Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ – DVDs of the blockbuster
The Odyssey may be 2,600 years old, but it’s by no means past its sell-by date. Survival expert Odysseus offers plenty of tips, tricks and inspiration to modern-day wanderers too. Admittedly, nobody reads Homer’s verses any more – not even in modern prose translations – but seeing him on the big screen? That’s definitely a possibility. The dramatic potential of the ‘Odyssey’ already captivated the playwrights of antiquity.
Even back then, Odysseus’s status as a hero was considered controversial: Sophocles portrays him in the tragedy Ajax (442 BC) as a cool-headed, rational diplomat. For the playwright Euripides, on the other hand, Odysseus was a monster who, in Hecuba (425 BC), sacrificed people without a second thought. The satyr play The Cyclops (411 BC) – also by Euripides – brought what is perhaps the best-known episode of the ten-year odyssey to the stage: the wanderer’s battle against the Cyclops Polyphemus. The tragedian and director Euripides was regarded as the ‘special effects man’ of antiquity. Unfortunately, we will never know how he brought the Cyclops to life on stage. It is thought that he used stilts.
The 21st century, too, has already seen several film adaptations of the ‘Odyssey’. Following Wolfgang Petersen’s TROY (2004), Uberto Pasolini’s RETURN TO ITHACA (2024) and the TV series ODYSSEUS (2013), star director Christopher Nolan has now taken on the challenge. He is regarded as a specialist in ambivalent heroes: whether it be Batman (THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)) or OPPENHEIMER (2023).
To provide a point of comparison and enhance the cinema experience, our Filmkunst video library offers earlier film adaptations of The Odyssey: HELENA (1924), for example. 102 years ago, director Manfred Noa shot this big-budget silent film in Munich’s film studios and the surrounding area. Running time: three hours and twenty minutes! The title itself is striking: the focus is not on Odysseus, Achilles or any other warhorse, but on Helen. This is no coincidence: biopics about historical women had been produced since the 1910s. These included a CLEOPATRA film (1917) starring Theda Bara in the lead role. Germany, too, made high-calibre contributions to this wave of biopics with Madame Dubarry (1919) and Lucrezia Borgia (1922). It was therefore only logical to focus on Helen.
Unfortunately, HELENA flopped at the box office. The reason: in the same year, another epic film, Fritz Lang’s THE NIBELUNGS (1924), had its cinema release. Noa’s adaptation of Homer’s epic was overshadowed by this box-office hit. Unfairly so. The film is now regarded as an absolute classic.
Footnote: Jean-Luc Godard, director of La Nouvelle Vague, made the melodrama Le Mépris (Contempt) in 1964: in it, Fritz Lang plays himself whilst filming an adaptation of The Odyssey. In heated discussions with the producer, Lang explains his approach to the material.
The Italian film ULISSE (THE JOURNEYS OF ODYSSEUS, 1954) also boasted a first-class cast. Director Mario Camerini adapted the Odyssey into a popular adventure film starring Kirk Douglas (Odysseus) and Silvana Mangano as the sorceress Circe: ‘The most expensive colour film of its time (with a production budget of 10 million dollars) presents the myth of Odysseus as an elaborate cinematic fable featuring outstanding special effects.’ (Heinzlmeier, Schulz, Menningen: Films on Television)
Greek film director Theo Angelopoulos made a contemporary adaptation of The Odyssey with The Gaze of Odysseus (1995). Rather than retelling the ancient story, the film reflects its central themes – the arduous journey home, the search and the longing – against the backdrop of a fractured Europe in the late 20th century.
All four films mentioned – HELENA, ULISSE, LE MEPRIS and DER BLICK DES ODYSSEUS – are available to hire on DVD from the Filmkunst video library. Three masterpieces for your own home odyssey through film history!