Trailer The Odyssey full trailer

[myrkulyte]

Thank you.

I really don't get all the calls for historical accuracy. This isn't history, it's mythology. It's fine to recontextualize or artistically approach it differently.

Part of what makes the Illiad and the Odyssey so interesting is that they are pieces of history. Not the narrative obviously, but as documents of the beliefs and norms of a culture long since passed. Nolan's disinterest in even the basics of clothing is a big turn off to me for that reason. It's a cultural artifact! Put a little culture in the movie!

 

[Sacrosanct]

Part of what makes the Illiad and the Odyssey so interesting is that they are pieces of history. Not the narrative obviously, but as documents of the beliefs and norms of a culture long since passed. Nolan's disinterest in even the basics of clothing is a big turn off to me for that reason. It's a cultural artifact! Put a little culture in the movie!

Ancient Greece? They'd have to change the rating...

 

[Umbran]

Part of what makes the Illiad and the Odyssey so interesting is that they are pieces of history.

Yes, in that Homer was a real person, living and writing around the 8th century BCE. But, this is not a biopic about Homer....

Not the narrative obviously, but as documents of the beliefs and norms of a culture long since passed. Nolan's disinterest in even the basics of clothing is a big turn off to me for that reason. It's a cultural artifact! Put a little culture in the movie!

Problem: The Odyssey is set supposedly in the 12th century BCE, some 400 years before Homer was born. And, I don't recall Homer being too specific about the clothing and armor being worn. Nor was his an age with tons of scholarship about the clothing of people 400 years before Homer.

And, in fact, the stories he collected and reworked into his Odyssey are set in about 1200 BCE, but are actually from a variety of times from before Homer.

So, whose clothing do you use? That of 1200 BCE? That of 800 BCE? That of whatever little you can glean from the text, which would probably be Homer's guess at what people wore 400 years before? The best guess of scholars for what would have been historical to the times of the first versions of each of the sub-narratives used?

The work is a part of history, but it is not a work describing historical events. So what passes as appropriate for costume is... arguable.

 

[Dioltach]

For some reason it feels appropriate that the entrance to hell is in Barcelona

A little way up the coast you'll find the remains of Empurda, where there was first a Greek settlement and later a Roman settlement. Right up on the coast, lovely spot to spend an afternoon wandering through the archaeological remains.

On the opposite side of the Iberian peninsula is the River Limia (or Lima), which the Romans believed to be the Lethe, which flowed through the underworld and caused loss of memory.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Part of what makes the Illiad and the Odyssey so interesting is that they are pieces of history.

The text themselves, as artistic objects, are. Homer was an historical person. The story they depicts are constructions; probably mixed with some real bits of history distorted over generations of storytelling, evolving language, cultures blending, etc. As I said, even the Trojan War's historicity is complicated. We'll probably never know how much of it really is history, fiction and mythology.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So, whose clothing do you use? That of 1200 BCE? That of 800 BCE? That of whatever little you can glean from the text, which would probably be Homer's guess at what people wore 400 years before? The best guess of scholars for what would have been historical to the times of the first versions of each of the sub-narratives used?

You can use whatever you can make look good and be internally consistent with the visual design. Doesn't really matter if you go for authentic bronze age (and 1200 BCE and 800 BCE are not all that different, from the archaeological record), classical Greek, stylized modern interpretation or w/e so long as looks good, looks "right" even if it's completely fake.

The trouble here is that what they've done, to me at least (and I know from comments on the trailers I'm very far from alone), seems to look both cheap and awful, and to be weirdly anti-immersive in a way I've never seen in any of Nolan's highly stylized films before. I'd honestly take like a "sci-fi" look for the Odyssey (I mean, Ulysses 31 ruled) ahead of whatever they're doing with the costumes here, which seems almost Batman-ish (derogatory). I'm praying it's something that'll be "fixed in post" and that this trailer was cut months ago before post were done. We have precedent for that, but it's a bit concerning.

 

[Kaodi]

What is this weird world we live in where even costumes are fixed in post? Why do you need post to fix your costumes if the name of your movie is not TRON or sourced from comics? I mean maybe I am being a bit deliberately obtuse here but still.

 

[Clint_L]

Wasn't aimed at you! Or anyone in particular. The complaints are all over the Internet. That's why I didn't quote anyone.

Read an interesting idea .... How about an Odyssey told from the view of the crew, who have to follow an over confident, bad, leader who gets most all of them killed....

Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, written mostly from the perspective of the bad navigator's wife, is a contemporary classic. We teach it in Grade 12.

 

[Clint_L]

Yes, in that Homer was a real person, living and writing around the 8th century BCE.

This has been hotly debated by scholars for centuries. There isn't even agreement that The Odyssey and Iliad are by the same author or authors; most scholars think they are not, though a minority argue that maybe the stark differences, not just in style but also in language, could be explained by Homer being much older when he wrote The Odyssey. Which seems like rather wishful thinking. And we know for sure that the Greeks got into a habit of attributing a lot of ancient (from their perspective) texts to "Homer," most of which definitely were not from the same author, area, or period.

There's a considerable likelihood that "Homer" is a sort of amalgam figure, rather like Robin Hood.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve been scooped.