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Transcript

The Odyssey Movie · The Infographics Show Podcast

0:10
Speaker 1: You know, usually when we talk about adapting a classic
0:14
Speaker 1: piece of literature for the screen, there is this underlying
0:22
Speaker 1: expectation of precision. Well, for sure, it feels almost like engineering.
0:27
Speaker 2: Right.
0:27
Speaker 1: You read a specific chapter, you film that specific scene,
0:31
Speaker 1: the dialogue matches the page, and the director essentially points
0:34
Speaker 1: at the screen and says, well, there it is. That
0:37
Speaker 1: is the book you read.
0:37
Speaker 2: Right. It's treated as a binary metric of success. It
0:42
Speaker 2: is either accurate to the text or it is not accurate.
0:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's clean, it's measurable, and it gives the audience
0:49
Speaker 1: a specific metric by which to judge the adaptation.
0:52
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it is incredibly comforting for us as viewers.
0:56
Speaker 2: We really like things to be visible and categorize needs
1:00
Speaker 2: we do.
1:00
Speaker 1: If you adapt a Victorian novel, we want the corsets,
1:03
Speaker 1: we want the exact parlor rooms.
1:05
Speaker 2: I want the dialogue delivered exactly as it was written exactly.
1:08
Speaker 1: We have this mental X ray machine that we hold
1:10
Speaker 1: up against the movie to see if the bones match
1:12
Speaker 1: the book.
1:12
Speaker 2: But then you step into the world of ancient myth
1:14
Speaker 2: Oh boy, yeah, you step into the realm of three
1:17
Speaker 2: thousand year old oral traditions that were passed down around campfires,
1:21
Speaker 2: long before they were ever committed to parchment.
1:24
Speaker 1: Right, which completely changes things.
1:26
Speaker 2: It does, and suddenly that X ray machine you mentioned
1:30
Speaker 2: it is completely broken because the original text is already
1:35
Speaker 2: a fluid, shifting amalgamation of cultural memories.
1:39
Speaker 1: So we are no longer looking at a clear blueprint,
1:41
Speaker 1: not at all.
1:42
Speaker 2: We are looking at a cinematic landscape that is fundamentally murky.
1:47
Speaker 1: It is the absolute definition of cinematic muddy waters. Welcome
1:51
Speaker 1: to Beyond Infographics. I'm so glad you're joining us today.
1:54
Speaker 2: It's could be a fascinating discussion, it really is.
1:56
Speaker 1: This is the place where we take complex, swirling cultural
1:59
Speaker 1: moments and we unpack them so you can walk into
2:02
Speaker 1: any room and be the most fascinating person there.
2:04
Speaker 2: We basically do the heavy lifting of synthesizing the noise
2:07
Speaker 2: so you can get straight to the insights exactly.
2:09
Speaker 1: And hey, if you enjoy our personal insights on this show,
2:12
Speaker 1: please take a second to rate us five stars on
2:14
Speaker 1: your podcast app. It really helps us out.
2:17
Speaker 2: It makes a huge difference. And today's topic is a
2:19
Speaker 2: probaect example of why this kind of analysis is so necessary,
2:23
Speaker 2: because we are looking at something that defies simple categorization.
2:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Our obsession for this episode is a three thousand
2:31
Speaker 1: year old story that has well, seemingly out of nowhere,
2:35
Speaker 1: completely hijacked modern pop culture in the year twenty twenty six.
2:39
Speaker 2: I think everyone knows what we're talking about.
2:40
Speaker 1: I'm sure they do. I am talking, of course, about
2:43
Speaker 1: Homer's ancient Greek epic the Odyssey. Right now as we speak,
2:47
Speaker 1: this foundational piece of ancient poetry is dominating the cinematic landscape.
2:51
Speaker 2: But it is doing so and wildly, almost violently conflicting ways.
2:56
Speaker 1: It is a truly fascinating cultural moment to observe. We
2:59
Speaker 1: are currently wanting, wishing, two diametrically opposed visions of the
3:02
Speaker 1: exact same foundational myth hitting the cultural consciousness.
3:05
Speaker 2: And the friction between these two interpretations is sparking massive
3:08
Speaker 2: debates across the internet, inside theaters, and you know, among critics.
3:12
Speaker 1: So our mission today is to explore how two recent
3:15
Speaker 1: films attempt to translate this ancient myth for modern audiences,
3:19
Speaker 1: one being a massive, explosive quarter of a billion dollar
3:22
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six blockbuster and.
3:24
Speaker 2: The other being a very quiet, intense, twenty million dollars
3:29
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four psychological drama.
3:32
Speaker 1: Right, But we aren't just here to do a movie review.
3:35
Speaker 1: We want to look at what these distinct opposing approaches
3:38
Speaker 1: reveal about our current cultural anxieties.
3:41
Speaker 2: Because when you adapt a story that is three millennia old,
3:44
Speaker 2: you aren't really telling a story about the past anymore,
3:46
Speaker 2: are you not?
3:47
Speaker 1: At all? Whenever society chooses to retell a myth, they're
3:50
Speaker 1: inherently talking about themselves. The myth basically becomes a mirror.
3:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, the parts of the story a director chooses to
3:57
Speaker 2: emphasize and the parts they choose to leave out, they
4:00
Speaker 2: tell us exactly what that society is afraid of, what
4:02
Speaker 2: they value, and how they process trauma.
4:04
Speaker 1: So let's start with the absolute juggernaut in the room,
4:07
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan's twenty twenty six blockbuster Spectacle, Yes, his version
4:11
Speaker 1: of the Odyssey. And I just have to pause and
4:14
Speaker 1: marvel at the sheer financial footprint of this movie. Based
4:17
Speaker 1: on my own personal analysis of the numbers, it is staggering.
4:21
Speaker 2: It really is unprecedented.
4:23
Speaker 1: I mean it costs two hundred and fifty million dollars
4:25
Speaker 1: to make. I want you to really think about that number.
4:28
Speaker 1: That is a quarter of a billion dollars allocated to
4:31
Speaker 1: a movie about an ancient Greek king trying to sail home.
4:35
Speaker 2: It is an immense gamble from a studio perspective, because
4:38
Speaker 2: historically Sword and Sandal epics have been incredibly hit or
4:42
Speaker 2: miss at the modern box office.
4:43
Speaker 1: Right for every Gladiator, you have a dozen massive financial failures.
4:47
Speaker 2: Exactly to allocate two hundred and fifty million dollars to
4:50
Speaker 2: a strictly R rated historical adaptation requires a level of
4:54
Speaker 2: studio trust that essentially only Christopher Nolan commands in the
4:59
Speaker 2: current Holy With ecosystem.
5:01
Speaker 1: He really has built a career on making immense intellectual
5:04
Speaker 1: gambles feel like sure things to studio executives.
5:07
Speaker 2: And oh, sure thing it was. The financial data is
5:10
Speaker 2: genuinely mind boggling.
5:11
Speaker 1: Share the stats because they are just wild to me.
5:14
Speaker 2: So it hit six hundred million dollars worldwide in just
5:16
Speaker 2: ten days. Ten days, that's just I know, it's insane.
5:20
Speaker 2: If we can textualize those numbers within the broader picture
5:22
Speaker 2: of box office history, they are truly anomalous for this
5:26
Speaker 2: kind of subject matter.
5:27
Speaker 1: Anomalist is putting it mildly.
5:28
Speaker 2: The film is currently tracking to hit between one point
5:31
Speaker 2: four and one point five billion dollars globally. Wait, really, yes,
5:36
Speaker 2: to put that in perspective for you, it is poised
5:38
Speaker 2: to dethrone Deadpool and Wolverine, which sat at one point
5:42
Speaker 2: three three billion dollars. Wow. Yeah, meaning it's going to
5:46
Speaker 2: become the highest grossing R rated film of all time.
5:48
Speaker 1: You just need to say that out loud again to
5:50
Speaker 1: make sure I'm processing it correctly. An R rated, densely
5:53
Speaker 1: philosophical movie about ancient Greek poetry and the aftermath of
5:57
Speaker 1: the Trojan War is beating Marvel.
6:00
Speaker 2: It's beating Marble.
6:01
Speaker 1: It is beating a superhero team up movie that was
6:04
Speaker 1: specifically designed in a lab to print money. It sounds
6:07
Speaker 1: like a glitch in the simulation. Why is this happening?
6:10
Speaker 2: Well, from my perspective, it speaks to a massive shift
6:12
Speaker 2: and audience appetite. For the last fifteen years, audiences have
6:16
Speaker 2: been fed a very specific diet of interconnected cinematic universes.
6:19
Speaker 1: Right largely characterized by green screens, quippi dialogue, and relatively
6:24
Speaker 1: low stakes digital action.
6:25
Speaker 2: Exactly what the financial data suggests is a hunger for
6:28
Speaker 2: scale with actual visceral steaks. A two hundred and fifty
6:31
Speaker 2: million dollar budget under Nolan means practical effects, thousands of actual.
6:35
Speaker 1: Extras and massive physical sets built on location in the Mediterranean.
6:41
Speaker 2: Audiences are paying to see something tangible, and they are
6:44
Speaker 2: rewarding the studio for treating the subject matter with grave
6:47
Speaker 2: seriousness rather than irony.
6:49
Speaker 1: And it doesn't stop with just beating Dadpool. Based on
6:52
Speaker 1: the tracking, it has a very real chance of becoming
6:55
Speaker 1: the third highest grossing non sequel non remake ever and
7:00
Speaker 1: the history of cinema.
7:01
Speaker 2: Which is an incredible feat.
7:03
Speaker 1: If it hits that one point five billion mark, it
7:05
Speaker 1: would be sitting behind only James Cameron's Avatar in Titanic,
7:09
Speaker 1: a three thousand year old poem, is doing Avatar.
7:12
Speaker 2: Numbers, which brings us to an entirely different metric of success,
7:16
Speaker 2: and one that is causing a fascinating uproar.
7:19
Speaker 1: Oh yes, the Rotten Tomatoes mystery.
7:21
Speaker 2: Because it is not just the financial return that is
7:23
Speaker 2: breaking records. It is the critical reception, which is essentially
7:27
Speaker 2: turned into a massive Internet mystery all on its own.
7:30
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting and honest to a
7:33
Speaker 1: little bizarre. The film currently holds a ninety seven to
7:36
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent certified frush rating on Rotten Tomatoes depending
7:39
Speaker 1: on the day you check.
7:40
Speaker 2: It, making it Nolan's highest rated film ever.
7:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is tracking higher than The Dark Knight, higher
7:45
Speaker 1: than Inception, higher than Oppenheimer. And I have to say,
7:49
Speaker 1: looking at that number, it almost feels suspiciously high.
7:52
Speaker 2: Suspicious in what way? Like you think it's rigged.
7:55
Speaker 1: Well, it's like getting one hundred percent on a subjective
7:57
Speaker 1: art essay, you know, right, That doesn't usually in math
8:00
Speaker 1: you can get a one hundred percent because two plus
8:02
Speaker 1: two is four. But in art, in a medium where
8:05
Speaker 1: human beings are supposed to have diverse tastes and subjective opinions,
8:09
Speaker 1: Seeing ninety nine percent of critics agree on a three
8:12
Speaker 1: hour R rated historical epic, you just kind of squint
8:16
Speaker 1: at it exactly. You squint it the teacher and wonder
8:18
Speaker 1: what exactly is going on behind the scenes. It just
8:21
Speaker 1: feels mathematically improbable for a piece of art to be
8:24
Speaker 1: that universally beloved without some kind of catch.
8:27
Speaker 2: That is a highly perceptive analogy, and you are absolutely
8:30
Speaker 2: not alone in that skepticism. There is massive Internet chatter
8:34
Speaker 2: right now, like entire ecosystems of debate, trying to reconcile
8:39
Speaker 2: that near perfect score.
8:40
Speaker 1: I've seen it. It's everywhere on social media.
8:43
Speaker 2: If you go on forums like Reddit, you see this intense,
8:47
Speaker 2: almost conspiratorial dialogue. A significant contingent of people are outright
8:52
Speaker 2: accusing this score of being manipulated.
8:55
Speaker 1: They are alleging it is the result of paid studio
8:58
Speaker 1: marketing right or coordinated.
9:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, or some sort of backroom dealing with access journalism.
9:04
Speaker 1: But is there any proof of that or is this
9:06
Speaker 1: just the Internet doing what the Internet does best, which
9:09
Speaker 1: is creating conspiracies when they don't understand something.
9:12
Speaker 2: Well. From my own analysis, there is no concrete proof
9:15
Speaker 2: of bot manipulation regarding the critical score. Okay, so it's organic,
9:18
Speaker 2: it seems to be. But what this actually reveals is
9:21
Speaker 2: something much deeper about our modern media consumption. It speaks
9:25
Speaker 2: to a broader systemic breakdown and trust regarding critical consensus.
9:29
Speaker 1: That makes sense. We are living in an era where
9:31
Speaker 1: institutional trust is at historic lows.
9:34
Speaker 2: Exactly when an audience member goes to the theater, sees a
9:36
Speaker 2: film that challenges them, or a film that makes sweeping,
9:40
Speaker 2: perhaps abrasive changes to a beloved foundational text, and.
9:44
Speaker 1: Then they log online and see a ninety nine percent
9:46
Speaker 1: approval rating from.
9:47
Speaker 2: The experts They experience profound cognitive dissonance, right.
9:52
Speaker 1: Because in their minds the movie was, say a seventy percent,
9:55
Speaker 1: It was flawed, it was weird in places. So when
9:57
Speaker 1: they see the ninety nine percent, their brain basically short.
10:00
Speaker 2: Circuits precisely, and instead of the traditional reaction, which might
10:03
Speaker 2: have been well, maybe the critics have a different perspective,
10:06
Speaker 2: or maybe this film resonates more with people who study cinema.
10:09
Speaker 1: The modern Internet reflex is to assume the entire system
10:13
Speaker 1: is rigged.
10:14
Speaker 2: It is easier to believe in a shadowy, bought farm
10:17
Speaker 2: manipulating rotten tomatoes than it is to believe that you
10:20
Speaker 2: simply have a divergent opinion from the critical establishment.
10:23
Speaker 1: It's a defense mechanism for your own taste. If you
10:26
Speaker 1: didn't love a critically acclaimed movie, the critics must be
10:29
Speaker 1: bought and paid for.
10:31
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating psychological shield.
10:33
Speaker 1: And this pervasive atmosphere of distrust ties directly into the
10:37
Speaker 1: other major storms surrounding this film. Because you really cannot
10:40
Speaker 1: look at the massive cultural footprint of Nolan's odyssey without
10:44
Speaker 1: addressing the intense, incredibly vocal online backlash surrounding its casting choices.
10:49
Speaker 2: No, you can't. It is a defining feature that the
10:52
Speaker 2: film's release narrative at this point.
10:54
Speaker 1: And before we dive into this, I want to be
10:56
Speaker 1: very clear with you listening. We are looking at this
10:59
Speaker 1: purely answer pologically, based on our personal insights.
11:02
Speaker 2: We are strictly impartially reporting on what is happening online exactly.
11:06
Speaker 1: We are not here to validate one side of a
11:08
Speaker 1: culture war or condemn the other. We just want to
11:10
Speaker 1: observe the mechanics.
11:12
Speaker 2: Of this controversy right just analyzing the cultural reaction.
11:15
Speaker 1: So from my observations, there is significant organized anger from
11:20
Speaker 1: certain internet factions over what they are labeling woke casting.
11:24
Speaker 2: Specifically, this centers on the inclusion and highlighting of a
11:28
Speaker 2: black actress who is portrayed as a beautiful, deeply central
11:32
Speaker 2: character in the film's narrative.
11:34
Speaker 1: The rhetoric online has been incredibly heightened. You have critics,
11:38
Speaker 1: YouTubers and forum commenters dramatically referring to the film as
11:42
Speaker 1: evidence of a woke dystopia.
11:44
Speaker 2: They argue that the casting is historically inaccurate for ancient
11:47
Speaker 2: Greece and claim it is an aggressive modern political agenda
11:51
Speaker 2: being superimposed onto a classic European text.
11:54
Speaker 1: And this backlash has generated millions of impressions online, functioning
11:59
Speaker 1: as a massive, self sustaining outrage.
12:01
Speaker 2: Engine, which, on one hand, feels incredibly surreal to watch
12:05
Speaker 2: play out over a story that was codified around eight
12:08
Speaker 2: hundred BC.
12:09
Speaker 1: Right, we are having twenty first century digital screaming matches
12:13
Speaker 1: over the ethnic makeup of mythological characters who honestly may
12:18
Speaker 1: or may not have ever existed in a literal sense.
12:20
Speaker 2: It's wild when you step back and look at it.
12:22
Speaker 1: But what I find truly fascinating from a business perspective
12:25
Speaker 1: is how the studio and Nolan himself have reacted to
12:29
Speaker 1: all this noise. Because the standard Hollywood playbook when this
12:32
Speaker 1: happens is very predictable.
12:34
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, The standard playbook usually involves the studio releasing
12:38
Speaker 2: a carefully worded pr statement defending the cast.
12:41
Speaker 1: And often attempting to put out the fire by preaching
12:43
Speaker 1: to the audience about diversity and inclusion.
12:46
Speaker 2: Right, they put out the statement, the actors do interviews
12:49
Speaker 2: talking about how hard the backlash has been, and the
12:51
Speaker 2: controversy just gets more fuel.
12:52
Speaker 1: It just keeps the cycle going. But Nolan didn't do that, No,
12:55
Speaker 1: he didn't.
12:56
Speaker 2: What is fascinating here is Nolan's complete, almost clinical refusal
13:00
Speaker 2: to play that game. When asked about the casting backlash,
13:03
Speaker 2: Nolan publicly dismissed it with a single word. He called
13:06
Speaker 2: it quote irrelevant, irrelevant. Yeah, he didn't write an essay,
13:11
Speaker 2: he didn't engage with the philosophical debate about historical accuracy.
13:15
Speaker 2: He essentially swatted it away like a fly and moved on.
13:18
Speaker 1: That is incredibly dismissive, but honestly also incredibly effective. But
13:23
Speaker 1: it wasn't just him saying one word, right. The actual
13:25
Speaker 1: corporate marketing strategy reflected this dismissal.
13:28
Speaker 2: This is where it gets brilliant from a risk management perspective.
13:32
Speaker 2: On a structural marketing level, the production chowse to skip
13:36
Speaker 2: social media influencer screenings entirely.
13:39
Speaker 1: Oh wow, they completely bypassed the hype machine entirely.
13:43
Speaker 2: In modern film marketing, a massive part of the strategy
13:46
Speaker 2: is inviting TikTokers, YouTubers and Twitter personalities to early screenings
13:50
Speaker 2: to generate bus.
13:51
Speaker 1: Sure, that's how you build opening weekend momentum, but.
13:53
Speaker 2: The studio recognized that the modern Internet ecosystem thrives on conflict.
13:58
Speaker 2: If the invited influencer, they would inevitably invite the culture
14:02
Speaker 2: war into the early narrative of the film.
14:04
Speaker 1: People would use the early screenings to generate clickbait about
14:08
Speaker 1: the casting controversy before the film even opened.
14:11
Speaker 2: So by not inviting them, they starved the controversy of
14:14
Speaker 2: early oxygen.
14:16
Speaker 1: That is so smart. It might look like artistic integrity
14:19
Speaker 1: on the surface, and perhaps it is, but it is
14:22
Speaker 1: also incredibly savvy crisis pr disguised as artistic integrity.
14:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely by cutting out the Internet hepe machine, they prevented
14:32
Speaker 2: the outrage ecosystem from monetizing the movie's release.
14:36
Speaker 1: They decided to let a two hundred and fifty million
14:39
Speaker 1: dollar film speak entirely for itself on opening weekend, which
14:42
Speaker 1: is almost unheard of in twenty twenty six Hollywood.
14:45
Speaker 2: It's a profound statement that the art and the theatrical experience
14:48
Speaker 2: itself should transcend the real time, minute by minute internet commentary.
14:53
Speaker 1: So let's look at the actual art. Then let's look
14:55
Speaker 1: at the text of the movie itself. Because all the
14:57
Speaker 1: marketing strategy in the world doesn't matter if the movie
14:59
Speaker 1: doesn't work right.
15:00
Speaker 2: The movie has to stand on his own two feet.
15:02
Speaker 1: I was reading this fantastic piece of insight from Daniel Mendelssohn,
15:05
Speaker 1: who is a highly respected ancient historian and critic. In
15:08
Speaker 1: his review, he noted that Nolan's film features a densely
15:11
Speaker 1: braided narrative.
15:13
Speaker 2: Now, if you have ever seen a Christopher Nolan movie,
15:15
Speaker 2: you know that is very much his signature.
15:18
Speaker 1: Right. We are talking about time manipulation, nonlinear storytelling, weaving
15:23
Speaker 1: different timelines together.
15:24
Speaker 2: That's what he does best.
15:25
Speaker 1: But my question is does it actually feel like Homer
15:29
Speaker 1: or is this just inception in togas? Did he just
15:32
Speaker 1: dress up his usual tropes in bronze armor.
15:35
Speaker 2: That is the crucial question, and it is exactly where
15:38
Speaker 2: classical purists have some major contentions with.
15:41
Speaker 1: The film, So they aren't totally on board, not all
15:43
Speaker 1: of them.
15:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you look at the mechanics of the adaptation,
15:46
Speaker 2: Nolan made significant undeniable modifications to the substance of the
15:50
Speaker 2: original text. How so well, the hero Odysseus isn't portrayed
15:54
Speaker 2: just as the wily, clever survivor of the ancient epic.
15:58
Speaker 2: He has been fundamentally re written to fit the mold
16:01
Speaker 2: of a classic tormented Nolan protagonist.
16:03
Speaker 1: You mean the brooding, guilt ridden men we see in
16:06
Speaker 1: his other films like the guy from Memento who can't
16:09
Speaker 1: remember his life, or Cob from Inception whose wife is
16:12
Speaker 1: a distant, haunting memory and he's just carrying the crushing
16:15
Speaker 1: weight of the world on his shoulders while wearing a
16:17
Speaker 1: nice suit exactly that guy.
16:19
Speaker 2: Nolan has a very specific archetypal hero and he forces
16:23
Speaker 2: Odysseus into that mold, and to achieve that specific melancholic tone,
16:28
Speaker 2: Nolan had to change some fundamental interactions from the original myth.
16:31
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example of how that practically
16:33
Speaker 1: changes a scene?
16:34
Speaker 2: Like?
16:34
Speaker 1: What did he alter?
16:35
Speaker 2: The most glaring example is the famous sequence with the
16:38
Speaker 2: nymph calypso oh.
16:40
Speaker 1: Were he stuck on her island?
16:41
Speaker 2: Right? In the original Homeric myth is a deeply complex,
16:45
Speaker 2: multi layered scenario. Odysseus is trapped on her island for
16:49
Speaker 2: seven years.
16:50
Speaker 1: Which is a massive chunk of his life.
16:52
Speaker 2: It is he is a captive weeping on the beach
16:54
Speaker 2: every day for his home, but he is also her
16:57
Speaker 2: lover by night.
16:58
Speaker 1: It's messy, it's very human.
16:59
Speaker 2: Yes, it is a profound exploration of captivity, desire, immortality,
17:04
Speaker 2: and the human need to experience a mortal life with
17:07
Speaker 2: a mortal wife. But in Nolan's version, Well, in Nolan's version,
17:10
Speaker 2: this sequence was changed in a way that many classical
17:12
Speaker 2: historians feel lands completely flat.
17:15
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah.
17:16
Speaker 2: Instead of a complex web of desire and captivity, Nolan
17:19
Speaker 2: turns it into a stark, almost clinical mechanism for exploring
17:22
Speaker 2: time dilation.
17:23
Speaker 1: And grief time dilation like an interstellar very similar.
17:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, he completely strips the sequence of its original emotional
17:31
Speaker 2: core in order to force Odysseus to remain this stoic, modern,
17:36
Speaker 2: brooding archetype.
17:37
Speaker 1: So they argue, he sacrificed the nuance of the myth
17:40
Speaker 1: to service his directorial brand. Basically, yes, so he bent
17:44
Speaker 1: a three thousand year old myth until it fit his
17:47
Speaker 1: specific directorial worldview, which is incredibly bold and maybe a
17:51
Speaker 1: little arrogant.
17:52
Speaker 2: Certainly ruffled some academic feathers.
17:53
Speaker 1: I also saw that Nolan claimed he has quote fixed
17:57
Speaker 1: movie dialogue with this r rated epic, which again is
18:01
Speaker 1: a massive, audacious claim to make.
18:03
Speaker 2: Is a bold statement.
18:04
Speaker 1: How exactly do you fix movie dialogue with an ancient
18:07
Speaker 1: Greek poem?
18:08
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds hyperbolic, but if we look at the
18:11
Speaker 2: thematic ambitions of the film, it starts to make sense
18:14
Speaker 2: why he wanted this to be strictly R rated and
18:17
Speaker 2: why he wanted to control the dialogue so tightly laid
18:20
Speaker 2: on me Thematically, no one is using the aftermath of
18:22
Speaker 2: the Trojan War, and specifically Odysseus's return home, to explore
18:27
Speaker 2: a very modern anxiety. He is positing the idea that
18:31
Speaker 2: the end of politeness and civility will ultimately destroy civilization.
18:36
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, politeness. When I think of an R rated
18:40
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty million dollar epic, I am not
18:43
Speaker 1: thinking about politeness.
18:45
Speaker 2: It sounds counterintuitive. I know.
18:46
Speaker 1: I am not thinking about holding the door open for
18:48
Speaker 1: someone at the grocery store, or saying please and thank you.
18:52
Speaker 1: That seems like an incredibly small theme for such a
18:54
Speaker 1: massive movie.
18:56
Speaker 2: It sounds small when we use the modern word politeness.
18:59
Speaker 2: But we have to translate this back to the ancient
19:01
Speaker 2: Greek concept. We are not talking about using the wrong
19:04
Speaker 2: fork at a dinner party. We are talking about the
19:06
Speaker 2: foundational concept of zania.
19:08
Speaker 1: Okay, unpack a zennia for me. What is that? Mechanically?
19:11
Speaker 2: In the ancient Greek world, specifically the Bronze Age society
19:15
Speaker 2: Homer is depicting, Zania is the sacred law of guest
19:18
Speaker 2: friendship and hospitality.
19:19
Speaker 1: So it's more than just good manners much more.
19:21
Speaker 2: It is a divine mandate overseen directly by Zeus, who
19:25
Speaker 2: is known as Zeus Xenios, the protector of guests.
19:27
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so the top god is in charge of this.
19:30
Speaker 2: Exactly in a world without hotels, without safe highways, without
19:34
Speaker 2: police forces, if you were traveling, you relied entirely on
19:38
Speaker 2: the hospitality of strangers to survive.
19:40
Speaker 1: Because otherwise you'd just die in the wilderness.
19:43
Speaker 2: Right, you would knock on a door and the host
19:45
Speaker 2: was religiously obligated to take you in, feed you, and
19:48
Speaker 2: protect you. In return, the guest was obligated to be respectful,
19:53
Speaker 2: not steal from the host, and not overstay their welcome.
19:55
Speaker 1: So it was literally a survival mechanism. It was the
19:58
Speaker 1: glue holding a very dangerous world together.
20:01
Speaker 2: Yes, it was the social contract. And if you break exenia,
20:05
Speaker 2: you aren't just being rude, You are committing an act
20:08
Speaker 2: of religious heresy.
20:09
Speaker 1: You are breaking the divine order.
20:11
Speaker 2: And you are inviting the wrath of the gods. In
20:14
Speaker 2: the Odyssey, the suitors who invade Odysseus's home in Ithaca
20:17
Speaker 2: while he is presumed dead. Are the ultimate horrifying violators
20:21
Speaker 2: of this social.
20:22
Speaker 1: Contract because they just take over his house, they eat.
20:24
Speaker 2: His food, they harass his wife, they pluck to kill
20:27
Speaker 2: the sun. They are an infection, destroying the rules of
20:29
Speaker 2: civilization from the inside.
20:31
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, So when Nolan is talking about the
20:33
Speaker 1: end of politeness, destroying civilization, he is talking about the
20:37
Speaker 1: collapse of Xenia.
20:38
Speaker 2: Yes, Nolan takes this ancient religious terror of a broken
20:43
Speaker 2: social contract and maps it directly onto our modern fear
20:47
Speaker 2: of societal collapse.
20:48
Speaker 1: Think about twenty twenty six. Think about the intense political
20:51
Speaker 1: and social polarization.
20:53
Speaker 2: Exactly, this pervasive feeling that everyone is at each other's throats,
20:57
Speaker 2: both online and in person.
20:58
Speaker 1: There is a palpable and anxiety today that the agreed
21:02
Speaker 1: upon rules of how we treat each other, how we
21:04
Speaker 1: respect boundaries, how we govern our base impulses that all
21:08
Speaker 1: of it is framed.
21:09
Speaker 2: He's showing that when civility breaks down, when those rules
21:11
Speaker 2: of decorum are thrown out the window, what follows isn't
21:14
Speaker 2: just people being rude to each other on Twitter.
21:16
Speaker 1: It is apocalyptic violence. It is the end of the
21:18
Speaker 1: world as we know it.
21:19
Speaker 2: Exactly he transforms the suitors in ancient Ehaca into a
21:23
Speaker 2: terrifying mirror for our modern era and to properly convey
21:26
Speaker 2: the horror of that collapse, to show the visceral, ugly
21:29
Speaker 2: reality of what happens when society loses its rules. He
21:32
Speaker 2: thought he needed the army, He.
21:38
Speaker 1: Needed the dialogue to reflect the brutal, uncensored reality of
21:42
Speaker 1: men who have abandoned all morality.
21:44
Speaker 2: Which is how he fixed the dialogue in his view,
21:46
Speaker 2: by making it completely raw and devoid of artificial Hollywood restraint.
21:50
Speaker 1: That is heavy and suddenly the budget makes complete sense.
21:53
Speaker 1: No wonder it costs two hundred and fifty million dollars.
21:56
Speaker 1: He isn't just showing a guy coming home. He is
21:58
Speaker 1: trying to visually and thematically depict the terrifying collapse of
22:02
Speaker 1: the social order on an epic scale.
22:05
Speaker 2: It is a grand, sweeping, incredibly loud approach to the material.
22:10
Speaker 2: It uses the maximum amount of cinematic resources to make
22:13
Speaker 2: a point about the fragility of civilization, which.
22:16
Speaker 1: Brings us to a fascinating conceptual whiplash. And by the way,
22:20
Speaker 1: if you are loving these deep insights, please drop a
22:23
Speaker 1: five star rating on the show. Because while Nolan believes
22:25
Speaker 1: you need an apocalypse, thousands of extras, and a quarter
22:29
Speaker 1: of a billion dollars to capture the true weight of
22:31
Speaker 1: the Odyssey. What if the exact opposite is true.
22:34
Speaker 2: That is the big question.
22:35
Speaker 1: What if the epic scale actually distracts from the core
22:37
Speaker 1: tragedy of the text. This is the argument made by
22:40
Speaker 1: a completely different filmmaker just two years earlier. Let's pivot
22:44
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty four and look at Uberto Pasolini's film
22:47
Speaker 1: The Return.
22:48
Speaker 2: This represents a completely different, fundamentally opposed philosophy of adaptation.
22:53
Speaker 2: If Nolan is the macro, Pasolini is the micro exactly.
22:56
Speaker 1: This film stars Ralph Fienes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche
23:01
Speaker 1: as Penelope, and just as quick aside for the film,
23:03
Speaker 1: buffs listening. This is a huge deal because these two
23:06
Speaker 1: actors are reuniting decades after they start together in the.
23:10
Speaker 2: English Patient, so there is already this built in cinematic
23:13
Speaker 2: history and chemistry between them.
23:14
Speaker 1: But let's look at the mechanics of this production, because
23:17
Speaker 1: the contrast is staggering.
23:18
Speaker 2: It is a remarkable shift in scale and scope. As
23:21
Speaker 2: you mentioned, Nolan's budget was two hundred and fifty million dollars.
23:25
Speaker 2: Pasolini's budget for The Return was a mere twenty million dollars.
23:28
Speaker 1: Wow, that's practically a catering budget for a Nolan film.
23:31
Speaker 2: It is an independent film. Furthermore, Nolan's film is a
23:34
Speaker 2: sprawling three hour epic. Pasolini's film runs for a very
23:39
Speaker 2: tight restraint one hundred and sixteen minutes.
23:41
Speaker 1: But the most shocking difference to me reading into this
23:45
Speaker 1: is the structural choice of what to adapt. Pasolini only
23:48
Speaker 1: adapts the second half of.
23:50
Speaker 2: The epic correct He completely ignores the first ten years
23:53
Speaker 2: of wandering. He ignores the journey entirely, and focuses exclusively
23:57
Speaker 2: on the homecoming.
23:58
Speaker 1: The moment Odysseus washes up on the sure of Ithaca,
24:00
Speaker 1: the film begins exactly. Okay, I have to push back
24:03
Speaker 1: here because this seems like cinematic malpractice. You are making
24:07
Speaker 1: an Odyssey movie without the monsters.
24:09
Speaker 2: I know, it sounds crazy.
24:10
Speaker 1: No psyclops, no sirens singing men to their deaths, no
24:15
Speaker 1: circe turning the crew into actual pigs. Isn't that the
24:18
Speaker 1: whole point of the story if you take out the fantasy.
24:20
Speaker 1: Isn't that just a movie about a guy taking a
24:22
Speaker 1: really long, depressing walk home.
24:24
Speaker 2: It is a very fair question, and it is exactly
24:27
Speaker 2: why this creative choice by Pasolini and his writers John
24:31
Speaker 2: Coley and Edward Bond was so polarizing among audiences. I
24:34
Speaker 2: can imagine, But if you dig into the psychology of it,
24:37
Speaker 2: it is also incredibly brilliant. By removing all the supernatural elements,
24:43
Speaker 2: by excising the gods, the monsters, the mysical beings, the
24:46
Speaker 2: film forces a stark inescapable psychological realism onto the viewer.
24:52
Speaker 1: So if a storm hits his ship in this movie,
24:54
Speaker 1: it's not because Poseidon is angry at him for blinding
24:56
Speaker 1: his son. It's just a low pressure weather system.
24:59
Speaker 2: Exactly In the ancient myth, the gods act as external
25:02
Speaker 2: agents for human suffering. If a man makes a mistake,
25:06
Speaker 2: the god's.
25:06
Speaker 1: Punishing right, it's out of his control.
25:09
Speaker 2: But in Pasolini's film, without the gods, Odysseus's suffering isn't
25:13
Speaker 2: the whim of some angry deity sitting on Mount Olympus.
25:16
Speaker 2: The suffering comes entirely from within.
25:18
Speaker 1: It's all psychological.
25:19
Speaker 2: It is the sheer, crushing guilt and trauma of the
25:22
Speaker 2: Trojan War. It is the psychological weight of knowing he
25:25
Speaker 2: led his men to their deaths. The film strips away
25:28
Speaker 2: the protective layer of fantasy to reveal a raw, uncompromising
25:31
Speaker 2: study of post traumatic stress disorder.
25:33
Speaker 1: That completely changes the genre of the story. It goes
25:36
Speaker 1: from being a swashbuckling fantasy adventure to a deeply intimate
25:40
Speaker 1: psychological trauma drama. It does it's no longer about fighting monsters.
25:44
Speaker 1: It's about fighting your own memories.
25:46
Speaker 2: Yes, Pasolini is suggesting that the truest horror of the
25:50
Speaker 2: Odyssey isn't a one eyed giant. The truest horror is
25:54
Speaker 2: what twenty years of continuous brutal violence does to a
25:58
Speaker 2: human mind.
25:59
Speaker 1: And you can see that internal horror reflected entirely in
26:02
Speaker 1: the physical toll the role took on the lead actor.
26:05
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Ralphie and his dedication to this because
26:08
Speaker 1: it is astonishing, it really is. He didn't just show
26:11
Speaker 1: up on set, put on an ice tunic and read
26:13
Speaker 1: his lines. He underwent five months of intense physical training,
26:16
Speaker 1: followed by another two and a half months of extreme
26:19
Speaker 1: punishing diet and cardio specifically designed to lose body fat
26:23
Speaker 1: and muscle mass.
26:24
Speaker 2: And his reasoning for that extreme regiment is fairy telling.
26:27
Speaker 2: Regarding the firm's thematic coals.
26:28
Speaker 1: What did he say about it?
26:30
Speaker 2: He explicitly stated in interviews that he did not want
26:33
Speaker 2: a gym body. He didn't want to look like a
26:35
Speaker 2: modern Marvel superhero with perfectly sculpted, dehydrated muscles. He wanted
26:40
Speaker 2: Odysseus to look like a quote bit of old rope.
26:43
Speaker 1: A bit of old rope that is such a visceral
26:46
Speaker 1: evocative image. Think about a rope that has been left
26:49
Speaker 1: out in the sun and the salt water for twenty years.
26:52
Speaker 1: It is weathered, it is fray, hanging.
26:54
Speaker 2: On by a single desperate thread.
26:56
Speaker 1: But it is still fundamentally tough. It's sinewy.
26:59
Speaker 2: It is the exact act physicality of a man who
27:01
Speaker 2: has survived on scraps, who has been starved, beaten and
27:05
Speaker 2: battered by the elements and by war.
27:08
Speaker 1: And the narrative setup of the film perfectly reflects this
27:10
Speaker 1: physical exhaustion. When we meet Odysseus in the Return, he
27:14
Speaker 1: isn't striking a heroic, triumphant pose on a cliff side
27:17
Speaker 1: overlooking his kingdom.
27:19
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
27:20
Speaker 1: He washes up on the shores of Ithaca, completely naked,
27:22
Speaker 1: caked in mud, deeply traumatized and entirely dispirited. He is
27:26
Speaker 1: a broken man who can barely stand, let alone reclaim
27:30
Speaker 1: a throne.
27:30
Speaker 2: And while he is breaking down on the beach, back
27:33
Speaker 2: at the palace, Penelope is dealing with her own exhausting nightmare.
27:37
Speaker 1: She has been alone for twenty years and her home
27:39
Speaker 1: is infested with these suitors we talked about earlier, and
27:42
Speaker 1: I love how the film portrays her survival mechanism. She's
27:45
Speaker 1: using that famous weaving trick.
27:47
Speaker 2: It is one of the most brilliant tactical maneuvers in
27:49
Speaker 2: all of literature. She tells the suitors that she will
27:52
Speaker 2: finally choose a new husband from among them, but only
27:56
Speaker 2: after she finishes weaving a burial shroud for her elderly
27:59
Speaker 2: father in law Laties.
28:01
Speaker 1: But every single night, in secret, she undoes the work.
28:05
Speaker 1: She unravels what she wove during the day.
28:08
Speaker 2: It's her only way of fending off these aggressive, entitled
28:11
Speaker 2: men who are literally eating her out of house and home.
28:14
Speaker 1: And the leader of these suitors and Tennysis is played
28:17
Speaker 1: terrifyingly well by Marwan Canzari. He brings the suffocating menace
28:22
Speaker 1: to the role.
28:22
Speaker 2: Penelope is fighting a war of attrition Odysseus fought a
28:26
Speaker 2: physical war at Troy, but Penelope is fighting a psychological
28:29
Speaker 2: war in her own living.
28:31
Speaker 1: Room, and caught in the middle of all this decay
28:33
Speaker 1: is their son, Telemachus played by Charlie Plummer right, the.
28:36
Speaker 2: Son who was just an infant when Odysseus left for Troy.
28:39
Speaker 2: He has grown up entirely in the shadow of.
28:41
Speaker 1: A legend he has never met exactly. Telemachus is watching
28:44
Speaker 1: his home be overrun, watching this societal decay that no
28:48
Speaker 1: one focused on, but experiencing it as a deeply personal violation.
28:51
Speaker 2: He is trying to figure out what it means to
28:53
Speaker 2: be a man, what it means to be a king
28:55
Speaker 2: in a world without his father to guide him.
28:58
Speaker 1: He is a powder keg of unresis, anger and impotence.
29:01
Speaker 2: Which builds perfectly to the climax of the film. Now
29:04
Speaker 2: evil without the gods and the monsters. The climax of
29:07
Speaker 2: the Odyssey is legendary, is the contest.
29:10
Speaker 1: Of the Bow, and Pasolini keeps this structural beat, but
29:13
Speaker 1: he grounds it in this brutal, horrifying reality that strips
29:16
Speaker 1: away any sense of Hollywood triumph.
29:18
Speaker 2: It is a masterclass intention and claustrophobia. Penelope declares that
29:23
Speaker 2: whoever can string Odysseus's massive, stiff hunting bow and shoot
29:27
Speaker 2: an arrow cleanly through a line of axe heads will
29:30
Speaker 2: win her hand.
29:30
Speaker 1: The suitors try, and they all fail. They lack the
29:33
Speaker 1: physical strength and the moral authority.
29:35
Speaker 2: Then Odysseus, who has infiltrated the palace disguised as a
29:39
Speaker 2: filthy beggar, steps up. He strings the bow with ease,
29:42
Speaker 2: and he makes the impossible shot.
29:44
Speaker 1: In a traditional movie, this is the moment. The music swells,
29:46
Speaker 1: the hero reveals himself, the bad guy's gasp, and we
29:49
Speaker 1: get a glorious, choreographed action sequence where good triumphs over evil.
29:54
Speaker 2: But that is not what Pasolini delivers. What follows is
29:57
Speaker 2: not triumphant. It is a relentless lock door slaughter.
30:01
Speaker 1: It's not a heroic battle. It is an execution. It's
30:04
Speaker 1: a massacre in a confined space.
30:07
Speaker 2: Exactly, Odysseus and Telemachus lock the doors of the Great Hall,
30:11
Speaker 2: trapping the suitors inside with no weapons, and they methodically
30:14
Speaker 2: butcher them.
30:15
Speaker 1: It sounds horrifying.
30:16
Speaker 2: It is incredibly violent, chaotic, and ugly. It is the
30:19
Speaker 2: grim reality of hand to hand combat, and it culminates
30:22
Speaker 2: in a deeply disturbing moment that fundamentally alters the emotional
30:25
Speaker 2: resonance of the traditional myth.
30:27
Speaker 1: Tell me about this change, because reading into this gave
30:29
Speaker 1: me chills.
30:30
Speaker 2: In the chaos of the slaughter Telemachus, the sun corners Antannis. Penelope,
30:35
Speaker 2: horrified by the sheer scale of the bloodshed in her home,
30:38
Speaker 2: is desperately screaming for the violence to stop. She is
30:41
Speaker 2: begging for peace.
30:42
Speaker 1: She just wants it to end.
30:43
Speaker 2: But Telemachus completely ignores his mother's please. He raises a
30:46
Speaker 2: sword and decapitates Antenaris.
30:48
Speaker 1: Canelope is screaming for mercy, and her son just tunes
30:52
Speaker 1: her out and commits this horrific, visceral act of mutilation.
30:56
Speaker 1: Why make that change? What is Pasolini trying to say?
30:59
Speaker 1: By having the sun go that.
31:00
Speaker 2: Far, he is highlighting the generational infection of violence. Pasolini
31:04
Speaker 2: is suggesting that the trauma of war doesn't magically end
31:07
Speaker 2: when the soldier comes home and takes off his armor.
31:10
Speaker 1: It infects the home itself, It.
31:11
Speaker 2: Infects the next generation. Telemachus never went to Troy, he
31:15
Speaker 2: never flought on those beaches, but the violence of Troy
31:19
Speaker 2: has come to his doorstep. And by participating in this slaughter,
31:22
Speaker 2: he has absorbed his father's trauma.
31:24
Speaker 1: He has become infected by the exact same violence that
31:27
Speaker 1: broke his father.
31:28
Speaker 2: That is incredibly bleak. It turns a story of homecoming
31:32
Speaker 2: into a story of the inescapable cycle of violence.
31:35
Speaker 1: And looking at that thematic heaviness, you can see why
31:38
Speaker 1: the critical reception was a bit more divided on this
31:40
Speaker 1: film compared to Nolan's near perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.
31:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't a universal slam duck.
31:45
Speaker 1: The return sits at a respectable seventy eight percent on
31:48
Speaker 1: Rotten Tomatoes and a sixty six on Metacritic. Critics universally
31:52
Speaker 1: praised it as a masterful acting showcase for Fienz and Venetia.
31:56
Speaker 2: I mean, you put those two actors in a room
31:57
Speaker 2: together and let them explore twenty years of grief, you
32:00
Speaker 2: were guaranteed to get fireworks.
32:03
Speaker 1: True, but the stylistic and structural choices alienated some critics.
32:08
Speaker 1: For instance, the renowned critic Matt Zolarsites called the film
32:11
Speaker 1: a quote solemn slog ouch.
32:14
Speaker 2: Solomn slog is a tough label to shake.
32:17
Speaker 1: What was his argument?
32:18
Speaker 2: His argument was rooted in the mechanics of adaptation. He
32:21
Speaker 2: argued that superimposing a very modern concept of psychodrama and
32:25
Speaker 2: PTSD onto an ancient myth actually robs the story of
32:28
Speaker 2: its original vigor, its strangeness, and its.
32:31
Speaker 1: Depth by making it too grounded.
32:33
Speaker 2: Right, by focusing so heavily on modern Eurosies, he felt
32:36
Speaker 2: Passolini made the film too restrained. He argued that the
32:40
Speaker 2: Odyssey needs its grand mythical scale to properly function as.
32:43
Speaker 1: An epic, which brings us right to the center of
32:45
Speaker 1: this fascinating debate. You have Nolan, who modernized the text
32:49
Speaker 1: by turning it into a loud, two hundred and fifty
32:51
Speaker 1: million dollar spectacle about societal collapse.
32:53
Speaker 2: And you have Pasolini, who modernized it by shrinking it
32:56
Speaker 2: down into a quiet, twenty million dollars intimate study at PTSD.
33:00
Speaker 1: These two films arriving so close together in twenty twenty
33:03
Speaker 1: four in twenty twenty six, they are really just the
33:06
Speaker 1: latest in a long, seemingly endless line of attempts to
33:10
Speaker 1: capture lightning in a bottle. Because filmmakers have been trying
33:13
Speaker 1: to solve the puzzle of this poem for over a century.
33:16
Speaker 2: It truly is a cinematic white whale. It is a
33:19
Speaker 2: text that obsesses directors but almost always slips through their
33:23
Speaker 2: fingers in one way or another.
33:24
Speaker 1: Oh white whale. Indeed. But let's look at this unending
33:27
Speaker 1: legacy of Homer on screen, because one of the most
33:30
Speaker 1: consistent patterns I've noticed is that whenever a new adaptation drops,
33:34
Speaker 1: the very first thing the audience does is weaponize nostalgia.
33:37
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, it is an entirely predictable cycle of cultural consumption.
33:42
Speaker 2: The new version is always measured against the version the
33:44
Speaker 2: audience remembers from their formative years.
33:46
Speaker 1: Right now, alongside the debates about Nolan's casting and Pasolini's
33:50
Speaker 1: lack of monsters, the Internet is absolutely flooded with fans
33:53
Speaker 1: claiming that the nineteen ninety seven television mini series the
33:56
Speaker 1: three hour events Darring armand de Sante as Odysseus is
33:59
Speaker 1: vastly superior to Christopher Nolan's twenty twenty.
34:02
Speaker 2: Six blockbuster Let That Sink In.
34:04
Speaker 1: People are genuinely defending a nineteen nineties made for TV
34:08
Speaker 1: movie with outdated CGI against a quarter billion dollar theatrical
34:12
Speaker 1: event directed by one of the most acclaimed tours of
34:15
Speaker 1: our time.
34:16
Speaker 2: And we have to look at the rich lineage of
34:18
Speaker 2: adaptations to understand exactly why that happens. The nineteen ninety
34:21
Speaker 2: seven mini series was for a very specific generation, their
34:26
Speaker 2: defining introductory exposure to the myth.
34:29
Speaker 1: It was broadcast into millions of living rooms.
34:31
Speaker 2: It formed their baseline expectation of what Odysseus looks and
34:34
Speaker 2: sounds like. But that lineage goes back much further than
34:37
Speaker 2: the nineties.
34:37
Speaker 1: What are some of the other major milestones.
34:39
Speaker 2: Well, you have the highly regarded nineteen sixty eight Italian
34:42
Speaker 2: television mini series directed by Franco Rossi, featuring the legendary
34:46
Speaker 2: Greek actress Irene Papas as Penelope.
34:48
Speaker 1: I've heard of that one.
34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, that version is often cited by European critics as
34:51
Speaker 2: the most authentic translation of the text's mood. Then you
34:54
Speaker 2: have the nineteen fifty four film simply titled Ulysses starring
34:58
Speaker 2: Kirk Douglas, which filtered the myth through the lens of
35:00
Speaker 2: mid century Hollywood machismo.
35:03
Speaker 1: Oh Kirk Douglas, with the cleftchin, fighting cyclops and glorious
35:06
Speaker 1: technicolor exactly.
35:08
Speaker 2: And then, of course you have completely tangential, brilliantly subversive
35:13
Speaker 2: adaptations like the Cohen Brothers two thousand film, Oh Brother where.
35:17
Speaker 1: Art Thal George Clooney running around the American South during
35:20
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, singing folk music and trying to get
35:23
Speaker 1: back to his wife before she marries someone else Prussia.
35:26
Speaker 2: Great movie.
35:26
Speaker 1: It has a literal cyclops in the form of John
35:29
Speaker 1: Goodman with an eye patch. It is the Odyssey.
35:32
Speaker 2: It is a loose comedic adaptation, absolutely, but structurally it
35:36
Speaker 2: hits all the major beats of the epic flawlessly. It
35:40
Speaker 2: proves how durable the underlying skeleton of the myth truly is.
35:44
Speaker 1: So looking at all of this, the fifties Hollywood version,
35:47
Speaker 1: the nineties TV version, the two thousands comedy, the twenty
35:50
Speaker 1: twenty four indie trauma drama, and the twenty twenty six
35:53
Speaker 1: apocalypse blockbuts well, what does this all mean? Why is
35:55
Speaker 1: this so hard to get perfectly right? Adapting The Odyssey
35:58
Speaker 1: is like trying to weld two completely different genres together.
36:01
Speaker 2: Well, two genres together? How so?
36:03
Speaker 1: Well, think about the structure of the poem. You have
36:05
Speaker 1: the first half, which is essentially star trek. Yeah, it
36:09
Speaker 1: is a high seas episodic adventure. They hot from island
36:13
Speaker 1: to island, They meet strange aliens or in this case,
36:15
Speaker 1: monsters in witches. They solve a problem and they sail away.
36:19
Speaker 1: It's pure fantasy adventure.
36:20
Speaker 2: Okay, I see that.
36:21
Speaker 1: And then you have the second half of the story,
36:23
Speaker 1: which is basically.
36:24
Speaker 2: Panic Room, Panic Room. I love that comparison.
36:26
Speaker 1: Yes, the second half is a claustrophobic, tense lock door
36:30
Speaker 1: thriller inside a single house. It's about disguise, paranoia, and
36:35
Speaker 1: creeping violence. Blending those two incredibly different cinematic tones, the
36:40
Speaker 1: sprawling fantasy of Star Trek and the intimate tension of
36:43
Speaker 1: Panic Room without breaking the tone of the movie is
36:46
Speaker 1: nearly impossible.
36:46
Speaker 2: It's a massive challenge.
36:47
Speaker 1: You either get the sprawling action and the monsters, but
36:50
Speaker 1: you lose the quiet humanity and the trauma. Or like Pasolini,
36:54
Speaker 1: you get the deep humanity, but you have to completely
36:57
Speaker 1: sacrifice the epic scale of the gods and the magic.
37:00
Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal mechanical breakdown of the problem. Yeah,
37:04
Speaker 2: that is the fundamental paradox of adapting this specific text.
37:08
Speaker 2: It is universally recognized as the foundational text of the
37:11
Speaker 2: hero's journey.
37:12
Speaker 1: It is the blueprint for almost every adventure story we tell.
37:15
Speaker 2: But it is uniquely challenging for filmmakers, precisely because, as
37:20
Speaker 2: you noted, the original poem is inherently fractured tonally.
37:24
Speaker 1: It's essentially two different books glued together.
37:27
Speaker 2: Yes, marrying those two tones in a single two hour
37:30
Speaker 2: or even three hour theatrical film is incredibly difficult. The
37:35
Speaker 2: pacing requirements of a modern movie usually force a director
37:38
Speaker 2: to choose one half to prioritize over the other, which
37:41
Speaker 2: makes sense, which, interestingly enough, might be exactly why that
37:44
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven television mini series still holds so much
37:48
Speaker 2: weight and reverence for people, Because it was a multi
37:51
Speaker 2: night television event. It actually had the runtime and the
37:54
Speaker 2: structural breaks to let both halves of the story breathe.
37:57
Speaker 1: Oh right, it could be Star Trek on Night one
37:59
Speaker 1: and Panning on night too.
38:01
Speaker 2: Exactly.
38:01
Speaker 1: It's like trying to make The Lord of the Rings
38:03
Speaker 1: and Fatal Attraction in the exact same movie. It's tonal whiplash.
38:07
Speaker 1: But despite these seemingly impossible mechanical hurdles, filmmakers keep trying.
38:11
Speaker 1: Every decade, someone new steps up to the plate.
38:14
Speaker 2: They can't resist it.
38:15
Speaker 1: Why do we keep telling this story? Why are we
38:18
Speaker 1: still pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a poem
38:20
Speaker 1: from eight hundred PC. I think it connects back to
38:23
Speaker 1: all of us listening right now.
38:24
Speaker 2: How so, what is the core resonance at its.
38:26
Speaker 1: Core, underneath the gods, underneath the arrows, the CGI monsters
38:30
Speaker 1: and the r rated dialogue. This story is about the
38:33
Speaker 1: most universal human desire imaginable, the desire to return.
38:38
Speaker 2: Home a very powerful motivator.
38:40
Speaker 1: But it comes with a devastating paviat It is about
38:43
Speaker 1: the desire to return to a home that has changed
38:45
Speaker 1: in your absence, while simultaneously realizing that you, yourself have
38:49
Speaker 1: changed irreparably. You can never really go back because the
38:52
Speaker 1: you that left no longer exists.
38:54
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate story of alienation and longing. It
38:58
Speaker 2: is the realization the time is the one monster you
39:01
Speaker 2: cannot defeat with a sword.
39:03
Speaker 1: Exactly. Whether it's framed through Nolin's macro anxiety is about
39:06
Speaker 1: the collapse of modern politeness and the breakdown of society,
39:09
Speaker 1: or frame through Pasilinese micro intimate exploration of wartime trauma
39:13
Speaker 1: and generational violence. The Odyssey acts as a mirror.
39:16
Speaker 2: It really does.
39:17
Speaker 1: It is a robust, unyielding mirror that simply reflects our
39:20
Speaker 1: own era, specific fears right back at us. In the
39:24
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, it reflected post war traditionalism. In twenty twenty six,
39:28
Speaker 1: it reflects extreme polarization and deeply analyzed trauma.
39:32
Speaker 2: And that mirror is precisely why the text survives. A
39:36
Speaker 2: rigid text breaks over time. The Odyssey survives because it
39:39
Speaker 2: is flexible. It is robust enough to carry the weight
39:43
Speaker 2: of whatever new generation needs it to mean, it is
39:45
Speaker 2: an empty vessel into which we pour our current cultural neurosis.
39:49
Speaker 1: Well, we have certainly covered a massive amount of ground today.
39:52
Speaker 1: We have unpacked the economics of blockbusters, the psychology of
39:55
Speaker 1: rotten tomatoes, the brutal realities of ancient Sania, and the
39:59
Speaker 1: structural difficult culties of adapting epic poetry.
40:02
Speaker 2: It's been a journey.
40:03
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on this expansive
40:05
Speaker 1: journey through the ancient and modern worlds here on beyond infographics.
40:09
Speaker 1: Our mission is always to help you synthesize these massive
40:12
Speaker 1: cultural moments. And seriously, if you like what we do,
40:14
Speaker 1: go ahead and give us five stars on your app
40:16
Speaker 1: right now.
40:17
Speaker 2: But before we officially wrap up, I want to leave
40:20
Speaker 2: you with a final lingering idea to mull over on
40:23
Speaker 2: your own a provocative thought based on everything we've unpacked today.
40:27
Speaker 1: Oh, I love these lay it on us.
40:30
Speaker 2: We've talked extensively today about how Pasolini stripped away the monsters.
40:34
Speaker 2: You removed the Cyclops, the Sirens, the witches in order
40:37
Speaker 2: to make the trauma feel.
40:39
Speaker 1: Real, right, getting rid of the fantasy.
40:40
Speaker 2: And we talked about how Nolan changed the fundamental myth
40:44
Speaker 2: to turn Odysseus into a modern, brooding, cynical anti hero
40:50
Speaker 2: to reflect our current anxieties about the collapse of civilization.
40:53
Speaker 1: Right, both directors felt they needed to change the original text,
40:57
Speaker 1: to strip away the fantasy in order to make it
40:59
Speaker 1: gritty and real life for a modern audience.
41:01
Speaker 2: But what if we've gotten it completely backward?
41:03
Speaker 1: What do you mean backward?
41:04
Speaker 2: Think about the ancient Greeks. Think about the men who
41:07
Speaker 2: actually fought in the Bronze Age, fighting hand to hand
41:10
Speaker 2: with spears, watching their friends die, and then benning years
41:14
Speaker 2: trying to navigate a hostile see to get back to
41:16
Speaker 2: their families.
41:17
Speaker 1: It sounds like unimaginable stress.
41:20
Speaker 2: What if they didn't invent the Cyclops and the sirens
41:22
Speaker 2: as mere fantasy entertainment.
41:24
Speaker 1: You mean they actually believed in them.
41:26
Speaker 2: Not literally, but metaphorically. What if these monsters weren't just
41:30
Speaker 2: campfire stories meant to distract children, stories that modern filmmakers
41:34
Speaker 2: assume need to be stripped away in the search for realism.
41:38
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm following.
41:39
Speaker 2: What if those terrifying supernatural monsters, those man eating giants
41:43
Speaker 2: and mind altering witches were actually the only vocabulary the
41:47
Speaker 2: ancients possessed to accurately describe the very real, unspeakable horrors
41:52
Speaker 2: of post traumatic stress disorder and societal collapse.
41:56
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
41:57
Speaker 2: They didn't have the clinical language of psychology. They couldn't say, well,
42:00
Speaker 2: Odysseus is suffering from acute survivor's guilt and hypervigilance.
42:04
Speaker 1: They didn't have those terms exactly.
42:06
Speaker 2: They had to create a physical monster to represent the
42:08
Speaker 2: psychological terror of being consumed alive by grief.
42:11
Speaker 1: So the monster isn't a distraction from the trauma. The
42:14
Speaker 1: monster is the trauma. The monster is the only way
42:17
Speaker 1: they knew how to talk.
42:17
Speaker 2: About it precisely. And if that is true, then by
42:22
Speaker 2: removing the monsters from our modern adaptations in the name
42:25
Speaker 2: of psychological realism, we might not be making the story
42:28
Speaker 2: more real at all.
42:29
Speaker 1: We might actually be silencing them.
42:31
Speaker 2: We might actually be silencing the exact metaphorical language the
42:35
Speaker 2: ancient world used to scream their trauma into the void.
42:38
Speaker 2: To go back to your opening thought about the X
42:40
Speaker 2: ray machine and the cinematic muddy waters, maybe those muddy
42:43
Speaker 2: waters aren't a problem to be solved or filtered.
42:46
Speaker 1: That completely flips everything we've talked about on its head.
42:49
Speaker 2: Maybe the monsters hiding in the mud are exactly what
42:52
Speaker 2: we need to see to truly understand the human heart.
43:00
Speaker 2: Putt At and Tot, Stott and st st Stot