think that i think the casting across the board is you know is is great i mean i think it's you know the cast are all charlie's throne i mean it's just like you go you just go yeah yeah yeah you've got access to absolutely everybody that you need and you know that so look in summary this is my final now and i'd like you now to summarize as well my feeling is on the first viewing firstly you have to see it and you have to see it in IMAX.

1:23:14Secondly, I think it's half an hour too long. Thirdly, I think as is within the nature of the story, it is episodic and some episodes are better than others. But I think that when it gets the things that it's about, when they're there, it is really fantastic. I think that there are some action or adventure or fantasy sequences that I've never seen the likes of before and i think that every single moment that samantha morton is on screen i think that sequence is one of the best sequences i've experienced in the cinema and at the end the end of the film is so is so powerful that it you're inclined to forget anything that was wrong so not perfect by any means but but so much in there that is that is astonishing and of course bottom line everybody needs to go and see it and everybody needs to go see it in IMAX give me your summation I would say as a non-film critic just as an audience member for me like you are gonna have a great time in the cinema I can I can just guarantee that it's this story is like the original story it's this and the bible like then it's all literature that you've ever heard of okay like it's one of the first two stories um and it's when you go you sit you sit down and watch it and you're like oh i almost feel like i've seen this before because you have it's like the template for the hero's journey right it is star wars it is all of these things and from just a pure entertainment popcorn point of view you're gonna have a great time watching this film i think it's his most accessible film that he's he's made out of out of all of his movies whether that's the best or not that that's arguable but i i just couldn't recommend this enough as an as a night out even you know film criticism aside sure so there you go the odyssey and you can sign up on patreon to hear mark pick his top greek myth movies uh in our feature that gives you some suggestions for thematic extending viewing uh one frame back um now epic movie epic review, epic discussion.

1:25:34That's me saying the film was too long and our discussion of it, I think. Just a tad. So I think what we might do is, we did mention at the top the TV series Ride or Die on Amazon Prime. I think we'll knock that into the overflow in take two. We'll put that in take two. And that means we can sort of fast forward into your favourite section of the show, Mark. Excellent. And mine as well. I mean, you all know how much I love this as a super sub and not just a super sub, but also like a professional stand-up. And joke writer, it's always great to come on here and be contractually obliged to read some of the most egregious jokes known to man.

1:26:19Yes, it's time for the laughter lift. Okay, cue the music. It's a bumper week. Bumper week this week because we've got two jokes. written by the redactor, two written by some of our Patreon listeners. Okay. So whilst in between your side splitting, Mark, you're going to guess who wrote what, okay? Okay, all right, fine. And I'm interested to see the results of this. So let's kick off with an old classic. Hey, Mark, why can't dinosaurs clap their hands? I don't know. Why can't dinosaurs clap their hands? Because they're dead. Hey, Mark. I've been visiting my podiatrist for a long time she's been saying for years that I need medical insoles I ignored her up to a couple of weeks ago and now I finally relented and do you know what they actually work so I stand corrected hey okay so that's a redactor joke I don't mind that let's find out afterwards that's a redactor joke okay log that one log that one hey Mark there's a Geordie pub landlord and his mate right the landlord says I'm sick and tired of that miserable Spanish actor coming into my pub and causing trouble.

1:27:33Have you barred him? No, but he's on his last chance. Okay, that's a written in. You reckon? Okay. And lastly, Mark, how do you turn a duck into a soul singer? This is an old one. Oh, I know this. Can I tell you? Yeah, tell me this one. You put it in the oven and it's Bill Withers. Yay! Okay, so that's a write-in. because the redactor wouldn't have sent that in. And you think the first two are the redactor? I stand corrected and dinosaurs? I think I stand corrected and dinosaurs are the redactor. Well, I can tell you that is four out of four, Mark. Correct on all counts. Fantastic work. I like the I stand corrected one.

1:28:16Not bad at all. Listen, if you want to contribute your own terrible dad jokes in future, all you need to do is head over to our Patreon. so we'll have a little ad break I guess or are we going to end it there because there's no right or die is there I think we're done we've done on me we've gone on for so long we have to push everything it's going to be a bumper take two listen if you're not subscribing if you're not subscribing sort that out now because there is going to be so much so much in take two yeah you need to go on an epic journey over to Patreon and sign up and become a Vanguardista because we've got so much coming your way but for now this is the end of take one so it's just left for me to say that this has been a Sony Music Entertainment production this week's team was Jen, Eric, Josh and Heather producer was Dom and the redactor was Simon Poole yeah I mean there's a whole extra real waiting in take two the overflow car park more chat about current releases Ride or Die is going to be in there One Frame Back which this week is on the best films based on ancient Greek mythology five question film club three questions your majesty thank you you'll cut out and keep guided the best films available on streaming services two bonus reviews questions shmestions where we're tackling the question about whether you can end up rooting for completely the wrong person in a film I mean Odysseus if you want the full show you'll find it on Patreon you can get take two add three along with the full back catalogue and the chance to vote on future episodes by signing up just search just search just search oh my god I've done it again just search Kermode and Mayo Patreon and join the church.

1:29:55Mark, this is what an amazing question. We've got one film. What's your film of the week? Well, we had two because we did do Synthetic Sincerity, but I think, but I think by a horse's nose, the film of the week is the Odyssey. It's like the old Brian Clough quote. I'm not saying I'm the best, but I'm in the top one. Top one. Yeah. And don't forget people of Bristol and all over West. I mean, I'm going to travel from West London. Mark and Simon are going to be at the Bristol Beacon December 6th. Tickets are on sale via the link in the show notes. And you'll be pleased to hear that Mr. Mayo returns next week.

1:30:33Thanks for listening.

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