I would love to hear your take on the changes they made and the end take they took, granted in Hollywood epic fashion so more people may watch…that heroes of the heroic age took something sacred from the world with their egos and their violence that may still be reclaimed by setting those egos aside and choosing something better now…We are The Sea People. Do better…if you ever choose to see the film but respect your wanting not to.🫶
I never thought about how we’ve increased the influence of the creator - from book to play to film.. interesting..I agree with everything you’ve said about myth and how it’s only real as it comes alive in us.
And yet I have to say, as someone whose visual imagination is definitely not a strength, I enjoy the colors, the sights on the screen - as if I were there. I suppose it also allows me a form of escapism that can be so needed in these times. I’m sure others can do this in their imaginations but I’m still working on mine.
I loved reading your review and now may have to see the movies confession- okay seeing Lupita has something to do with this.
That's totally legit! Movies are the medium of our time (or were until the Interwebs took over our brains? I wonder), so there's a form of literature that's been in-play for decades.
Fine writing! You have gone to the heart of the matter. Reading or hearing this epic engages our own imagination and evaluation in ways that a movie simply can't. And as nobody is going to be watching Nolan's movie in 2,800 years time, but, should any trace of the West still be found then, Homer will still be there, one has good reason to expect that Homer is the vehicle of the muse in a way that current human meaning fashions simply do not compare with. And our fashions are striking in their superficiality. I liked what you said about aging and revenge very much. I'm in my 6th decade now, and all those passages in the Psalms about revenge and judgement never spoke to me until - over the course of life - one comes into contact with profound injustices that cry out for divine retribution. The text speaks to me differently now. Same with Homer. Many thanks for your return to the heart thoughts here.
I love epic films and I’m looking forward to this one but I try not to see any movie adaptation of written work until I’ve read it first, so that I have my own image of the story before I take on someone else’s. And I will argue that watching a movie later often reveals different povs - similar to reading books a second time , but admittedly in limited fashion. I’m not the intellect nor the reader that you are but in an epic classic I completely align with your perspective. I do appreciate a film as a separate art form and I enjoy a different take than mine. (Perhaps a Long Island matinee?). Meanwhile I’ll be adding the Odyssey to my reading list. I am NOT well read but I remember this being one that I enjoyed…
This makes total sense. I'm a recondite weirdo with a lot of things, but as I said in response to my friend Sonia up above, film is a legit, modern form of literature that speaks to so many of us on so many levels.
Emily Wilson's translation is one of the newest, and she does it in verse. I saw her do a reading from it and a live interview at the New York Public Library, and she was quite captivating. I haven't yet read it, but I'm very curious. (I can say that Daniel Mendelssohn's new translation was accurate but chilly; it did everything scholarly without a poetic quality to the translation to make it sing for us.)
I would love to hear your take on the changes they made and the end take they took, granted in Hollywood epic fashion so more people may watch…that heroes of the heroic age took something sacred from the world with their egos and their violence that may still be reclaimed by setting those egos aside and choosing something better now…We are The Sea People. Do better…if you ever choose to see the film but respect your wanting not to.🫶
Well, now I *am* curious.
I never thought about how we’ve increased the influence of the creator - from book to play to film.. interesting..I agree with everything you’ve said about myth and how it’s only real as it comes alive in us.
And yet I have to say, as someone whose visual imagination is definitely not a strength, I enjoy the colors, the sights on the screen - as if I were there. I suppose it also allows me a form of escapism that can be so needed in these times. I’m sure others can do this in their imaginations but I’m still working on mine.
I loved reading your review and now may have to see the movies confession- okay seeing Lupita has something to do with this.
That's totally legit! Movies are the medium of our time (or were until the Interwebs took over our brains? I wonder), so there's a form of literature that's been in-play for decades.
Fine writing! You have gone to the heart of the matter. Reading or hearing this epic engages our own imagination and evaluation in ways that a movie simply can't. And as nobody is going to be watching Nolan's movie in 2,800 years time, but, should any trace of the West still be found then, Homer will still be there, one has good reason to expect that Homer is the vehicle of the muse in a way that current human meaning fashions simply do not compare with. And our fashions are striking in their superficiality. I liked what you said about aging and revenge very much. I'm in my 6th decade now, and all those passages in the Psalms about revenge and judgement never spoke to me until - over the course of life - one comes into contact with profound injustices that cry out for divine retribution. The text speaks to me differently now. Same with Homer. Many thanks for your return to the heart thoughts here.
I love epic films and I’m looking forward to this one but I try not to see any movie adaptation of written work until I’ve read it first, so that I have my own image of the story before I take on someone else’s. And I will argue that watching a movie later often reveals different povs - similar to reading books a second time , but admittedly in limited fashion. I’m not the intellect nor the reader that you are but in an epic classic I completely align with your perspective. I do appreciate a film as a separate art form and I enjoy a different take than mine. (Perhaps a Long Island matinee?). Meanwhile I’ll be adding the Odyssey to my reading list. I am NOT well read but I remember this being one that I enjoyed…
This makes total sense. I'm a recondite weirdo with a lot of things, but as I said in response to my friend Sonia up above, film is a legit, modern form of literature that speaks to so many of us on so many levels.
Emily Wilson's translation is one of the newest, and she does it in verse. I saw her do a reading from it and a live interview at the New York Public Library, and she was quite captivating. I haven't yet read it, but I'm very curious. (I can say that Daniel Mendelssohn's new translation was accurate but chilly; it did everything scholarly without a poetic quality to the translation to make it sing for us.)
Great essay, and as always, erudite and fascinating…❤️