Book vs. Movie: The Odyssey

24:21A huge budget. Nolan using all of his chits in Hollywood to cash them in. Apparently, he was in discussion to direct the movie that would become Troy, starring Brad Pitt before, but he decided to go the Batman route and accrue those chits and cash them in a little bit later. So he's been interested in this world for a long time. Rebecca, what else about the run-up to the show, the anticipation, the build-up, the sort of setting the stage here?

24:45Jeff:I mean, this is also the first movie to be shot entirely in IMAX, which is exciting as a viewing experience. But if you care at all about how things are made, it's really fascinating. The cameras are huge. They make a lot of noise and the film has to be changed like every three minutes. So like you can go down a lot of rabbit holes about like the special blimps that they had to build to hold the cameras so that the actors could actually hear each other. And then these systems of mirrors that were built so they could see each other. Cause the cameras again are so big that they're in the way. that if you're filming a scene of two characters talking to each other, they can't actually be very close.

25:21Jeff:I was just curious about how it would flow. Would you feel any of that, that the changes are happening so frequently? I personally didn't feel any of it at all. And like Vanessa, I was just really curious about what Nolan would choose to put on screen from the big set pieces, and especially the fantasy elements. Like, I've been wondering, are we going to see Scylla the sea monster and Charibdis the whirlpool? Or are we just going to hear about some of these things that would typically be done with CGI, but that Nolan prefers, you know, not to do? And really how he was going to try to make the story more legible to modern audiences.

26:02Jeff:Like, it is a big adventure. Fathers and sons, man, you're coming home to your wife. Like, there's a lot that is just relatable no matter, it's enduringly relatable, no matter the timeframe. But there's a lot that is really strange. So like, how was he going to explain the gods? How was he going to do all the hospitality stuff that is so integral to the story? But it's just woven in when you read the poem, no one ever steps over. There's no narrator being like, and this is why hospitality matters. And whoa, isn't that weird? You know, like, they're sort of like taking as it comes at the same time which is fascinating yeah yeah and just you know like the cast was so stacked that it was also a big fun question for me like what were going to be the standout performances bernthal like i i love john bernthal and i was just curious like how could a guy who tends to have the really modern aggro vibes how's he going to show up in you know ancient greece was delighted we'll get into that later so yeah there's so much notable about it we can let's start talking about what it was like to watch this so we should we do our initial our reactions before we get into like do we come to this with uh gold stars do we have demerits we have tbds vanessa why don't you start what what was your reaction when you walked out of the odyssey and how i had a great time sorry just completely like i didn't even let you finish i had a great time that's fine i yeah it was fantastic um there of course we're going to get into the parts that i loved versus there's a few things here and there whatever but overall just as far as i think that when i walked god i was like cinema like it's just it was great it was a visual treat it was like the casting like top to bottom i had almost no bad things to say about anything there it was if you come to this with no knowledge which i think is really hard to do but even if you did it's just a movie going experience of the kind that just is always going to excite me like if for no other reason and then if you are a bit of a nerd in any of the ways there's just so much to scratch at the sounds of it yeah i i had a fantastic time watching this and almost went back like hours later to watch it again but i'm gonna save that for this week uh yeah rebecca i loved it uh the woman a couple seats down from me was literally on the edge of her seat for most of it just like leaning forward hands cupped over her mouth like oh my god it was i mean it's just a huge spectacle in the best possible way like it looks great you feel the sound in your body every time the war drums are beating like my whole body was vibrating and I had the same like it ended and I was like art I love art uh it just goes hard and it's very it feels very modern within all of its holding of ancient values the performances are generally terrific and I was thrilled to see that some of Nolan writes some bigger roles for some of the side characters than they have on the page so we got a lot of Eumaeus, who is the dedicated swineherd.

28:57Jeff:The noble swineherd. The swineherd. Your fave. Eumaeus. John Leguizamo, revelatory. It was amazing. Just an amazing performance out of him. Pattinson, I had been really looking forward to seeing Pattinson as Antinous, just the head slimy suitor, and he does it so well. Damon was great. I loved seeing Anne Hathaway do this. as Vanessa was saying the whole cast was terrific I had a great time I'm gonna see it at least once more in the theaters probably and probably two more times what about you Jeff we haven't talked at all I'm dying tell me so I mean the the movie making is undeniable like it it is like few movies you're ever going to see I was trying to think of something that felt even equivalent like a Jurassic Park or a Save It Private Ryan where I was in the movie thinking oh this is what movies do right and this is what movies can do and everyone really is firing on all cylinders and so i i really liked it now did i love it i don't know because the changes that nolan made really additions i think this is a really good effort at adapting which you know my car my family people i saw we came out of thinking can you adapt this right yeah and you can and you can't you the poem itself is the form it's supposed to be in that it was in?

30:15You can't translate the worldview. The poem is always going to be there for us if we want the original recipe thing. And I don't think I really want just a, I'm going to do my best to get everything exactly as on the camera and everything else. Because it is a commercial enterprise as much as an artistic one to do something that costs a quarter of a billion dollars. You need people to see the damn thing. And I think what it's both what Nolan's interested in himself and his narrativizing I can get people into the theaters, have a good time, lend him to make some choices that I think are fascinating, but it's going to take me a while to process them.

30:49I'm just not done processing what they mean. The ending is meaningfully different. Odysseus, his motivation, his experience of even coming back is meaningfully different. There are some things that I think were additions that were great. There are things that we were hit over the head with Zeus' law a thousand times, and it got turned into a golden rule in a way that I thought was off-putting and, frankly, patronizing to most of us. We didn't need to hear this a thousand times. But having said that, there were pieces, and we'll get into the specifics here, that were extraordinarily moving, that I think are among the best things I've ever seen put to film.

31:23And I think at its core, this is a good-hearted, creative, extremely capable effort to engage with a big piece of art and then add something to it and then make it legible for the future. This is going to carry the banner of the Odyssey even further into the future already. And to that effect, I have all the admiration in the world for doing that alone.

31:47Jeff:It's good for movies and it's good for books. There were people in line. I was listening to everybody around me in line for popcorn. And before the movie, I was in between two packs of 25-year-old or early 20s college dudes. The group in front of me was talking about how they had never read it. and in fact this was going to be the first time they were seeing a movie in a packed theater which like that's an incredible experience for someone to have but also how did you make it to your mid-20s yeah yeah i want to be like where have you been what did your parents do wrong that this is your first time in a packed movie theater and then the guys behind me were like trying to collectively remember the pieces and it was really delightful to hear somebody being like oh yeah there's what's it charybdis is that the whirlpool and then yeah there's definitely gonna someone turns them into pigs right like just the enthusiasm and then coming out of it hearing people be like i wonder if that sticks to the book and like i couldn't help myself but turn around and be like you know it pretty much does if you liked this go pick it up uh but i think it's it's good for the story but good for multiple art forms like this this isn't a success before we go any further.

32:59Jeff:It's like, if you don't want to be spoiled, this is probably the time to bounce out. Right. By the way, I do agree that like film spoiler is different from, you know, thousands of year old spoiler. The three guys behind me said they thought it was one of the best movies they'd ever seen. Like critics, the Rotten Tomatoes score, the audience score is like high 90s. Like you really don't get a whole lot better than that. So people are having a good time. It did unbelievably at the box office, 125 million domestically. A bunch more. You know, Hollywood is back. I think it's going to be $10 million in domestic box office for the first time since the pandemic.

33:29We've got giant movies yet to come, Spider-Man and Dune. Interesting Dune to Odyssey connections, which is a subject for a different day. So yeah, so I think it's a great movie going experience. I think especially you can see it at a big screen. I didn't feel the lack, but I could imagine the more of seeing it on a big screen. So there's something else to say there. Okay.

33:50Jeff:The IMAX was worth it. I believe that. All right. So we've talked about what's like to, So it's a good adaptation. What do we mean by that? When I say it's a good adaptation, it's not perfect. I don't know there's such a thing as a perfect adaptation unless you're a godfather, but also meaningfully. Anyway, that's a whole different conversation. But no one can really do, I'm going to do exactly what the thing is, because in the translation of the medium, things have to change just by its nature. So what are you going to decide? What are you going to care about? And then what, if anything, are you going to add?

34:19um vanessa how about what did you what stuck out to you about this adaptation is in the quality of like did you with their moments performances you know what stuck out oh there's many i don't even know where to start one thing that i really i don't know what this is the thing i picked on because i see the note in front of me that we never actually ever with the pos you know we can get into the specifics of the athena discourse in a bit and like how cool that was and the sparks thoughts that it sparked but that we never actually saw gods on screen yeah was something that i really liked as a parallel to the ways that religion functions right and so you're kind of left to wonder of course they ascribe everything that's happening to this like battle of wills between zeus and poseidon but there was a lot of that ambiguity there of like well is it is it just a storm my dudes or is of course in their perception it absolutely is but i'd love the choice to never actually show a god on screen i thought was a really nice like piece of commentary that i wrote down in the dark in very weird scrawly in my little journal like no god that's the point um and then of course like you managed to take a journal in there impressive because i was my brain will scatter um and again it was interesting because i was doing it like whenever there was a burst of light just like trying to friend so you should see the notes they're quite uh interesting of course the american accent of it all was a thing that i wasn't sure how i was going to feel about because i very much rail against the idea that we should always use generic mcbritish for things, especially because, as we noted in this document like that, the British Empire didn't exist.

35:48But I wasn't entirely prepared. I actually really didn't mind it at all. I thought it was great. For whatever reason, the thing I'm always going to rail against, especially in the end, is hearing just like, Dad! That took me out. We couldn't be on mother and father. I don't know. That was a funky thing for me. But overall, I actually thought it really worked, because it just sort of stripped away any, I guess, added layers of pretension in a way that just kind of laid bare the text and made you just really listen to the dialogue. Yeah, that's those are my first thoughts but there's so many Rebecca

36:17Jeff:yeah I had a similar experience with the accents like I think we've just been so trained to expect that something that looks old everyone should sound British which is total nonsense and Matt Damon being American and speaking the way that he does I think sort of dictated but also as I was reading about this like it's easier for European actors to do American accents than for a bunch of American actors to try to believably do consistent similar british accents so some of it is just a practical choice and the accent work is like pretty decent from especially tom holland there are little moments but like yeah it's mostly fine i was just blown away by the visual spectacle of it like the trojan horse is the first big set piece yes oh the trojan horse when the camera went inside the Trojan horse and the guys are all like on top of each other and they're sweating and Bernthal is telling Telemachus the story about like we were in there for days and it's covered with piss and shit and like people are gonna die in here and then the swords start coming through as the Trojans are testing out what's in there and then somebody, Mission Impossible's down out of the belly of the horse in the dark of night I was like my soul is leaving my body like this is, now it's on let's go but going from that to cyclops and then through the trials of odysseus but really from for me it was the trojan horse cyclops circe circe like uh just in a really overwhelming of all almost all of the senses experience like i saw footage online of people who went to see it in 40x where the the seats like move around yep to simulate what's happening on screen like you would have gotten a concussion apparently water splashed people medication to deal with something like that i don't think you could even look at a person in one of those chairs moving around without getting yeah even on the regular screen there was some boat like i gotta look to the edge of this i know it's a tough time did you read it all i was gonna ask did anybody read it all about like how the trojan horse thing was filmed i haven't i've tried to avoid much of anything until today i just wanted to know afterwards because it was interesting but like apparently you know that they so but matt damien like walks onto the set sees the thing it's built out it's on the beach and it's like so he asked no like dude so how are we going to film this and he's like i don't exactly know like we're going to figure it out and then they just shoved them in in the thing and they're like what you're seeing is is real like bernthal they had expected the time of year that the waters in morocco were going to be warm but it ended up being winter and the water was quite cold so there were scenes when bernthal was just like submerged in the water and apparently he was hitting that like shakes point and then kept like just powering through to like get the scene done and Nolan's like, you okay?

39:01They just, when we talk about no CGI or very little anyway, like they were in the trenches filming this thing. Yeah. You know, that's interesting Vanessa, because I, I really thought, I think the first time my attention was really caught is that, and it was early, is that scene of the Trojan horse that's on the beach. Beach. And it's been there long enough. That's been sort of affected by the tide. So it's like half submerged in the sand. And yet it's also the most sculptural, beautiful Trojan horse I've ever seen in any representation of the Trojan horse. Which didn't make me laugh. And I think it's not a bad metaphor for what both Emily Wilson and Nolan are doing.

39:32Like, they're taking this beautiful classical thing, but adding realism, right? Like, okay, if it had been out for a few days, it would be affected by the sand because the Trojans, or Troy is up on the cliffs above this beachhead. But the Greeks are all the people we now know as Greeks, but all these individual city-state people were on this dune, sort of hiding behind the dune. They're on the sand for 10 years. and the realism of what would have happened, but also then the craft of the Trojan horse. And it's hard not to think of that moment of, I don't know what we're going to do, we're going to figure it out, is like Christopher Nolan as Odysseus, right?

40:10Smart, capable, a craftsperson, going to meet every challenge as it comes, but when given a little bit of time or a little bit of material can really build something. But this combination of classical beauty and a certain kind of realism coming across in the language and the accents, but then also these amazing set pieces that are not about realism at the same time. And that's always one thing that's hard to figure out about the Odyssey or really anything that has to do with gods or magic is, where is that line going to be between things that could be and things that aren't? And how do you blend them together?

40:45And in this particular case, it felt seamless to me. And that opening phrase of, in a time and apparent magic, I thought was fascinating, right? A modern use of apparent is like maybe, but in this it appears. It's just there. We know it's there at the same time. And that spirit really carries through the rest of the movie. So that's quite fascinating at the same time. I think in a good adaptation in this regard, also for commercial success, like I said, it needs to do some things to keep a modern, people that don't know the Odyssey, maybe they just know the word. It's probably the word Odyssey and then Trojan Horse and then Helen of Troy.

41:20in terms of what the things would be on a family feud, like name shit from the Odyssey would be on there. There may not be much. And you still have modern storytelling, cinema-going problems, which is how do you get people interested in the characters? What do they want? What gets in their way? Does it make sense? Does it have stakes? Does it feel like it pays off in a way that is set? Does the end feel satisfying? And it doesn't have to always be happy or whatever, but does it feel like it did something? You went from here to there, and the movie took you there. In that regard, I think, succeeds on all counts, to my mind.

41:54Rebecca, what about you?

41:55Jeff:Yeah, and I think that's a good way to start talking about some of the differences between the text and the movie. Starting with the big opening shots of the Trojan horse, we see Elliot Page in character as Sinon. Sinon is not in the Odyssey. Sinon is a character from Virgil, from the Aeneid, a Greek warrior who convinces the Trojans to take the horse into the city walls. And Nolan has ported Sinan into the Odyssey as a pretty key figure. The movie basically opens with him, creates this new backstory for him, not just as a person who's helping get the Trojan horse into Troy, but also as a foil to Pattinson's character, Antinus.

42:35Jeff:And they have history that goes back in Nolan's telling to their young lives, to Sinon's childhood and Antinous' adolescence. But then also a key framing difference is in the book, we first see Odysseus, book five of the Odyssey. And he's sitting on the beach of Calypso's island weeping because he's been there for seven years and Calypso won't let him go home. She just wants to keep boning the guy forever. She likes a piece of O. She likes a Mo. The big O, you might say. O squared. And in the film, he has been there for seven years, but she's been feeding him lotus flower, which makes you forget things.

43:16Jeff:He doesn't remember if there's a wife and a son at home. He doesn't quite remember what he's trying to get back to. And he hasn't been ready to try to go home. So Calypso in the film through Charlize Theron is helping him fill in the gaps as she has deemed he's ready now to actually know the whole story to like to sit with what he's been through over the last 17 years. Very traumatic. There's a lot of PTSD happening on the screen here. But that is a key flip that in the text, he's like, I've been here. You've had enough of me. I miss my wife. Like, she is a mortal woman. you are part God but I want to go home to her and that impetus is different that motivation is different here in the film and the framing is similar where he he's remembering to Calypso what's happening whereas the the main adventure section of the Odyssey the poem is him sort of telling it in court like here's what I've done and here's what's all happened to me and it does all happen in a sort of flashback um which makes a lot of sense and I think I don't know if that's the most important change, but in terms of a modern audience's expectation of what a character's reasoning and motivation might be, this is one is legible to us.

44:32It's like something really terrible happened. And Sinan then becomes the vessel of his own the cost of his own ingenuity and the cost of the victory of Troy for Odysseus personally. There's this shot of all the armor laid out where the warriors fell and it's just littering the beach. It looks like, if you've ever been to Gettysburg, you can see all these minds like oh my god all these people this goes back to antiquity at the same time and he feels culpable for especially the the deaths of the men that got off the beach but he also feels culpable for other things that we're going to talk about at the same time and then this idea that he has to heal like he has to be ready for it you know like in um in one of the marvel movies i think at the end of captain america the first one he's like he's been brought forward in time and they've made this fake like 40s hospital room for him, even though it's like 2006, so that he doesn't have sort of like caisson's disease of the soul.

45:28Like he doesn't get the bends of the soul to come out into it too quickly. So that was pretty cool at the same time, but also helps Nolan do, and I think there's another thing I was curious about, the braided timelines, the back and forth, the shifting. There are flashbacks within flashbacks in this damn thing, the poem and the movie. And for my part, and again, I had the text in my mind to fall back on, But I think people followed it. Like, I think it worked. I think so. I think you get some sense of the metatextual interwoven sense, how it's a story about stories as much as anything. I think that one really shines through at the same time.

45:59Jeff:I think it's so interesting that you just made a reference to a superhero movie there. Yes. Because this is in some ways a superhero movie. And of course, Nolan is no stranger to superhero movies, having made some Batman films. Odysseus, kind of a superhero. but in the text like every time Odysseus is described they're talking about him as a trickster as like the smartest, most strategic and that comes through in the ways that we see him portrayed but also like this version of Odysseus on screen has a lot of hubris. He thinks he can outsmart or maybe escape the fate that the gods, that Tiresias has told him is coming for him that like everyone is going to die except for you and here's like here's how it's going to go down And he wants to see if he can outsmart it.

46:45Jeff:But he's, I found him the Odysseus of the film to be like, really human. That Nolan grounds the story in consideration of what it would actually have been like for a human man to go through the things that this character goes through. To sack cities, to pillage, to watch men that he has cared for die in front of him in horrific ways. And it's not in Homer's text that Odysseus has the weight of all of this on him. But there's a lot of weeping in the text. There is a lot of regret. There's a lot of desire to recover from things. And I found that to be a really, I found appropriate update to this for a modern translation.

47:31Jeff:This is realistic to me. It's not the swaggering superhero that you might expect from those descriptions of him as the trickster and the best warrior. We get to see him be trickstery. We get to see him be a warrior. But he's also truly a human man who has done extraordinary things but experienced a lot of terrifying things. And what it would really be like to be trying to get back home and recover from that. And they don't really do things out of character. Like it's differently charactered. But it doesn't feel out of character. But I think it's a change and a bordering on a loss to me from the original text because one of the questions about Odysseus to a modern reader, but even to the reader of time is like, what is the nature of this person?

48:15Are they a man like us? They walk amongst the gods. We didn't do that. He's the smartest of all time. He is also the yin to Achilles yang. Achilles is the greatest of all humans physically. Odysseus is the greatest of all mentally. but one of the lessons or one of the observations you see is neither of them are enough to control your fate. This is the Greek thing. That's the most Greek thing about the whole thing. Maybe it's like, I don't care if you're the smartest in the world. I don't care if you've got all the cameras in the world, the IMAX 70mm film. You cannot fix the world. You cannot control the world.

48:49And it's different if it's just a guy like us because we know that. It's a little bit different if it's a demigod like Achilles or someone like that's like even they even these people of myth and legend even captain america or john the baptist or jesus or whoever cannot fix the world and to that it's like oh the world is unfixable right that is hit a little bit more home in that version of this hi ryan reynolds here for

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50:19Because one thing I do think we get that's pretty interesting is Penelope. We're getting to what's different here. And Penelope is a lot the same but a lot different. One of the notable changes for me that I was not surprised to see, and I'm curious what you thought, Vanessa, is earlier she's trying to figure out a way for Odysseus not to go to Troy. They're sitting there having some bedroom talk, thinking things through. And she's like, could we do this? Could we do this? Could we do this? because that's one thing I found a lot when I was teaching this. It's like, did they have to go? Screw Helen.

50:50They don't have to go do this thing. And I think the movie is trying to do some objection handling to use sales parlance of like get ahead of it a little bit and say, yeah, Odysseus and Penelope, they tried to figure all this stuff out, and they're in a bit of a bind. Vanessa, how did you think that played? Did that make sense to you? You're not with the text right in front of you. Did that work? Did you seem like it was hand-holding? How did you feel about this portrayal of Penelope and Odysseus? especially early in the text. No, I've, I, especially, honestly, I went into this, especially because of Nolan's history, not sure how much screen time any of the women were actually going to get.

51:24And that can be, that's a whole separate conversation probably because I still would have loved to have seen more. But I very much appreciated this, that section because that is the thing I'm always interested in. It's like every story we ever heard about these hero journeys is just like, then they had to go. It's like, cool. But like, what was the behind? And there's, you know, again, I've gone off on many a journey with this stuff. So there's like the backstory behind like why the Helen thing was a big deal. You know, he was a part of the court that at one point with all the suitors went for Helen's day.

51:49Like he was one of those people like what, you know, then he didn't want to go into Troy even anyway. So like all that complexity was. Okay. Exactly. I was like, how nerdy do I get right now? Yeah. It's deep, dude. But again, the women are rarely given any dialogue in those like pieces. So it was really nice to see a wife with some agency and concern and like the, the warmth, I guess, of their particular dynamic was, I thought, really lovely to see on scene. And Anne's face is just so expressive. I thought her performance was, was phenomenal here.

52:23Jeff:Yeah. Hathaway was great. Yeah. Rebecca, I don't know anyone does anger crying as well as Anne Hathaway. Those big doe eyes full of tears, but also like that she's a little bit older. There's like, there's a different, there's a sharpness to her that she didn't have when she was princess of, princess of Genovia. I thought she was tremendous. That's one of the big changes, but it feels like Penelope. Like, that's one thing I have is like the characters feel like it still feels like an extension of Penelope, but it still seems like the core of the character is interested in the core of things of Penelope.

52:50Yeah, and I think - It wasn't saccharine, like, I don't know.

52:52Jeff:Right, it's not saccharine. I think the lighting and how much they're outside, especially at the beginning, really was a part of that, especially for me with Penelope. Like, they're in this really harsh Mediterranean sun. The women are not wearing a lot of makeup. up like you can see like you can see the texture of Anne Hathaway's skin you can see that she kind of has freckles which you never see in films there's always so much foundation you can see like the little wrinkles around everybody's eyes like yeah everyone looks yeah there's texture yeah it does look great everyone looks very real the like facial expressions happen if people got Botox before they made this movie they were not getting it while they were making exactly like Everybody looks natural and organic to that time and place, at least as I imagine it.

53:40Jeff:It's believable. Of course. Yeah. And I thought Hathaway turned in a great performance with the material given, which is better, as Vanessa was saying, than a lot of Nolan's female characters. And there is this power to Penelope. This kind of, like, I've been waiting here for 20 years. and even though I'm the queen all I can do is weave the shroud and then unweave it at night because sooner or later I'm going to have to give in and marry one of you schmucks like that anger comes through was so potent like I think the only other character or the only other actress that I could maybe imagine in that role would be Claire Danes I was like I'm bringing my mouth forming the sea yeah also for the rage crier yeah Yeah.

54:28Jeff:But the Anne Hathaway's height and her carriage and that she can deliver like a big imperious moment when it's called for was great. And she gets that moment near the end where like the screen opens and she's wearing that blue gown and the big gold necklace. And she's like, here's how it's going to be. Yeah. Do you need a minute, Jeff? I shouldn't say anything else about that. I thought in terms of the, I want to mention the craft. I'm not a filmmaker or a film student, but I do notice sometimes, I thought the invention of the screen, so we spend a lot of time in Ithaca in sort of this basement banquet hall, and Penelope is up on this raised sort of vestibule, but there's a screen in front of her.

55:12So she's there and not there, right? She's visible and invisible. And when the screens get open and closed and who gets to go behind it, there's a lot of interesting things that happen on the same time. So in a movie making, I thought that was very useful to have her be a part of these scenes that sometimes she's not in in the Odyssey as things are going on. Like she's always listening. She's always watching. She knows what's going on. She's using her own Odyssean-like wiles. We talked about the main show. Like Penelope and Odysseus are well-matched. She is not accorded and afforded the same latitude because of her gender that Odysseus is, but she's doing the most with what she's got at the same time.

55:47All right. So what else does it do differently that we want to hit here? We've got a lot of things. I'm not sure we'll get to all of them, but where else do you want to go? Vanessa, where do you want to go? I wanted to see, this is a small thing maybe, or I guess just interested. I think that the storytelling probably was served by eliminating, and gosh, it's been so long since I read this, but the original framing is that he's telling this story to the Phaeacians? Yes. And I love the conceit of the winds, if I'm remembering this correctly. that he is gifted by this, the queen, actually, Aridi, I think was her name?

56:22Something similar. That she gives him the winds, and that's supposed to help him on his journey, right? She gives him with these favorable winds that are supposed to send him back to Ithaca, but the men on the ship, in a moment of him being asleep, that's, you know, akin to the Helios and the cattle thing, they open up the bag and that's what's... I mean, they were within, like, sight of Ithaca, and then when they opened the bag of the bad winds, it sent them to the very beginning. But I liked the setup of him telling the Phaeacians his story. I do think it probably worked better for continuity's sake and so people could follow along with everything to do it the way we did with the Calypso setup.

56:54But I just, I don't know, I liked that framing and kind of wanted to see Odysseus telling his story versus having no memory of the story. But it's maybe a minor quibble. Yeah.

57:03Jeff:I want to hit just the practical nature of all this filmmaking one more time. Like this is, as we've said, very little CGI, but also very little soundstage stuff. They shot on location in Greece and Italy and Morocco and Iceland. The scene of Hades was shot on the black beaches of Iceland, and it's really scary and mythical. They buried all the actors. Yes. That scene was unbelievable. The Hades stuff. Unbelievable. I've never seen it done any better than that as a version of the underworld. Incredible. And the cast really were hiking up the mountain. You see the palace that Odysseus and Penelope live in in Ithaca at the top of a mountain.

57:42Jeff:They're hiking up there. every day. They actually were being tossed around ships on the real ocean, as Vanessa said, crammed into a real Trojan horse that Christopher Nolan built for this. He is inside with a giant camera trying to capture. And even the really big fantasy elements were done mostly with practical effects. The Cyclops is played by a human actor named Bill Irwin and some puppetry. The sea monster Scylla is a giant puppet that looks real good. like this is a big year is are we apex mountain for puppets this year between rocky project and everything that's happening here it is the it is the vinyl record collecting of movie making now is to use a puppet instead of cgi like oh yeah okay i'm cool i don't even have the tv it looks great like the cyclops picking up these men and eating their heads like it just it looks great real rancor vibes remind star wars is on of the brain i guess It's weird and unsettling and just I found it to be so transporting.

58:46Jeff:I can't remember who wrote the piece, but I read something over the weekend that was like, this reminded me of the difference between media that transports you and media that allows you to dissociate. And there's nothing dissociative about this. You're fully in the world. and it felt real and it felt scary and potent and like Himesh Patel as Eurylochus looking at Odysseus so many times to basically be like, brah for real? I think that was a great addition. He was wonderful at it but that's a good thing. I agree with you, Rebecca. He was terrific. And again, really standing in for the audience to be like, we need a little pushback because this doesn't there'd be a lieutenant saying, are we sure?

59:25And that it's a brown man. I'm sorry. That tickled me endlessly of being like this the brown person having like the sense to be like are we really doing this my wife really doing this yeah like he was always in with the like come on so yeah

59:37Jeff:like he told you we shouldn't do this the gods told you but you're gonna try it anyway and and even like with the moment with the sirens in the text it's just you should not hear them and odysseus wants like he wants to so they tie him to the mast and you can hear them but damon delivers that with this little like there's a little playful glee to it of like like i like that right like i i want to be the first no one has ever heard them i want to be the first and then that we don't actually get to hear the siren song i kept being like please let the sound muffle please let the sound muffle what it did was a good i nothing would have done it well because it's an impossible task to play the song that is the song of all songs at the same time uh going back to vanessa's point of a high mission the casting especially the ithacans right the helen of Troy casting got the most press.

1:00:24But we find that both back home in Ithaca and especially among the soldiers, we don't see much of the Trojan soldiers. They're all behind this sort of generic, like, they look like Harkonnens from Dune, weirdly, a little bit, like whatever they're wearing at the same time. But especially Odysseus' men are multi-ethnic, multi-racial. There's Chinese people or Asian people. I think I read one of them was Chinese. And then Haimish Patel and then some other folks at the same time. and that connects to one of the bigger ideas of which is this is not just a story of Greece it's a story of humanity right because one thing that's an invention is this idea that Odysseus using the Trojan horse this is the trick to end all tricks to use the protection of the gods in the name of Athena to give a bad gift like in the ultimate abrogation of the guest relationship Zeus law what Zeus law I don't know they'll tell you 40 times this was somehow a breaking of the world.

1:01:21And so what comes after is different than what comes before. In the olden days, we had this social contract that was being upheld, but now the people of the sea are coming, and I've done this thing, and I've sort of unleashed the bag of wins, I guess, of moral turptitude of some kind. Things have been broken. And it's not just Greeks, it's all of us together. This is a human story of you have technology, your own human genuity, you're Oppenheimer, you're inventing backwards guns in Tenet you have crossed some line that you can't go back from and now we've got to figure all this stuff all over again and it repeats in cycles and cycles so I was more than okay with the casting before however you want to do it I'm not going to be injured by that anyway but I actually thought it added to this idea like this is a story of human ingenuity of human arrogance of human blindnesses and short-sightedness and hubris which the Greeks gave us and it was like this is humanity in the boat.

1:02:17These aren't just Ithacans in the boat. This is the world entire that is on this journey together.

1:02:21Jeff:Yeah. I think that's a nice entry into talking about the biggest difference from the text, which is that Nolan writes in a moral to this story. That is that in this act of committing war and sort of going across the region, taking things, functionally colonizing, Odysseus and his men have broken the world. Like they've broken, as you said, that social contract about how we treat people. And in so doing, they have injured their own humanity. And that's why he is suffering. That's why Odysseus is in so much pain, is that he has caused so much pain. And how are we going to get back from this? And as it ends, he and Penelope decide, after he proves that he is who he says that he is, in this trial that Penelope thinks up that only he could succeed in.

1:03:11Jeff:He shoots the arrow through the axe heads. They decide that they're going to give the kingdom to Telemachus, and Penelope and Odysseus are going to sail west, and he's going to honor all of the fallen men who died in service of that war and start to try to make things right. And it's basically like the world is dark and there will be dark times, but humanity and civilization will return again. Like, ultimately, a pretty hopeful note, but certainly a reading on war in general. And I think it's probably fair to read, like, Nolan's editorializing about American participation in global politics. Yeah.

1:03:55And in the poem, and there's a little bit of controversy about where the poem, quote unquote, actually ends. but the poem that is mostly translated, Odysseus remains king of Ithaca, like everything is fine except that it's not in the guards that he still has one further task to do, which is essentially go as far as he can into land, inland, where no one's ever heard of the gods in Poseidon, plant an oar. So my pet reading of this, this is important to me because I see this as a disenchantment of the world. So you're going from the place of gods and monsters all the way to where back to the present moment, which any listener of the text, of course, they did not see the divine like this.

1:04:35They did not live in a time in apparent magic. It was inferred magic like the gods are up there making clouds. But it brings us all the way back into a worldview that is disenchanted, that is secular. Even if there's religious stuff that we believe, we are not seeing the spectacular in front of us in this way. So again... Pick your poison. I think that's a little oblique for a modern audience. That's a little bit strange. Not strange, it may be kind of thin gruel to get along at the same time. We've got to keep moving here. Anything else we want to mention in the additions to this before we go to what maybe didn't work as well?

1:05:10Nope, cutters it for me. Let's move on there. Okay, how about things that didn't work as well? So I don't know that there's a question of right and wrong about direct choices made. I think that's the implications of them. Like the things I didn't care for, like the Zeus's law stuff over and over again. I didn't particularly like the puppet claw sock thing that came down. But having said that, in the text, we don't know. It's never given description. It's never been done well. I kind of give it a pass because it's kind of weird anyway. So I'm not too worried about it. What did you guys have?

1:05:40Jeff:Vanessa, you go to. first uh sorry that's the scylla thing totally just took me out of my brain for a second um i so i i did we were running out of time i loved the cersei like yeah i'm a cersei fanatic like i both in the madeline miller so like i more more cersei time please and i really did enjoy like what they did with her arc it was an interesting choice to me in the moralizing or like just the characterization of odysseus and i think it says that somewhere in this document that there was just no boning when homie spent a lot of time boning both calypso and cersei uh in fact the ending of the poem depending on how you know and then other poems that have got it's like the ending is not that he just goes off into the west and theory is because he not only boned cersei for a year but they had a kid yes that kid it's ultimately his demise so there were pieces of that that made it seem that like he was a not that he was a much better guy because he obviously did some terrible things and he had all this you know moral quandering about all the bad things i've done but then when you come back to penelope it's like you were also on an island for and in this case it's not his fault because he was fed the lotus leaf but they took away the whole how he stayed with cersei forever and so there was some of that that was like oh he's he's even more complex than maybe we're allowing him to be on the screen like he i think that just turns off a modern audience i don't think we have so too come into saying screw this guy i'm rightly or wrongly i just don't think we have the ability that this text seems to have to hold that is like that happened and he's devoted and they matter yeah yeah yeah I just don't think we could have done that I think it's just the superhero story of it all too like we have to be able to root for Odysseus and we can totally root for Matt Damon here but if we knew that he had stayed around you know rolling around in the sack with Cersei for a year and then he's on Calypso's island like it helps that we can see that Calypso is kind of holding him there But yeah, the Cersei practical effects, like just so stunning.

1:07:34Jeff:Like I had always I had wondered, like, how are they going to do? She's turning these men into pigs. And the only thing I could imagine is like old school bippity boppity boo. Like she will wave her wand or something and they will just become pigs. But the physicality of her like molding their heads, it looked like molding clay and like shoving their faces around. reaching into their mouths and stretching them into snouts. Like just that. I really felt my heart just stop. It was incredible. It was. That was great. Full blown. Yeah. I could have done without the very brief fake out about Odysseus dying.

1:08:10Like, oh, maybe he's dead. Oh, I mean, it's just it wasn't very long. But come on, man. The first few minutes I do think are clunky. It's a little slow. It's a little. Maybe it was slow, but just like orienting us in time and place. It just happens pretty quickly. And again, it's already a long movie. So I understand that. I'm not sure the Lystragonians added much so these are the giant knights, right? The knights, yeah. I don't know if they wanted one more side quest to put on there. There are these man-eating cannibals that throw rocks from the cliffs. I'm not sure what that did. Interestingly, maybe also something that they had more advanced armor.

1:08:44They looked like more English or medieval knights. They almost seemed like they were maybe they were a ghost of Christmas future, right? This is what future is going to be like. these giants with these knights that just kill people. I don't know. I was trying to make something out of that. I can see that image was the still that I saw in a lot of the when I went to go book the film. That's the still they use for the Odyssey is him in front of the Lystragonians. It looks cool. That's a great shot. But it also looks way more sci-fi-y if you don't know what's happening. I don't know. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about the Lystragonians.

1:09:15Jeff:Like Agamemnon's armor is full Darth Vader. Oh my gosh. That has been common. I actually really like the choice they made. I did too. sense that it's that like you know he's the first of all they when they cast bet is it many safety i was like oh that's an interesting choice but i like that they chose someone who you know with the armor he looks like this big strong untouchable dude but of course he remains completely untouched like he just comes onto the screen looking big bad and scary but that to me is another perfect allegory for the way that you know that stuff works even today like the people in power not getting their hands dirty in any way.

1:09:49The kids are calling it aura farming, which if you don't know what that is. Ames, my son, said something very similar right after. He was the biggest aura farmer of all time. I just learned that term this weekend. It's Aura Memnon, and I absolutely laughed. Aura farming. I'll say I thought that was a little much. I thought Agamemnon was a little much. I thought it was cool when he sort of floated through. I don't know if he was on a dolly or something. Oh, yeah, it looked like it. I thought that was cool. I did not love the yada-yadding of why Agamemnon really wants this war, which is it's about trade.

1:10:21Again, that's a modern sensibility. There are things going on not too far from this happens right now that's about trade. But it's also about ego. What's going on right now is about ego as much about anything else. And the backstory that Vanessa alluded to, I think there's a way that it would have built on the themes Noel was interested in. Because the oath of Tyndarius that says, Helen is so beautiful. Everyone wants to marry her. How are we going to figure this out? because it's going to lead to bloodshelts. So there's this woman that everyone wants to marry, but if she picks anyone, everyone else is going to be pissed off.

1:10:50And it's Odysseus himself that comes up with this gambit of the oath, which says, all right, if you're going to court her, if it's not you, you're swearing an oath. Tyndarius is Helen's the king of Sparta at this point. And says, if you swear this oath, and you're going to take part of this, if anyone goes to get her, we're all going. It's like it's a deal to keep the peace earlier. And so this is another example of Odysseus trying through his craft, through his wiles, like keep the peace, keep the order, try to control human emotions and then the gods because it gets something else. I think that would be additive, but like the yada yada in the trade, trade is never mentioned in the Iliad, it's never mentioned, like that's a modern thing.

1:11:28And I just, I don't think you needed that. I think you could have done some version of, we understand honors and pledges, like I said this thing and I was part of trying to keep the peace and this is, believe it or not, Penelope, this is keeping the peace. I know it seems insane, but this is part of keeping I think that would work just fine so that's one of my quibbles especially with the casting of Lupita as both Clyde and Helen like I thought there was so much more and this is one of my I'm like I wanted the women for all the and not that Nolan could control the hype around you know the casting but for all the hype around the casting it's like you got mad at Helen for being on screen for what like seven minutes I mean maybe more or less but I thought there was so much more meat they could have gone into with the fact that they decided to cast Lupita in both roles because suddenly that brings some complexity to like, oh, it's the face that launched a thousand ships.

1:12:14Well, if they're twins and they're identical, where is some of that lost? And to me, that would have been a great place to explore. No, it was always about ego. It's never... It wasn't the women. Bernthal's Menelaus did not go get Helen because of trade wars. That's not what that guy was doing. And I wanted more of that. And the fact that we got her very minimally, I just wanted her to have so much more space. It's worth saying. And Clyde Mnestra and Helen historically are sisters, but not twins. So that's a choice to make them played by the same woman. But they are very much, and we talked about this in the full episode, we get a lot of examples of the kinds of homecomings Odysseus should be aware of.

1:12:50I think one thing I missed was there was the first homecoming story we get is Nestor, and it's good. Like, his sons are there. His wife's been cool. The town's been cool. He got there fast. Like, that's one version. But then we get these others. We don't actually get a good homecoming represented here, which I guess doesn't really matter, but I just thought it was notable at the same time. I think Nolan did not, quote unquote, solve the inherent gender inequity of the poem, but he kind of did what he could without really breaking it. I'm not sure. I think you could have maybe done more, but they were given a lot more.

1:13:24They were more interesting. They had points of view, I think. Good energy in. Good energy out.

1:13:35Storm, zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine and immunity support. Storm, energy for life. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... sign up for your one dollar per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer calypso is always a bit of a mystery she a cipher yeah she spent a lot of time on her hands and knees being like odysseus it's gonna be like nightingale syndrome i'm not sure what's going on there for adidas gear the whole time yeah yeah right yeah i can definitely can see like a bougie like la um boutique with like their calypso collection that's all charlie Theron's jewelry and clothes from this show.

1:14:33I'm sure it's in the making. Yeah. Rebecca, anything here that you bumped against or you noticed? Like, I'm not so sure about this. You know, I think I need to see it a second

1:14:43Jeff:time to find anything that I really bump up against. I spent more time than I expected to after Bernthal's Menelaus moment, though, thinking about what an alternate universe version of this is with him as Odysseus. because that is some of this is just fan service for Rebecca Shinsky, Party of One. But he I think his version and certainly his playing of Menelaus is like big and swaggering and more superhero than certainly what Damon chose to do with Odysseus. And it was interesting to me. Like I did not bump against Damon's more staid traumatized guy just really wants to get home version of it.

1:15:28Jeff:I thought that was really appropriate for what Nolan wrote. But a more traditional interpretation of Odysseus as just like a big swaggering hero would have been interesting to see Bernthal do that. Yeah. Let's talk about casting. I think we're all on board, across the board, no notes. Like there wasn't a false note. I mean, I think even like you said, Rebecca, Damon was more than up to the task. I think so much of our sense of who Matt Damon is culturally is important. Like, we like this guy. We believe his heart is in the right place. We think he's smart. He's like, I don't know that Tom Hanks would have played this 25 years ago, but it's a very Hanksian Saving Private Ryan of, you would follow this guy into battle.

1:16:09He's going to do what he has to do. He's not perfect. He's somber, but he's also not a nihilist at the same time. Like, he is world weary, but his heart's in the right place. And I think that's the most important thing for a modern audience.

1:16:21Jeff:And the body is in the right place, too. Like, what Matt Damon did to his body is incredible. It does not look like it was fun, for sure, at the same time. Vanessa, how about the casting? We talked about Samantha Morton. I don't know if we talked about her enough, but we did mention her. Anyone we haven't mentioned so far that you want to get into the game? I mean, my favorite was Shani Himesh Patel, which I think y 'all put in there. But I thought Pattinson was, like, I just thought he was, I hated him. And that was great. Look how far Edward Collins has come. I think he's such a more formidable actor than, I mean, I think he is getting credit for it.

1:16:54Jeff:But he's just like chewing up the scenery. Yeah, like he's just so good and slimy. And I did get my ever effing life at the end and he was just like, spears! He's just screaming it from behind a column. That was such a great scripting choice that like, look at this weenie just hiding out, telling everybody else to pick up the weapon. Yep. I thought he was really great as just being really unlikable in all the ways without being like a caricature. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, actually, I am remembering now, not something that I bumped on, but I heard as we were walking out of the theater, several people being confused about Athena.

1:17:30Jeff:And so I think if there was anything that could have been clearer, it could have been the relationship between the gods and especially how Athena shows up. Because we get it pretty subtly in Holland, like looking at Mentor and being like, you have the eyes of Athena. And if you've read it, you know that Mentor is Athena, dressed as this other character. And that she can take a lot of shapes. But I don't think that came across super clearly. And I have now seen internet people arguing with each other about mentor and someone even being like, that's like the character in the Odyssey is where the idea of someone being a mentor comes from.

1:18:12Jeff:And the response on this one piece of internet comment was like, that can't be because this movie's only been out for two days. And it was like, now I'm just going to go weep for humanity. We really need to bring the humanities and arts education back. Yeah, I thought, so we didn't talk about that choice. So Zendaya, who plays Athena, at least that version of Athena, one of the guys of Athena that appears to Odysseus as a guide, but also as a really Odysseus. Like this is what you did because, and then she is also maybe a projection of his own guilt because we come to learn at the very end. And maybe the, in a lot of ways, the emotional climax when we see that she is, either she has taken this form or Odysseus has seen her as this form, which is it, because of the slaughter of this presumably innocent woman during the sacking of Troy, where the Greek army's blood was up and they were doing the things that soldiers have done since before the dawn of time, which is bad things.

1:19:06when they won and 10 years of rage pent up, and they commit atrocities, and a lot of time those are against women, especially younger women, and that becomes his sigil of guilt that he carries his own sort of cross to bear that he saw it happen, and then they really put a fine porn out where someone cuts off the statue of a head of the night, like, we get it, Nolan. Okay, thank you very much at that particular point. I agree with your note here, Rebecca, that Holland was fine, but you didn't ever know, like, yeah, get in your bag, Tom Holland. surrounded by he was there to be tom holland because the character is kind of tough it's kind of tough he is uncertain he is young he doesn't have a lot to do odysseus and this tells him to stay out of the action so that he can keep his hands clean for yeah like i was glad it wasn't

1:19:50Jeff:chalamet which is the other actor in that age zone yeah uh who like probably reasonably could have been cast tom holland was fine telemachus doesn't get really as much to do as everybody else and also you just you're in incredible company when you're cast alongside damon and hathaway and charlie's there and and zendaya and himish patel and pattinson and all these guys like he held his own but i don't know who i would have cast instead um but i was just kind of lukewarm on tom holland here all right we get to save individual moments what are you saving vanessa oh i mean this is not a it is a moment but it's the ludwig of it all like that we didn't really get into some of the oh yeah you're a score girly i'm a score girl like that is the easiest way to manipulate me emotionally and i fall for it every time and i don't care but i knew we were going to go in but the fact that he chose to go with a completely non-orchestral approach like there is no orchestra everything you hear is supposed to be made from instruments that in theory would have existed back then and because of course they don't anymore they reconstructed what they think they would have sounded like and so you get these big swells of like drums and there were just so many moments as rebecca said like you could literally feel it and i didn't see it in one of those you know 4d types of things but i could still feel the music like vibrating in my chest at these big like pivotal moments and so that's not one moment but it is just a thing that i walked away like so incredibly impressed by um so that's one that i'm keeping and then just the Cersei scene in totality.

1:21:21I don't know if you remember, this is very specific, in Mrs. Doubtfire, which you probably didn't think you were going to hear today, there is a scene where Mara Wilson's character is watching a horror movie she's not supposed to be watching, where someone is claymation playing with someone's face. And I was like, that is what is happening. And the fact that there is no CGI in that is absolutely a moment that is burned into my cornea. Yeah, that rotating close-up camera of the practical thing. I've never seen anything like it. I think that was the moment where I was like on a purely craft combined with a scene from the book of like this this is the stuff right here that's the stuff Rebecca what are you saving I think that we get to see the

1:22:00Jeff:sacking of Troy twice like first and they're really exciting like they're coming out of the horse it's a buddy movie there's a moment of like Bernthal and Damon just like taking shit down together but then you see it again in Odysseus's memory of more like the tragedy of that day and the violence that it contained and what that has cost him. And I just thought that was such a smart filmmaking choice to show it to us twice. Once this really the story version and again in the human version. I think for me right after this, I thought the siren scene was very well done, but then this line that Odysseus has about, you know, the thing you most want is a thing you've lost and can't get back again.

1:22:43Again, which is a really beautiful, modern formulation of the idea we understand as nostalgia. And that really hammers the pain of nostalgia. Like this thing that you, it's not just the past. It's not just that you can't get it back. It's like there's nothing you can do. And that's the thing you want to return, right? This idea of the return, you can't go back to the same place. Like Odysseus knows this. I think it's a little clunky a little bit later about stuff on the boat with Penelope. but that moment I think, okay, that's as good a formulation of bringing this idea of nostalgia into a way that we understand and we feel.

1:23:18Like you feel it right here. Like you don't have to understand it up here. Like you feel it right here, which is, I think what these Homeric poems are trying to do. You're not supposed to be up here for a lot of it. You're supposed to be in here.

1:23:28Jeff:And the score, to kind of tie y 'all's two pieces together, the score from the siren section returns when Odysseus and Penelope are reunited. I loved that callback. The first time we get Odysseus plucking the bow to sort of warn the deer and give it a fair shot, I'm like, we're going to get this at the end with the suitors. And I was like, it's going to be so cheesy. It was not. It ruled. I loved it. It worked. I thought that whole sequence. I thought it was terrific. I love that he doesn't do it in Troy. Just painting pictures of honor, et cetera. But yeah, I thought it was great. And I love the subtlety of Anne.

1:24:02Jeff:Oh, Anne Hathaway. I know. So I had such high expectations for that final scene, especially because I really loved the return with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche a couple years ago, which is just the chunk of the Odyssey after Odysseus makes it back to Ithaca. And Ralph Fiennes throws off his beggar's rags and does that whole scene in the nude. And it's just like a giant naked Ralph Fiennes shooting arrows. And it really goes hard. And to see how this was shot in that basement room with all the fire around. Like it's dark and the camera is moving everywhere and all the men are yelling and that guy is like pounding through the ceiling trying to drop the weapons down.

1:24:41Jeff:Like just so, so well done. So well done. That was this Jason Bournes scene. You know, Jason's a Greek word at the same time. I was also just really glad that Nolan kept in a little bit of the fun from the poem of how much does Penelope know? Has she caught on that it's Odysseus that she and Damon have that great exchange through the screen? And then when she opens the screen and announces that this is what the trial is going to be, and it's something only he can do, and you're like, oh, she knows it's him. She knows her man is back. Or maybe she does. I think the question's as interesting as she does for sure in a lot of ways.

1:25:18If you could change one thing, what would it be? Anything come to mind?

1:25:24Jeff:I'm really torn. My literary purist heart wants to resist the editorializing about war is a violation of Zeus's law. All the things that Nolan is using the Odyssey to say about modern and especially modern American life. But ultimately, it really works. And I think it especially works for viewers who are coming in without the framework of the poem, which is going to be most viewers. So I can't be too mad about it. yeah i mean it was a choice you're gonna make that sorry i was just gonna say like that's your you you go in and hopefully you have a point of view and a message and as much as i also was a little like okay because like there's i mean there's just literal lines that i'm like somebody's gonna meme this and like oh you know civilization will persist but if that's this point of view especially in the particular landscape we live in now great fine like especially because it is bringing in like i said folks that maybe aren't as familiar with the text so great it's not the worst thing that could happen i'm still mulling this into the west ending and i'm not saying i won't change it but i i'm just not sure um i first thought and this was the real nerds part was like they're going to run into some people escaping troy and founding rome that are not going to be happy to see odysseus and penelope on the sea which is immediately west of greece right there you know too much jeff yeah you know too much and there was this line about how like people will forget and then they'll remember and they'll sing about us because we couldn't write and like yeah i see what we're trying to do but that was a mess that was a messy yeah at the same time i Nolan did all his research and he wanted you to know.

1:26:52I think, yeah. I think, too, that it connects a little bit this into the West of like Huck Finn, of I'm going to go out West, or Frodo and going to the ships of the Grey Havens. There's this idea that you've done the thing and now you go forth into this other place, which I kind of like, but I think there's something to the they're here now and they have to live in this mess they've made. This is the world that they live in now at the same time. but I think it is a satisfying ending especially for a modern viewer and me too there's a part of it that I really like we just do a Penelope's plan like we're going to run it back and we're going to do Penelope's plan at the same time

1:27:31Jeff:as a lot of folks noted in our read along the ending of the poem itself like it just kind of ends and it just kind of ends a couple times and like Nolan needed a way you need a good ending for a movie like this for a big Hollywood production I was sad that we didn't get the giant bed That Odysseus had made Built into the tree I do remember a lot from my high school days It turns out Yeah you do This is the phrasing from the original format Is there meat on the bone for another crack at this? And I agree with the note in here Not in my lifetime Who's going to try? My first is not in my lifetime I don't know why you would do this Best adapted screenplay this is something Rebecca and I like to cover on the show.

1:28:18Rebecca, walk us through our murderer's row of what we have already.

1:28:21Jeff:This is going to be an absolutely bananas year for best adapted screenplay because we already have Project Hail Mary. We have The Odyssey. Dune Part 3 is coming out. Wuthering Heights could get one. I'd be surprised, but it could. Is God Is is an adaptation of a play. And the film is a good adaptation of the play. So it won't win, but that could maybe get a nomination. The Dog Stars is coming out this summer in an adaptation of Peter Heller's novel. I've seen the trailer for that a few times now. I can't decide if it looks good or not, or maybe I just don't like Jacob Elordi. But there are going to be a lot of adaptations, and I think very reasonably Project Hail Mary, The Odyssey, and Dune Part 3 will all be in the running for Best Adapted Screenplay.

1:29:07I think that depends on how good the movies are, but Whale Fall and I Am Rocky, if they're good and people like them, I Am Rocky is not based on a book, but it would be in the adapted screenplay category because of this. I think because of this X-Stan story.

1:29:20Jeff:Tony would, too, as an adaptation of Kitchen Confidential, if that's good. Pretty cool. I would expect almost every category that The Odyssey is eligible for, which I assume, knowing this production, is kind of all, except for animated. Like, literally not animated and everything else. Not just to be nominated, but to be a you've got to knock the champ out sort of situation at this point with Odyssey. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating, especially just the face-off between this and Dune. Dude, yeah. Unbelievable. Is it Zimmer that does Dune? I'll be really interested for the music. Because it's Hans Zimmer, so he could pull it out.

1:29:54Is Hans Zimmer sort of doing his Ludwig? Is that his version of what he's doing? It's kind of what he's doing in Dune. It's really funny.

1:29:59Jeff:They showed an extended trailer for Dune 3 in the IMAX viewings of this. And so we got to see that footage. And I thought, man, they should just be selling tickets for Dune Part 3 as you leave the theater. for the Odyssey. Absolutely. Just buy them now, baby. Which they are linked, as Jeff said, like in a very distant way, which is why you can never have TV, which I've never been able to figure out. Vanessa, could you ever figure out the connection between the House of Atreus and... I believe the Atreus line is descended from the Atreus that was Agamemnon's father and that he avenges... the Atreus in Greek, but like in Dune, why did Frank Herbert call them the House of Atreus?

1:30:37Just because it sounds Greek? Yeah, no, I'm not sure. But he's just like, yeah, he's a descendant. Like, cool. so in my mind I was like okay so we're not getting Chalamet

1:30:43Jeff:before we get out of here I do want to give you Jeff the you were right award that we did not see Telemachus string up 12 slave girls at the end of this you called it I was on Traderist's slave slash handmaiden watch and I was like are they going to kill her they didn't she just ran under the rolled under the table and also they didn't kill all the suitors the ones who bent the knee got spared which I believe is not something there in the text. Again, modern sensibility of what's fair just was not going to have a skin. Bloodbath at the end. I was actually, we're headed out of here, but I was interested to see that they didn't lean at all into the sexual violence of it all just because I wasn't sure if that was going to go anywhere.

1:31:25I think that's smart not to put that on screen. I just wasn't sure, to be honest, how that was going to go and the fact that it's all just sort of implied. A magisterial worthy, interesting, fascinating addition. again, this is just going to be a version of the Odyssey. That's another thing to remember. The text is going to exceed this for as long as we know about such things, but a really fun conversation to get to have with you guys. I'm so happy we get to have the classics come into the monoculture for a weekend a week. My timeline, my algo is the Odyssey all the time right now, which sometimes algorithms are good, maybe.

1:32:02If you've got time to rate and review the show, please do that. You can follow us on the socials at Zero to Well Read podcast. Shoot us an email, Zero to Well Read at Book Riot dot com. Curious about your own reactions in the movie theaters, the stories, whatever else is going into it. And then, of course, Patreon dot com slash Zero to Well Read for guided readalongs and membership options. Finally, thanks to Thrift Books for sponsoring this season of Zero to Well Read. And Zero to Well Read is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Vanessa, Rebecca, thank you so much.

1:32:31Jeff:Always a good time.

1:32:37We'll see you next time.