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Kermode on Film
The Odyssey: Mark and Jack discuss
00:45:32
Mark and Jack talk big screens, big horses and big monsters
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:32]
B
Hi, this is Mark Kermode. Thanks for downloading this Kermodon film podcast or watching it on the YouTube channel. I am here at the Sun Pub in London's glittering West End, joined once again by Jack Howard. Jack, what's happening?
- [00:43]
C
They've seen the title. We're going to be talking about Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey, or as my friends in the north call it, to Odyssey.
- [00:51]
B
By the time people are watching this or listening to it, Odyssey's out in cinemas. Everyone, I presume, will have rushed to see it.
- [00:59]
C
I'm assuming it's broken records.
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B
Assuming it's broken records. Well done, well done, well done to everybody involved. But the last podcast that we recorded was just before the premiere was happening. And so this is now us talking for the first time about the film since the premiere. We're talking before it's open, but by the time you're listening. This is a real timey wimey thing, isn't it?
- [01:20]
C
It's appropriate, but I think more, it's more appropriate than the most films to talk about the difference of the experience that we had in the cinema. Because I went to the Odin Leicester Square, I saw it in 70 miles, but I saw it from the circle, like quite far back towards the right. So the way I've been describing it to people, even though, just to make it very clear to the Internet, I would. I'm very grateful that I got to go to the premiere of the Odyssey, but the way that I watched it, it felt a little bit like watching it over someone's shoulder, like in a living. Like, like watching it over someone's shoulder on a plane. Like I was, I was a little like, I'm observing this from a distance. I don't feel like I'm experiencing the film properly.
- [02:01]
B
Whereas you. Okay, so I, I saw it in BFI imax, which is the, you know, the biggest screen I've ever seen. And the one thing I would say to anybody is if you're thinking of going to see the Odyssey, if you've already seen it, my experience of seeing it on the BFI IMAX was. You need to see this film in the biggest screen possible because a significant part of it is just how big that image is.
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C
It's interesting because, I mean, I'm so excited to eventually see it in IMAX the earliest.
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B
I'm going to the Science Museum, right?
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C
So, yes. So I'm going to go see it. By the time this comes out, I've already seen it twice. I'm going to go see it at the picture house in 70 mil again because it's the only seat I could get because if you go on the websites for imax, it is. So it's like a concert you can't get tickets to. It's crazy. It's sold out, it's broken records already before it's even released. And I. The earliest I could get it at the Science Museum is the beginning of August. That's how. So I will be seeing it then. I'm interested because we've obviously seen Nolan use IMAX over and over again, certain sequences. How does it feel to watch it the entire time with no changing aspect ratios?
- [03:12]
B
I thought it was very satisfying. I mean, there was. There was something about, you know, it opened in that full frame format and then it stayed in that full frame format for the whole of the film. And it. I mean, I know that we've kind of all got used to the miracle of modern cinematic projection, but it was absolutely astonishing to see a film. I mean, it looks amazing for a start, but to see a film projected that big for that long as it's 2 hours 50. And you never quite that for the whole of that, you know, nearly three hours, you never quite get over the. Just the sense of. So during the set pieces, for example, when you first see the horse, you do go, that's a massive horse.
- [04:00]
C
And I can agree because the horse was at the premiere in Leicester Square.
- [04:05]
B
It was the actual horse.
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C
Well, who knows if it was the actual one, but there was a big Trojan horse in the middle of Leicester Square. And I was like, who's sneaking into the premiere?
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B
Yeah, very good, very good. He's absolutely. And then all the stuff when they're on the ships and they're rowing, you go, that's a really, really massive.
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C
I imagine all the monster, like the big. The giants and the Cyclops and the big Hydra monster, I imagine that all looked.
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B
Yes, it all looked. Spect look spectacularly big. And it kind of took me back to when I was a kid, I got taken uptown, as we used to refer to it. I used to live up in Barnett. So we're in the middle of nowhere, like the end of the Northern Line. And I got taken uptown to see Silent Running at the. The Cinerama Cinema, which is now the. Which is now theater. It's actually where, funnily. Funnily enough, where Kermit and Mayor do their Christmas shows. But it was the. The Cinerama place. It was the biggest screen you could imagine. I had the. The slight curvature to it. And I remember seeing Silent Running there and then going back to see 2001 there, and it was just like jaw dropping. It was like, wow, this is really, really big now, probably by today's standards, you think it was quite mediocre, but back then it was like, there is so much space on that screen, and I absolutely love that. So seeing the IMAX thing, it was like at the age of 63, just going. When the image first comes up. And it's the other thing, you know, you said about watching over somebody's shoulder. You're in the imax, somebody's head can be in the bottom screen. It makes no difference. Somebody could be wearing a hat. There's nothing happening down that part of the screen. There's this much screen. You know, it's. Do whatever you want.
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C
I think that your story about your first experience of a screen that big when you were younger is very similar to my experience of IMAX for the first time, which was in 2009 when they did a re release of the Dark Knight. Oh, yeah.
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D
Yeah.
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C
And I'm from a little town called Long Eaton, which is like a little spit of land in between Nottingham and Derby. That's where I grew up. So there was no IMAX screen near there. So me and my friends took a trip to Birmingham to the IMAX screen. I don't know if it's even there. Yeah, it's the big city. I don't know if that IMAX screen is even there anymore. But that was the closest one to us at the time. And when I went there, as we've just said, like Nolan's use of imax, this was the first time IMAX has ever been used.
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B
Sequences in Dot Night. Yes.
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C
The opening sequence of the bank, the chase, there's like. And then occasionally there's like an establishing shot.
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B
Right.
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C
That's like in imax, because he was just playing around with it. It never been done before. This was the first time that IMAX was used for a narrative feature in Hollywood. And I didn't know what I was going into. I. You know, I'm 16 years old. I don't know what this means really. And we go into this huge screen, like you say, it's overwhelming. It's like the size of multiple houses. And I sat down in the middle of the audience and the, the aspect ratio at the beginning when, you know, the company logos come up, isn't in IMAX, it's in 35 mil. 235. And I was like, oh, is it just gonna be on a big screen, but like, you know, projected into the middle of it? Is that what this is like? Thinking for the first 30 seconds I'm gonna be disappointed. And then it goes doom. And opens up in that full frame. And I've described this to you before. I was like, I'm gonna fall in. Because that first shot of the Dark Knight where it's moving through the city
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B
of Chicago, an extraordinary shot, that was
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C
my equivalent to you seeing silent running in 2001 in the Cinerama. Because I saw that and I think in that moment my child brain went, I'm going to love this filmmaker forever. It's just, I've never seen.
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B
So it was.
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C
And so it began.
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B
I remember when I, when I was a kid when video first started up and they were trying to convince people that video was, you know, not the way to see a film. You need to sit in the cinema. There was an advert, all the listeners may remember this. And it was a scene from a film. And we were watching what we then considered to be a big screen. It'll be 185 screen or something, you know, you know, and. And then what happens is two guys appear and start painting the screen out and they paint it all out until there's just a little bit in the middle and then it goes, this is television. The whole thing was, yeah, you need to see it. Of course, the great irony of it was that by that point, one of the reasons that video thrived was because multiplexes had flourished in which they had taken auditoriums that had big screens and broken them up into six screen multiplexes in which each screen was the size of a television anyway, so it kind of defeated the object. And it was, it was in response to that, in response to the rise of home viewing, that cinema got its act together and started saying, okay, we need to have good sound, we need to have Dolby sound, we need to have, you know, that's. The whole THX thing really flourishes after that because it's like, no, you don't want to watch this at home, you want to watch it in the cinema. I think in the case of Odyssey, it's the first time I can remember thinking, you really need to see this in imax. I know there are other ways of seeing it, but if you really want to see the film, you need to see it in imax, because a good part of it is just the.
- [09:00]
C
Well, that's what's interesting in it is. But I don't feel like I've seen it properly, even seeing it on 70 mil, which looked beautiful, but because I was seeing it from a distance. It's not just seeing it from a distance. It was also that it felt like the sound was over there. It felt the sound was away from me. And so everything I saw, I was massively impressed with. It is on a scale that I cannot even compare. Like, I don't think I've seen a film that's this grand and epic before. And I wonder what it would feel like to see it the way you've seen it. I don't know what you think of the movie. Please tell. Please tell me what you think.
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B
Well, I think. I mean, the headline is. I think everybody should go and see it. Because I think it is. Simon Mayo used this phrase. I think it's right. It is pure cinema.
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C
It is, yes.
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B
In terms of. I would like to see what Simon said. This thing was very funny. He said if. If an alien arrived from space and they said, show us what cinema is. You got right. Come with me. I've got to get. Well, actually, I haven't got to give. The BFI can't get you.
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A
Wait.
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B
If you wait till August, you'll be fine. And, you know, sit them down and go. That's what cinema. So I think from that purely experiential thing, it is. It's essential viewing and I can't imagine anybody who's a film fan not going to see it.
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C
I felt like I was in a dream. Like when. When it finished, I felt like I'd been in a dream, slash, nightmare for a few hours. That's how it felt in terms of. It's like, you know, the way that the narrative kind of led you through it. It just felt like, yeah, dreamy.
- [10:25]
B
And I think that's one of the things that. That we want from cinema is you want it to take you into another world and that, you know, that dreaminess, which I've always referred to in the David lynch since, you know, we live inside a dream. And one of the reasons why lynch loved cinema so much was cinema has this weird way of reproducing the effect of memory. You know, we. One of the reasons that cinema works, I think, is because cinema mimics the function of memory. You. You, as you experience the world, you're also experiencing this kind of strange, edited footage in your head. Everybody knows what a film looks like even before they see a film, because your memory kind of does it as, you know, as do dreams. So that's the headline. I think, beyond that, and by the nature of the story, some bits work better than others. And for me, there is. There are a number of films going on in it, of which my favorite film is the bit with Samantha Morton.
- [11:23]
C
She does steal the show. And that whole bit actually steals the show.
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B
It's not. And I've been thinking about this a lot, because it's not just that Samantha Morton steals the show, which she does. I mean, I think she. She's one of my favorite actors. I mean, I think she walks on water.
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C
I, Nottingham, represent Hell.
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B
Yeah, yeah, very good.
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C
She.
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B
No, but she is astonishing. But also in that sequence, it's almost as if the film develops a different rhythm. And the thing that I compared it to. And I'll. I'm going to be slightly oblique about this just because one of the things that was interesting was I didn't. I didn't know who. Who was playing what. And one of the things she's very
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C
clever at, when they tell you who characters are.
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B
Yeah, exactly.
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C
So if you do know the Odyssey, it's not telling you yet who. Who Charlize Thrawn is.
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B
Precisely. So there is a sort of in. There is an interesting thing about watching it and letting it reveal itself as it, you know, as it wants to. However, the sequence that Samantha Morton is in, the whole rhythm of the film felt different to me. And it's partly because that sequence is the most obviously nightmarish sequence. I mean, there are. There's nightmare stuff that happens with the Trojan horse. So one of the things that the film does is it, you know, we've all got an idea of the Trojan horse. You know, it's a horse on wheels and everyone's fine. And then a little step ladder comes down and they come out. And the way in which Nolan reimagines it, for a start, the horse is rearing up and the people inside the horse are having a terrible time, a absolutely terrible time. They are swimming in sea water and bodily fluids and, you know, they may not all survive long enough for the thing to be, you know, dragged in through the gate.
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C
It's one of, like, Nolan's. His taste of. I'm going to take this thing, you know, and ground it. That is like, what if they really had to do that? That's kind of the closest I can imagine it would. What it would be like.
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B
And it's nightmarish and I'm claustrophobic anyway. And it reminded me of. Remember the scene in Dunkirk when they're inside the boat?
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D
Very.
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C
That.
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B
Fine. Okay.
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C
There are so many things in. We're going all over the place. But there's so many things in the Odyssey where I can feel like, that's Interstellar, that's Inception, that's Dunkirk. I can feel him combining everything he's ever done. Yeah. Please continue with Samantha Morton.
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B
So just to say that during that Samantha Morton singles. And it's probably, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes long, something like that.
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C
Yeah. It's hard to know.
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B
It is hard to know. It literally felt like the whole film cranked up a register. And it's. It develops a sort of. You talked about dreamy, nightmarish. It developed a quality that reminded me of Brian Usner's Film Society, which is a really, really scrunchy body horror movie, which I absolutely love. And it's a great movie. And it's a movie about class and about people pretending to be one thing but actually being another thing. And it was really interesting because that film is a bit of a cult movie. And a lot of people be watching this or listening to this will know it, but an awful lot of people won't as well.
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C
I don't know it.
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B
Fine. Okay, great. So there is a sequence in Society which is the shunting sequence, the body shunting sequence, which is almost impossible to describe. But I remember interviewing Brian Yuzner about it, and him talking about plastic reality and talking about the way in which what. What. What plastic reality was. Was surrealism made flesh. It was the metaphorical made flesh in the way that Cronenberg's films are very much. They are. They are body horror metaphors. And what happens in this particular sequence is. It's like the. The subtext of the. Of the film is given a fleshy form. And it's. I just thought it was devastatingly impressive.
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C
Yeah, I mean, I. I've heard that that sequence also doesn't have any CGI in it, which means it's all creature work. It's all makeup, and it's clever editing, like, very specific shot choices in order to make these transformations weirdly work.
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B
That was kind of what I was thinking when I mentioned the user thing, because obviously at the time that you've made society. It was polymethylcellulose. It wasn't cg. It was. Everything was physical. The effects guy on that film was a guy called Screaming Mad George. You know, does what it says on the tin. And there is that sort of physical. And actually, I should say the whole film has a very thorough physicality to.
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C
Yes, yes, it does.
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B
It feel. It feels real.
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C
Yes. I'd say the only thing that stands out as like, oh, of course that's cgi, is the. The big Hydra monster, who, again, forgive me, I can't remember the actual term,
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B
obviously also didn't really happen in the real world.
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A
Wow.
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C
I don't know. They might have. They might have, actually.
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B
And now you say. I remember when we were discussing Oppenheimer, we said, what's he going to do? Actually let off an atom bomb? You know, I don't think he's allowed.
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C
Maybe, like, you might ask someone, can I do that?
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B
So that. That sequence, I think, is amazing.
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C
That sequence reminded me of. Actually think this is the closest comparison I can think of with the entire film is Spirited Away.
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B
Oh, okay.
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C
Yeah. Like, obviously there's a one to one.
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B
Yeah. Yes.
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C
With Spirited Away. But I also think that Spirited Away is similar in terms of, like, I'm trapped somewhere, I'm in this weird nowhere place and I want to go home. And you come across all these strange beings and characters along the way. And that's honestly the feeling I had watching the Odyssey.
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D
Yeah.
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B
I mean, that's really fascinating because I remember seeing Spirited Away. I was years and years ago, before I really knew anything about Ghibli. And I was asked by Radio 4 if I would watch Spirited Way, which at that point had been doing very well in America. It was just about to be released here, and they gave me a video of it and I took it home and I watched it with Child one, who at that point was a child. You know, a young child. And I remember watching when we get to the bathhouse scene, that scene going, what the.
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C
What am I showing my child?
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B
And yet the weird thing was that my child completely understood it completely. Because it has that kind of fairy tale.
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C
Yeah. Visual poetry to it.
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B
Visual poetry, absolutely. And that is a very good comparison. I think it is. It is a bit Miyazaki, which is interesting because, again, the Miyazaki animations, because of the. The kind of. I mean, it's not that they don't use cg. They do, but it's, you know, it's hand drawn, but it's obviously there is. It's an amalgamation. But the hand drawn aesthetic and the physical aesthetic thing is absolutely. There are ways of putting things on screen that make them look more real and that will probably age better. That's the one thing you really find about, particularly the movies that Doug Trumbull worked on, for example, 2001, silent running. Those films, they have aged brilliantly because that stuff is in camera and actually, they're actually happening. And you're right to mention the editing because it's, the editing is doing an awful lot of the magic work. But also it's the rhythm of that scene. There's something about that sequence that just, I mean, I play it in my mind and it is what you said, it's dreamy. I also think that the last 40 minutes of the film is absolutely barnstorming to the point that by the time you get out the end, you've probably forgotten that not all of it was on that level. And I would just say, without wishing to just revisit my review from Kermoda Mayo. I think it starts very uncertainly. I think there's a lot of stuff going on at the beginning that feels like front loading.
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C
So I think that you're right because in previous podcasts I mentioned the reason why I didn't come with you to this premiere is because I invited Ailey along and I couldn't take that back. I really would rather see it with you, babe, than see it in the IMAX. She was sat next to me and about 10 minutes in she leaned over and she said, it feels like it's been a big trailer so far now. I, I, she's smart kid, I accept that. But I also know Nolan's rhythms. And so, like, if you watch Oppenheimer, people had a similar complaint actually about that being like this continuous montage. But part of the reason why he scratches my brain is because I like that kind of rhythm that he creates where he can cut between time and place in an instant. And I feel like the movie's carrying on. It doesn't feel like it's like in sections. It feels like it's kind of all blending together and it is front loading and I need to see it again in order to know how I truly feel about it.
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B
I've only seen it once, so of course.
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C
But I think that because he's dropping you into like ancient Greece and there's people with weird names and places with weird names and it's, it's, everyone's dressed weirdly like, it feels more difficult to kind of grasp than it would do if it was Oppenheimer, because you recognize men in suits in rooms. Whereas here, it's like, here are all these like really weird places that he's just going, catch up. Like he's just going, get on board or don't. Now I'm defending that. Even though I also felt, okay, we are. We're rattling through a lot of stuff very quickly just so we have the context. Feels a little bit like he needs the movie to be a certain length. But I also didn't not enjoy because I quite like those rhythms. So I will know more how I. In fact, in general, I'll know more how I feel about it, I think when I actually feel like I've experienced the film properly. But at the moment it didn't bother me. But I could see totally why that. Why Ailey leaned over and said, this feels like a big trailer.
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B
I remember once having a conversation with a director about of one of their films. And I said, you know, if I have a criticism, I think it's quarter of an hour too long. And he went, right, which quarter of an hour? Yeah, yeah, that's the point. But yeah, exactly. Go on then. And I can just imagine Christopher Nolan going, oh, you think it's half an hour too long? Take half an hour out of it, see what happens. Yeah, exactly. And I. I don't know because I'm not a filmmaker and I can't therefore presume to tell a filmmaker. Also, I can't. I do think the kind of. The form of criticism in which a critic explains to a filmmaker how they could have made it better is really annoying. Yeah. Is something which happens in hindsight.
- [21:17]
C
It's very easy. I know how I could make it better now.
- [21:19]
B
It was a shame that he didn't concentrate on that character. But I had the sense, the experiential sense of the first movement of the film being unsatisfying. I was, you know, it was like the, the. The. The. The. The or of the image was huge. But I felt like it was trying to find its feet. The point for me at which it found its feet was in the. What I would refer to, and it is generational as the kind of the Harryhausen sequences.
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C
Okay.
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B
The point at which, you know, yeah, you get into the material. That is absolutely the sort of stuff that we used to watch Ray Harryhausen movies would do. You know, it's myths and monsters and back then it was just stop motion animation. And that was, you know, that was. So it's like, okay, fine, because suddenly you're seeing that stuff done with the verisimilitude, the likes of which you've never seen before. Because, you know, we'd grow up watching those movies and Clash of the Titans and all that stuff, and, you know, gods would move like this. And now you're seeing the stuff in. And you're going, well, I'm really sorry, but that really looks to me like that is really. They're really happening right now. Really, in front of those people. Really. And short of them having gone somewhere and found. I don't know how that's done.
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C
Yes. And I think that's the same thing about.
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B
And it's puppetry, right?
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C
It's all of it. It's. It's played by the. The Cyclops as a guy. I can't remember the guy's name, but he played TARS in Interstellar.
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B
Right. Okay.
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C
He puppeted TARS, the. The robot in Interstellar. And it's also a puppet and it's also cg and it's also like force, perspective. Like it's all of it, everything the same.
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B
The full box.
- [23:00]
C
It's the same compliment as the Samantha Morton sequence, where it's very clear. Credit to Jennifer Lame, the editor. Like, extremely clever editing where you cannot see the strings. Like, I. I'm. You're putting on a puppet show, and I do not know how you're doing that.
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B
It's.
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C
It's. That's what's so impressive. And technically, I've never seen anything. And neither is the motorcycle outside. He agrees with me.
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B
Silences are available, but never mind. It's just. You need to get that scene to.
- [23:29]
E
It's.
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C
But, yeah, it's. It's. I agree with you. When they're in that cave, it feels like the film settled. All of a sudden, it's settled.
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B
And that's it. Right? That's exactly the word. And since I haven't yet recorded the Kermoda Mayo review, I'm going to use that word and pass it off as my own, because this won't come on until afterwards. Just so you understand the nature of plagiarism. Settled is exactly what it does. It's. That first movement feels unsettled. It feels like it's trying very hard. And when you get to the cave, it feels like it's put its foot down on the floor. And that really is like, okay, fine, now we're off. Now we're off.
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C
Yeah. And then it does become this kind of like weaving between these different almost chapters of what the other scene is.
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B
Literally, that's what I said about, you know, it is by its very nature episodic because that is in the nature of the story. And there are. It is also going to be the case that some stories will work better than others. But I also think some stories are done better than others. And I did think that in that section in the cave, you are going, this is just. This is really good filmmaking. Because as you say, I can't, you know, I can't see the strings, I can't see the join. I actually believe that. That. And I. And what's. What's fascinating is I. I stopped doing. You know, sometimes you watching a movie and you're going, how are they doing that? And sometimes you watch a movie, just go, they're doing it. I don't, you know, and it was this. It was the latter. It was just. I don't care.
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C
It moves so fast as well that you don't really have time to go, what did I just see? Like, when you think you've seen something, it's then on to the next thing. Like the sequence with the whirlpool and the Hydra monster, like actually. And the Samantha Morton sequence. We are obviously doing spoilers in this, but we are trying to kind of. It's. How do you spoil a 3,000 year old? But it's what I was blown away by.
- [25:17]
B
He gets home at the end.
- [25:20]
C
But what I was blown away by, I think, is that Nolan goes there. Nolan is a very, like, down the line, what is what. How can I make this feel like reality? Kind of filmmaker. People's big complaint about Inception. Some people's big complaint about Inception is we're in dreams and it's like heat. It's like we're in like car chases and action movies and snow. James Bond sequences. Like, why? Where's the dragons? And like, what. You can do anything. When I. My response to those criticisms that people have is, well, it's a dream where he's trying to create a reality for the subject. People say that, yeah, that is like one of people's. Like, if people are talking about Nolan not really going there with Inception, is that, like, it could be a weirder movie. But my argument is that he's trying to make a movie. Sorry, the characters in Inception are trying to create a reality for the subject that feels real, so they don't know they're dreaming.
- [26:11]
B
So just to be clear, yes. Some people look at Inception and go, where are the dragons?
- [26:19]
C
But not, not just where are the dragons? But like, why, why isn't the dream weirder? Like, why Is it so, like, concrete and. And sturdy in terms of, like, the filmmaking and the stuff that happens? Like, the weirdest thing that Nolan does is a train comes through a city. But it's like, I agree, it has to be. I don't. But what I'm saying is that those criticisms, they point to what the kind of filmmaker Nolan is, which is he wants things to be real. He wants, how would this really happen? And that's when I thought, like, okay, that's why he's saying that the gods in this are going to be thunder and lightning and the elements. And in a way, they are. And I love how he uses sound for, like, that's Zeus. And it feels like the weather is talking to them sometimes. Amazing use of sound design. But then he also goes, there's a hydra monster. Oh, yeah, this woman, she's a witch, and she's really going to transform some people. I like, actually was like, I can't believe Nolan is doing this. It is so not his style of filmmaking that I can't believe he went there.
- [27:16]
B
Well, there is an interesting thing that kind of the removal of the personified gods, but the. But the very, very real presence of the elemental forces, you know, which you can see as the fates or the. You know, that. That is. That is interesting. And there is a version of the story, I suppose, in which you can imagine that nothing supernatural happens at all. It's just that they have a bunch of. They're really tired and really worn out and they think that some stuff, you know, a weird time in a cave. You could imagine doing a version of that story in which that's all that happens. They crawl up into a cave and something weird happens, and then somebody says it was a Cyclops.
- [27:51]
C
Yes. How do stories get passed down? It could have been a story about that, but it isn't.
- [27:55]
B
It isn't. No. It is a story in which. No, no, that is a Cyclops. There it is. I can see it's very, very big and it's got one eye and. Wow, that's. That's amazing. And I, you know, I love that about it. The. The other thing that I think is worth noting is I've said this thing about Samantha Morton's performance. I was really, genuinely impressed by Matt Damon, of course. Yeah, no, no, not. Of course not. Of course. Matt Damon quite often gets. Gets the short end of the stick when it comes to people taking him seriously. I mean, there was a whole thing about, oh, yeah, they won an Oscar for writing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, But I don't know that Matt, if people said to him, you know, name the best actors working at the moment, I don't know that Matt Damon would be the top of that list. He might be a movie star, you know, in a sort of Tom Cruisey way.
- [28:43]
D
This ad is sponsored by zocdoc. Hi, it's Dani Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't want to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move. It's hard to find your people. I've been there. Which is why I use ZocDoc now. As a busy podcaster, parent, and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier. And ZocDoc lets you search and compare local in network Doctors. With over 250,000 providers across more than 200 specialties, you can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last minute health issue pop up and needed to see someone fast. And instead of calling around or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on zocdoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. It made the whole process so much less stressful. Now taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZocDoc app today. That's ZocDoc Z O C Doc and book that appointment on your to do list.
- [29:47]
C
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- [30:05]
B
I and and I remember when I heard that Nolan had cast Matt Damon in the lead.
- [30:10]
C
Was it a bit boring? It was a bit like.
- [30:12]
B
It was a bit like, oh, because, you know, Kelly and Murphy. Yeah, Matt Damon and Matt Damon himself. I read an interview with him in which he said that when when Nolan asked him, he went, really? You know, it was a little bit like me, but it is a really smart bit of cast.
- [30:32]
C
It was very funny actually, that interview, if it's the same one. But he was saying that like, oh my God, my contemporaries are like Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, you know, Matthew McConaughey and Nolan interjected and said, yeah, they all passed.
- [30:45]
B
Yeah, that's right. Yes, that was. It was. It was exactly that interview.
- [30:48]
C
Oh, Nolan's funny sometimes, but it's. He sneaks up on you.
- [30:51]
B
But it's a really smart bit of casting because, you know, Damon's got the kind of, like I said, the movie star thing. But actually, the point about this version of the Odyssey is what. It's. What it's really focusing in on is the. The inability to get over. I mean, it's about. It's. It's about post traumatic stress, isn't it?
- [31:14]
C
I think so, yeah.
- [31:15]
B
It's about combat shock.
- [31:16]
C
I don't know if this is subversive. I think it is. I don't know the original. No one knows the original text of the Odyssey, but I haven't read any versions of the Odyssey. I just know the stories the way that we all kind of somehow know them.
- [31:28]
B
Yeah. Through movies. Yeah.
- [31:30]
C
Yeah, sure. And I know it to be about a man who really wants to get home. And in this one, the kind of twist on it is maybe he doesn't really want to go home. Maybe he's kind of. Maybe he's kind of delaying it for some reason. Why is he delaying it?
- [31:44]
B
I think that is inherent in this, in the source. I think the whole thing about you can't go home. So I think that the central tension about I want to go home, but I can't go home is. Is hardwired into the source. What I think is really fascinating about this version is that what it does is it takes the most in inverted commas. Heroic act.
- [32:07]
C
Yes.
- [32:08]
B
And turns it into the site of trauma.
- [32:10]
C
Yes. And it's like. Like the story of the Trojan horse. We all know it and we think of it as like this very clever way of this army getting into this, you know, this almost like this heroic act.
- [32:21]
B
No, not almost heroic. Absolutely heroic.
- [32:24]
C
He's flipped it and gone. It's a terrorist attack. And how does he feel about the fact that he did this to these people?
- [32:29]
B
Yes, It's.
- [32:30]
C
It's not at all what I expected to see.
- [32:33]
B
No. And it's. And it's not the. The whole thing about. Yeah, you know, we heroically went in and did this and, you know, in the battle, it is it. That sequence swims in blood and piss and feces and. And it's not heroic at all. And I think then the kind of the hollowed out person who can't bring themselves to remember their former life. You know, the lotus eater, the person who has Become addicted to the thing which is blacking it out. I do think, in the same way that Dunkirk has an element of this, it is a film about. About combat shock, about post traumatic stress, about what the toll of that stuff is. And this is. Incidentally, this isn't like some brilliant critical insight because the film says it out loud. I mean, the film literally gives voice to that idea. It's just. That's not what I had expected. I think I had expected, you know, to be more heroically breast beating. And it absolutely isn't. It is horrifying in some moments, is bitterly sad in others. I mean, I think. I think Anne Hathaway does a pretty good job of. Because her, her role is basically holding the fort against all the odds, because the whole thing is she's waiting for her husband to return. She knows her husband is alive, although she obviously can't know, but she thinks she knows that her husband is alive. And meanwhile she is being beset by suitors. And because he hasn't arrived, the kingdom is falling into disarray because there isn't a leader and there is an absent. And then there is a marvelous moment in which Anne Hathaway says, yeah, everyone talks about an absent throne. I've been sitting on it. I've been sitting on it all this time. And I think she does a really good job of carrying that. Wait. There was a version of the last part of the Odyssey told recently with Ralph Fiennes Return, which again focuses on that whole thing about what's happened in the absence, you know, what's happened whilst away. And a big part of it is the story of Odysseus arriving in his homeland and then having to, you know, work his way. He can't just. He can't just turn up and go, here I am, I'm back. And what the Nolan version does is give you a massive amount of context of why that can't happen. And it's not just to do with political chicanery. It's not just to do with everything else. It's to do with the fact that he can't. He can't face what he's bringing back with him. And I think that's a really interesting idea. I do think a lot of that is hardwired into the original, but I think it's a really interesting way of doing it. And I think that everyone will come out at the end of it not thinking that it's a glorious movie about war, but quite the opposite, that it's actually a movie about post traumatic Stress.
- [35:21]
C
Yeah. And I think that that's so obvious now that we've seen it, because that's, of course, what Nolan's interested in, because it's a. What's Oppenheimer is about the same thing. What have I done? Literally, you know, the final words of Oppenheimer, I believe we did. When he's referring to the fact that I think that our actions have caused a terrible future. And I think that that's what Odysseus is also wrestling with. If I come home, I have changed the world, maybe for the worse. And I have to stand there and be like, I did that. I commanded that army to do what I did. And there is a moment in it which I think is very open for interpretation. In fact, actually, first, I'll just echo you. I think Matt Damon is amazing in it. I think Anne Hathaway, I was very impressed by her. And I always find that Anne Hathaway is similar things. What you said about Matt Damon, I found. Oh, yeah, Anne Hathaway. Yeah, she's. She does well. But I've never been like Anne Hathaway. I've never been super, super excited about her. But in this, I thought she was fantastic. And Matt Damon, I think, got going for him is that he can both do, like, good character work, drama, but also he's Jason Bourne, so when he needs to turn on that, he turns it on.
- [36:26]
B
Yeah.
- [36:26]
C
And that's.
- [36:28]
B
That. That sort of is the Tom Cruise analogy that I was making, is that, you know, he. He can hold an action franchise. And again, people sort of go, mission Impossible. Yeah. The Bourne movies have been very, very successful and they've done really, really well. And a lot of that is to do with him.
- [36:42]
C
Yeah. And it was. So the bit I'm referring to that's open to interpretation is that it's sort of dotted through. The Trojan War is dotted through. And I love the line that John Berthal is that you pronounce his name.
- [36:57]
B
I'll go with it.
- [36:57]
C
The husband of the Helen of Troy husband who has been beating her. And like, again, I think part of the reason, I think this movie is about the ugly things that men are capable of doing. Yeah. When he says, have you heard the story of the horse? And he says, yes. And he goes, have you heard it from the inside? Great line.
- [37:15]
B
Yeah, it is a great line.
- [37:16]
C
And I was thinking, why is this. Why is the trailer. I didn't think. I thought it was gonna be a sequence. And then it's dotted through the film. Why is it dotted through the film? Oh, because that's how you remember trauma. And there is a moment when you see Zendaya's character brought out. Athena she plays, but she's haunting him the entire film. But then you see the moment that her character is brought out in the Trojan War and beheaded simultaneously with them beheading the statue of Athena. And
- [37:47]
D
this ad is sponsored by zocdoc. Hi, it's Dani Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't want to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move, it's hard to find your people. I've been there. Which is why I use Zocdoc now. As a busy podcaster, parent, and someone who's always jugg million things, I love anything that makes life easier. And ZocDoc lets you search and compare local in network Doctors. With over 250,000 providers across more than 200 specialties, you can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last minute health issue pop up and needed to see someone fast. And instead of calling around or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on zocdoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. It made the whole process so much less stressful. Now taking care of your health just got easier. Download the zocdoc app today. That's zocdoc Z O C, D O C. And book that appointment on your to do list.
- [38:51]
E
Our trip up the coast was perfection. With my Sapphire Preferred card, we earned three times the points on gas, online, grocery and dining.
- [38:58]
B
It was amazing.
- [38:59]
E
Chase Sapphire preferred the card that's preferred for a reason. Cards issued by JP Morgan, Chase bank and a member fdic subject to credit approval to reply.
- [39:09]
C
I think, and I think we agree on this actually, but it's open for interpretation that Matt Damon saw this woman get beheaded and has now projected her as the goddess.
- [39:18]
B
No, that's absolutely how I read. That's absolutely how I read it.
- [39:20]
C
But I think that some people will interpret it a different way.
- [39:22]
B
No, no, I mean.
- [39:23]
C
Which is interesting.
- [39:23]
B
I absolutely read it. That he is haunted by. That he's haunted by the. He's haunted by the face of the thing that he hath wrought. And. And that is. No, absolutely. Weirdly enough, that kind of ties into, you know, one of my favorite films, the Ninth Configuration, in which there's the whole thing about he cut off his head with a wire and he kept on talking is that Stacy Keach is haunted by the face of this person that he has decapitated. And, and it's a weird sort of, you know, walked alongside by the ghost of your past. And that is absolutely a film that's about, that's about ptsd. And I think that, I think that works really, really well. And, and I think that that's one of the reasons why that the final movement, when it's, when it gets to. I mean, the thing is the final movement's got some great things in it. Everybody who knows the story about, you know, guess what? Nobody can fire an arrow through those axes except one guy. And you know, and you know, I know it's the old. It's, it's the sort of, it's the party set piece because they do it in, they do it in the Return and then he has to fighty fight everybody.
- [40:25]
C
But yeah, the moment when the character realizes you're a. And then gets like shot in the face.
- [40:30]
B
I know. It's just. I went, oh, I know.
- [40:33]
C
And it is like a. Here we go, here we go.
- [40:35]
B
Right, fine. You know, we've got half an hour to go and now. But I think it never falls into just sort of self congratulatory action punchy stuff. I think, I think it is, it is still about the cost of all those things because the whole point about what's happened at the court is it's become completely corrupt. You know, they've eaten all, they've drunk all the good wine, they're onto the bad wine. That's how long, long it's been. They're on to the bad wine. And the point that you made about he doesn't want to go. That's absolutely right. I mean, he wants to go home, but he doesn't want to go home because he can't go home.
- [41:08]
C
I mean, it's an amazing moment with the, the Sirens, which I think is one of the other standout scenes. I mean that as well, like, because Odysseus, I was like you bringing it on yourself, bro. Like the moment like ladies inherent in the story.
- [41:22]
B
Jack.
- [41:22]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. But I'm, I'm having a laugh. But like the moment when he's like, you know, he keeps seeing all these like horrible things that he's, you know, and then eventually he's like time into the mask because it's never been done before and I want to do it. I was like, oh, God, dude, learn. But that moment when you see him in pain whilst hearing his description of what the song sounded like, which we don't get to hear, which I think is also brilliant, of him saying, it's an itch you can't scratch. And it's telling me that the thing you've always wanted is a thing you've had and lost. And it told me I didn't want to go home. Yes. I was like, oh, my God. It's such a.
- [41:59]
B
Like, no, everyone else is fine. They got wax in their ears. That's good wax. Yeah, that's really good wax.
- [42:05]
C
And the one guy that takes it out and then, like. Like a. Like, he's like. They turned into one of the kids from Weapons. All of a sudden, just, like. Just goes towards the sirens.
- [42:15]
B
Good analogy.
- [42:17]
C
Arms out, just, like, into the water. Yeah. But yes, like, carry on.
- [42:21]
B
No, I was gonna say. I mean, I do love all those things about the. You know, fill their ears with wax. What would that look like? Oh. Oh, that's what it would look like. You know, just put the gunky stuff. I thought that worked really well. And I. And I. I mean, it's funny because. Because that sort of passed into. I mean, so much of what Nolan manages to do is to. You. You said this earlier to revisit things that you think you know, and do it in a slightly reconfigured way. There's the Oppenheimer thing. There's. There's a line in that Billy. Well, not a line. There's a verse in that Billy Bragg song, waiting for the Great Leap Forward, which. Which says. I'm probably slightly misquoting it, but it says, in the Soviet Union scientist is blinded by the resumption of nuclear testing, and he is reminded that Dr. Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell at the first hurdle. That was the thing that we all knew. We all knew that Oppenheimer fell at the first hurdle. And yet the way that Nolan does it, it's not quite that. It's a much slower burn. It's a much slower. And in fact, I think one of the issues with Oppenheimer is what it then does is take the story away from him being racked with guilt to him being persecuted. And I think that. But it's a reconfiguration in terms of the Odyssey. There are at least three sequences in it that reconfigure what you think you know about that story. And that's a real ability. I mean, that is a really smart thing to be able to do to take something that everybody sort of knows whether they've read it or not. Because it's so much part of storytelling culture.
- [43:55]
C
Yeah, Everything, like, everything kind of comes from it. It's the original, like Hero's Journey, like There and Back Again, like it's all that. But I think that Nolan has done all of that and yet also made
- [44:06]
B
it a very personal film to the Hobbit. Well, no, I mean, yes. You know, actually, of course there is a comparison, obviously, because that stuff is genetically. And also because in terms of the Peter Jackson. Just the sheer. You know, I remember when Peter Jackson was doing Lord of the Rings, we were going, how?
- [44:24]
C
I mean, I think that's it, isn't it? Like the biggest comparison it's going to get is like, we haven't seen a film on this scale since Lord of the Rings, like so over 20 years ago. We haven't seen a movie as big as this. So with all of that said, I also think it's an incredibly personal film in the way that I kind of buy into the interpretation that Oppenheimer, for Nolan, the reason why he might have been so personally connected to it is because he has done to cinema what Oppenheimer did to the world at large. That Nolan feels and, you know, speculation that by making the Batman movies, by making the Dark Knight a billion dollar movie, all of a sudden cinema went, let's make superhero movies. Let's aim for a billion dollar. Nolan is racked with guilt about the fact that he took this thing that he loves and changed it for the worst, which is what he saw himself in Oppenheimer.
- [45:13]
B
Have you. I'm sorry, I've never heard this theory before. Have, have you ever heard.
- [45:19]
C
No. Have I ever heard Nolan say anything like that?
- [45:21]
B
Anything about.
- [45:22]
C
No, of course not. They would never ever, ever, ever say.
- [45:24]
B
I mean, I'm just. Honestly, until you literally just said it this morning, I had never heard it before and I never even occurred to me.
- [45:31]
C
Well, I wonder, like in the same way that Spielberg is, you know, let me tell you more about my parents divorce. Like every film that he's made I think is an incredibly personal film to him because he can make things that are huge, but also things that are very, very small in terms of what they mean to him as a filmmaker. I think Nolan is the same way. I don't think he'll ever talk about what things truly mean to him. I don't think he'll ever say yes or no to an interpretation. I just find him interesting as an artist. And I think Somebody who's working at the scale of that, of course. I mean, I cannot. Can you imagine having been the person that made the Dark Knight and, like, how you might feel about the fact that cinema changed after that?
- [46:11]
B
They.
- [46:11]
E
They.
- [46:11]
C
They made the Oscars go back to 10 films because the Dark Knight didn't get nominated for best picture. That there's so many examples of, like, why it changed cinema. So I think that that is an interesting thing. And the end of the Odyssey, whether or not there's a God, there's gonna be another debate as well, about whether he died. And the ending is like a little dream that he's having of him going away with his wife. That's not what I'm interested in. What I'm interested.
- [46:36]
B
Not death. Exile. Yeah.
- [46:37]
C
What I'm interested in is that I think that Nolan, who produces his films with his wife, that the ending, to me, felt like him going, emma, I promise one day I will put all this down, and it will be just you and me and the sunset. I promise. Like, it feels like that ending to me felt like him saying, I know I'm doing all this, but I promise, one day, or you be just you and me.
- [47:01]
E
Wow.
- [47:02]
B
Well, I'm. Yeah. I mean, I. That had never occurred to me. And I think that it's, on the one hand, inventive, and on the other hand, preposterous.
- [47:17]
E
And.
- [47:18]
B
But I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, because we've talked about this for quite a while now, and I think we should probably draw this to a close. But I'm gonna draw it to a close with this. An image which is now in my head. Thank you for putting that there. Of. At some point in the future, in the afterlife, I don't believe in heaven and hell and all that stuff, but in the afterlife, Robert Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan meet, and they start talking, because of course, they would, and. And Robert Oppenheimer says, you know, so how do you feel about everything? And Christopher Nolan says, yeah, you know, I feel really guilty. And Oppenheimer says, why? And he says, well, you know, I kind of. I invented superhero movies, and. And, you know, I just feel really guilty about it. And Oppenheimer says, okay, I blew the world up. So there we are. I hope you've enjoyed listening to Jack and me shoot the breeze about what we both thought of the Odyssey.
- [48:10]
C
And it was quite an Odyssey.
- [48:11]
B
It was quite an Odyssey. And certainly, I think the one thing we can take away from it is see it on the biggest screen possible. You know, travel, go to an iMax.
- [48:18]
C
Take it from me, the person who hasn't yet seen it on the biggest screen possible. See it on the biggest screen possible. But I hope you can tell that, like even though I didn't, we share a similar appreciation for it.
- [48:28]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely. And please let us know what you think. You can leave us a comment. What else can they do?
- [48:33]
C
They can subscribe. Leave us a review Like I say, treat yourself to something nice. Get an ice cream.
- [48:38]
B
It's hot.
- [48:39]
C
And if you would like more Mark
- [48:41]
B
Kermode Talking about movies with Simon Mayo Kerman's Take available wherever you get your podcasts.
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- [49:34]
B
Hello, this is Simon Mayo and this is Mark kermode. He's the UK's best and most trusted film critic. He's a best selling writer, broadcaster and national treasure.
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C
Far too kind. Kermode.
- [49:44]
B
Mayo's Take has all the reviews you need and star guests such as Sir Ian McKellen.
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C
Nice to be with you.
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D
Emma Stone that sounds like something I would love to be a part of.
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B
Ewan McGregor I'm very good.
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C
How are you doing?
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B
Kate Planchette what was that word you used?
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C
CattyWampus.
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B
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