Another insightful guest review from friend of the L&D Report, Joanna K. Dane.
What is so fascinating about Homer is the generations of collective imagination that creates and fuels the epic of Odysseus, emerging out of thousands of years of humans sitting around fires, telling stories. Unfortunately, our most recent interpretation by director Christopher Nolan completely misses this point, depriving the audience the opportunity to engage with the story imaginatively or intellectually. Instead, we are bombarded with rich visuals and ear-blasting sound effects, neither of which can replace skilled storytelling.
First problem: We are told everything, right from the start. The movie’s opening, a long extended trailer for itself; lots of fast cuts, as if piling on visuals is what creates excitement and drama.
When we first see Odysseus’s house, we can hardly take in the scene before we are told through stilted dialogue that this is Odysseus’s house, and these are the suitors who want to marry Penelope since Odysseus has been away for 20 years. Why is this dialogue so eye-rolling? Because what builds a story in our imaginations is the act of figuring out the connections ourselves; the very reason we stay alert and focused on the story, continuously asking ourselves questions about the narrative, wondering what will happen next.
Yes, it is impressive to see these ancient row boats on the open sea. But we never linger long enough to really feel what it would have been like to be Odysseus on that ship. We have no idea what Odysseus is feeling at any point in this movie. Instead of developing the characters, the filmmakers are fixated on opportunities to mention Zeus’s law, the treating of all hosts and guests with mutual respect. But repeated mention does not equal the internal realization that comes with allowing the audience to experience what it would be like to win a war by breaking Zeus’s law and then spend half a life suffering the consequences.
Another example: Why are we told that Penelope unweaves half her shroud each night so that she never finishes it because when she does, she promised to marry one of the suitors? In a near 3 hour movie, isn’t there time for us to see Penelope doing this and to wonder why and to figure it out as we see the reactions of the suitors to her progress? But in Nolan’s telling, all we really know about Penelope is that she grieves for Odysseus and that she has a wonderfully expressive face. We are given no room to imagine what it would be like to be her. (Why not make at least one suitor a little bit more appealing?) But visually, the palace room is stunning, with Penelope behind a screen, a fashion model for ancient Greece.
Anyone who has spent any time in writing classes knows to use dialogue to develop characters, not to give away the plot. So, it is perplexing how Nolan misses this point,“modernizing” the language into a dead translation.
Like when Telemachus sees Odysseus with the dog, the climax of emotion and character driven tension, an adult son facing his famed and absent father for the first time and he says, “You’re my father, Odysseus.”
And what about the dog? If you are going to have a dog, at least give us a brief moment of levity with a big close up of the dog licking his master’s face and Odysseus’s joyful reaction.
But perhaps most disappointing: The paradise where Odysseus is captured by Calypso, whose power is so strong that it keeps a determined man sedated for 7 years, is so dull. We feel nothing of what is contained in the lotus flower because we are just told about it, interview style, on the beach between these empty characters looking so beautiful on the giant screen.
Why not just allow the story to unfold, from Odysseus’s point of view? Start with the men inside the horse (without narration, without telling us that it’s a trick). And follow Odysseus. The way the griots did, so compelling that people sat and listened for days on end to see what would happen next. Nolan never allows us to wonder what’s next, never allows us to ponder Odysseus’s predicaments, nor to see ourselves in his odyssey.
And why even bother to show a griot if he doesn’t say anything interesting?
If a griot had told of Nolan’s Odysseus instead of Homer’s, The Odyssey would have been quickly forgotten.
Why is Nolan’s movie so popular then? The music by Ludwig Goransson was fantastic. The costumes will probably win an Oscar. And, of course, it’s thrilling to see giants chasing us.
Four lines that would be better than, “You’re my father, Odysseus.”
“What the fuck took you so long?”
“Don’t expect me to call you dad right away.”
“Run into any trouble on the road?”
“You look way older than I imagined.”
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