Fifteen years, eh?

It has been fifteen years, as of today, that this site has existed. I hadn’t originally planned on writing about that, but when I logged in and saw the notification, I had to at least acknowledge it. It got me thinking, too, about what has transpired since this place’s inception. In the years since this began, I moved to North Carolina, my brother died, I adopted Sugar the Chihuahua, I was voted Teacher of the Year, an orange cat, now named Spice, walked his furry butt in my front door and decided to stay, I bought a house, and we had to say goodbye to Lenny, the sweetest little guy ever. Obviously a lot else has happened, but I just wanted to make note of some of the big things.

But that also got me to thinking about the passage of time in relation to what I really wanted to talk about – The Odyssey.

I really don’t feel I need to issue a spoiler warning for the film or book, since the latter has been around for about 3,000 years, but consider this a spoiler warning about both.

For the last ten or so years, I have taught The Odyssey with my freshmen English classes as part of our larger Greek Mythology unit. As part of the unit, much to the chagrin of my kids, we did a lot of exploration of the geography of the region and really understanding all the points of Odysseus’ journey.

No, Christopher Nolan’s latest masterpiece (and it is a masterpiece, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) doesn’t adhere 100% to the original text.

And that is the point.

My number one takeaway as the credits began to roll was “wow, that was perfect.” Not as a film, although it was damn near it, but as a re-telling of a classic tale. Let me address that I am not an expert in this field, but I know enough. Homer’s story was passed down via oral tradition. As I explained it in class, it was a thousands-of-years-old game of Telephone. A bard in Athens hears the story and takes it back to his people on Sicily, but adds his own flair to it. A visitor who hears that version takes it back home to Cyprus and adds his own twist to it. And so on. Just as all legends and Epics, the story we know likely bears very little resemblance to the original story.

Christopher Nolan, being a student of art and culture, knows this and knew that the greatest tribute one could pay to Homer and the original source material was to make it his own and tell his VERSION of the story.

There were changes, sure. And we aren’t talking about the “controversial” casting (again, to which I say – grow up). The biggest of those, I feel, was to the character of Odysseus. Unlike in the version we read in class, you likely read in high school or college, or just know about, this Odysseus was reflective and acknowledges his failures as a man, leader, father, and king. Most textual evidence shows Odysseus to be a proud man (even in Nolan’s film, I feel to its slight detriment, this is shown by his post-escape assault on Polyphemus) who never questions himself or his actions. He is a braggart who only too willingly believes in his abilities and his favor of Athena to ever question the who, what, where, when, or most importantly, why.

Nolan, conversely, has made Odysseus a man who sees how his wit was not a blessing but a curse. Odysseus stands as a modern symbol of many veterans and military-adjacent persons who deal with PTSD and learning after-the-fact that their mission and the intentions of those above them were, let’s say, less than noble. Odysseus’ long narration (I don’t really want to call it a dialogue) to Penelope near the film’s climax illustrated that so perfectly and beautifully. Odysseus is telling his side of the story (something we technically have not heard, but that’s a semantic argument). He acknowledges that he, and society writ large, is a hypocrite. He and others constantly bring up the importance of “Zeus’s Law” (in Greece this would be known as xenia, or guest-friendship). Throughout the film, we are reminded that we must treat guests with honor and welcome as they could be gods in disguise. The Suitors of Queen Penelope are seen as being in violation of Zeus’s law by abusing the land, people, and properties of the King of Ithaca; Odysseus’s men (and many who came before) appeared in violation of Zeus’s law when visiting the enchantress Circe; Polyphemus and Odysseus both disregard Zeus’s law in the cave.

Why, then, does it seem so important if absolutely nobody adheres to it? Wouldn’t our hero, if he is to be a symbol and stand-in for morality, then be the person to show us, not tell us, how important Zeus’s law is? Would we, the audience, not want him to get vengeance for those who break Zeus’s law?

The first people Odysseus and his men encounter burn their own homes fearing “the men from the sea”. Penelope also asks the as-of-yet-unknown Odysseus if he is one of the “men from the sea,” to which he answers in the affirmative.

Who are these “men from the sea?”

The Greeks.

The men from the sea were the Greeks returning from Troy under the sails of the ruthless leader, Agamemnon. The people who burned their own village? They were afraid of Agamemnon’s Greeks who raped and pillaged after their “success” in Troy. By virtue of being Greeks returning from Troy, these villagers burned their own homes rather than give in to “Zeus’s law” and be abused, raided, raped, taken as slaves, and/or killed.

And the revelation comes – Odysseus and his men were the first ones to Violate Zeus’s law. Odysseus was the one who violated the law of xenia by gaining entry to Troy via deceit. Even the warrior Sinon (portrayed by Elliot Page, much to the dismay of neanderthal, knuckle-dragging, sloped-brow dipshits) had to die in order to sell the deception. The famed Trojan Horse was the greatest violation of Zeus’s law. They were not permitted in or welcomed (they were at war, which makes sense) and Odysseus used Zeus’s Law and leaving tribute to the Goddess Athena as a means of gaining entry. This act was an affront to the gods on multiple levels. It was an affront to Athena, under whose name the horse was left; it was an affront to Zeus because of abusing the concept of hospitality (technically they did get invited in when they brought the horse in, but they didn’t know about the bellyful of Greeks); it was an affront to Zeus for using his animal, the horse, for such trickery and without paying proper tribute.

Odysseus realized that his journey, his odyssey, was so long and challenging because it took him that long to learn that he was one of the men of the sea; that he was one of those guiltiest of violating the laws of the gods and that he deserved to never return home for breaking such a vital law to society.

And that is what makes this such an incredibly important piece of media. Nolan’s film maybe won’t have the staying power of its source material, but it, much like Homer’s epic, is a piece of media for our time. Because we need leaders and men who are willing to look inside themselves and realize they are the problem.

The other stuff

I just felt like this was the perfect way to honor a piece that has changed so many times. This wasn’t Homer’s The Odyssey, it was Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” It wasn’t supposed to be a one-to-one. It was an interpretation.

Truly, every performance was exceptional. I openly admit to being big fans of several of the stars of the film, so I have some inherent bias. But the performance that stole the show for me?

John Leguizamo as Eumaeus. I genuinely felt he was the entire heart and soul of the film. His loyalty to Odysseus was commendable, but his dedication to Argos was saintly. His was a performance of nuance and deep understanding. Not that Leguizamo can’t be serious or play a straight-man (not like that) character, but anyone similar to me in age knows him as an un-serious, silly character actor. Hell, some of us are even old enough to have seen him as Luigi in the original Mario Bros. movie…and some of us even saw that in theaters. That reminds me, it’s time to take my pills.

Undoubtedly, the Odyssey will be up for several Academy Awards and it very much deserves them. I feel you could make a case for nearly every major actor being up for an award, but this was an ensemble packed with supporting actors and actresses:

• Tom Holland as Telemachus
• Jon Bernthal as Menelaus
• Robert Pattinson as Antinous
• Anne Hathaway as Penelope
• Zendaya as Athena (well, not really, but that’s something you need to see yourself)
• Charlize Theron as Calypso
• Himesh Patel as Eurylochus
• Samantha Morton as Circe
• John Leguizamo as Eumaeus

There was not a single weak performance among the lot. Benny Safdie as Agamemnon was just pure, as the kids would say, aura farming. He just had presence.

And this doesn’t even get into Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Antinous. He was smug, sneering, and a giant coward. He was a child of privilege who got exactly what was coming to him and Pattinson absolutely made us hate him and want him to get his comeuppance.

God, they were all so good.

I get why Nolan did it, but I could have done without Travis Scott.

I did only see the film once, and it was in IMAX (but not the 70mm), but I do want to see it again to just appreciate it. I know not everyone is a Nolan fan, and that’s fair. I’m not a fan of some directors that other absolutely adore. I am aware I am going to invoke the wrath of a lot of chino-wearers, but I cannot stand the films of Wes Anderson. This was definitely peak Nolan. If you like his work, you’ll love this. If you think he’s a bit overblown, you’ll probably think this is a lot of self-aggrandizing and autofellatio.

I didn’t care for the adjustment Nolan made to blend the Lotus Eaters with Calypso. I like that Odysseus is crying on Calypso’s beach, longing to go home, only to be held against his will, giving his body to the Nymph with sunbright hair. I liked that part of textual Odysseus where he does show a little of his softer side. But Calypso using the lotus to make him forget works from an editing standpoint. It just takes away that bit of internal (and external, to an extent) struggle Odysseus feels when confronting his love and desire for home but also being (unwillingly) unfaithful to his faithful and dutiful wife. But the movie is darn near three hours with the editing. I get it.

I probably contradicted myself a few times. There’s bound to be an idea or two that I didn’t develop. This was all first-draft, stream-of-consciousness writing, so pardon the errors.