From how wikipedia describes it, Casey's interpretation was the accurate one on the girl getting her head chopped off being who Odysseus saw throughout the film.
Oh and I really liked how you described him returning cautiously from Agamemnon's warning from the dead as Shakespearean. I haven't read many of his plays, but certainly something like any of the few when a character returns in disguise (Merchant of Venice, maybe Hamlet?) or not being clear who he is, etc.
I agree where Ithaca felt a bit just like a castle on the hill compared to almost anywhere else in the film. Troy felt a lot bigger at least.
And I SUPER agree with the mystical/imaginative bit being excellent. Cerci smushing the men's faces and sticking her hand down the throat of a another to turn them into pigs as they ate was sooo good (I poked my sister and whispered SPIRITED AWAY at this part lol). The shades emerging from the ground and the spooky muddy guy were also excellent. I just liked those bits!
When the cyclops was picking people up and eating them I really felt that it was this large thing picking up people and letting big slabs of them fall on the ground. I did get a bit turned around and also was confused why some where still left and the fact that the rock was used as a door until the 2nd night of them being trapped. I mentioned Cerci and the shades. Oh and actually I forgot what was to happen with the "little" girl they met on the island with the giants. I saw this woman and then she had a young girl's head and I went "huh? why are you so big", then Odysseus' right hand man said something like "if that's a child i dont want to know what the parent are like" and then they get hounded on by giants in armor.
While I definitely agree on the decoherence of the cinematography, I felt that when he was battling the suitors most of all, and a few parts like where they popped by the whirlpool, however the darkness wasn't the worst for me? And I felt the color was nice during the daytime. There was this strange thing that happened where we'd see the sea and it'd look this deep blue, then half the time it'd look murky and brownish. Brownish was yucky, but the bright daytime look always seemed quite great to me. I thought the cyclops scene was alright, it could have been better with a bit more fill and more of that magical "the light comes from the same place as the music". On a technical note, Nolan has this odd tendency to make dark scenes look a bit... milky. Not reaching full black. It's odd because sometimes you can have better looking shadows in the brighter scenes.
On a more general note about lighting in filmmaking, I came in having seen you guys didn't like the cinematography from the summary of this episode, watched it, yeah I found those few bits of fighting incoherent, the darkness was irksome elsewhere, but I didn't feel it was ever as bad as many other films in regards to things looking super dark. Like Game Of Thrones Season 8 Episode... 2 or 3? whatever it was. I thought they did some of that pretty lighting you see less often nowadays that people always like and deride the opposite of where people are lit super flat and almost murky looking.
For some of my own perspective, I think that while the magic and everything was represented great, you definitely felt that he was stretching his sleight of hand a bit here in those incoherent moments I mentioned earlier. I think the only time I felt this actually would fall apart would be the explosions in Oppenheimer, but in The Odyssey it got a bit close at times when he'd make a daring shot of some cool looking effect and it seemed like he didn't have enough of it. Or the editor was too judicious. I don't know, I felt some of those felt a bit jumpy. Still thought all those effects were great.
The only parts I remembered from the story coming in was the end, him returning to his aging dog who wags his tail one last time when he sees him ;~;, the feet washing, oh and him killing all the suitors I was eager to see! If only I could see it... hahaha
Great episode you guys! So happy to listen to another Molly Movie Club episode!! :D
I interpreted the scene the same way as Casey. I imagine the Anna interpretation can arise due to the out of order story telling. It does feel like he was already talking to Athena before that, but in the order of events, he wasn't.
I am also team Casey on Athena interpretation. Was actually really surprised to hear Anna calling her interpretation straightforward and obvious since Casey's interpretation was what I felt straightforward and obvious while watching, never even thought about the other one. I also really enjoyed the movie, the body horror of Cirice and the depiction of cyclops was phenomenal.
Well, it seemed the most obvious and straightforward to me since it’s what my brain defaulted to :) It definitely appears to be the much less common way of reading that scene.
I had the exact same interpretation as Casey for Athena/Zendaya, the scene where we see her get her head cut off was very impactful and emotional to me because up to that point I didn’t see the point of having Athena/Zendaya as a character in the movie. I understood Odysseus seeing Athena as an innocent murdered woman as a way of illustrating his PTSD.
I recommend watching The Return (from last year), which is in my opinion a much better interpretation of the Ithaca scenes, especially when it comes to the characterization of Penelope and Odysseus. It is however not a “I felt like I saw a big movie experience”!
As a point of clarification, did you see the "normal" 70mm film version or the 70mm IMAX version?
Being in Europe means that proper IMAX is not really an option and our local theatre is all digital everything, which would be pretty closely cropped to the 35mm version (which in turn is an even tighter crop of the "normal" 70mm film version).
I feel the cinematography, especially for action scenes, was made a lot worse for many scenes because of this where the shots were just too tight for the format, making them harder to follow than they would be on a taller screen.
Can't say I can relate to the film being too dark, quite the opposite in fact. Especially in the cyclops' cave scene I felt like they pushed the brightness way up to the point that it wasn't really believable the cyclops wouldn't see Odysseys and his men while they're completely lit up by the fire in the cave.
Same goes for the audio, it didn't feel especially loud for us and the dialogue was actually way more audible than I expect from a Nolan movie, was really suprised.
I've seen multiple other people complain about this loudness however so there definitely is something to that which makes it even weirder.
With film theatres being more common in the US, and I would presume most people online talking about this would be in the US, maybe it could be some kind of difference with the digital package vs. the film releases? Would factor in with the visual aspects too.
Otherwise I thought the cinematography was quite stellar. Getting 70mm IMAX cameras into dialogue scenes and getting that razor-thin focus plane, made possible by the enormous format, is just magical (even if the focus missed the target during some scenes :P).
I got very similar confused feelings from the cyclops' cave escape sequence where it was definitely that it looked like everyone got out of the cave with Odyssey being the last one out, then he notices the rock being put back into place and decides to rush back to the cave alone. Then in the next scene everyone is back in the cave again for some reason?? I guess this could be the same case as what you mentioned with the increasing amount of people on the ship(s) as the story goes on even when they should be reducing, but still felt very weird.
RE: the Athena stuff, I got pretty much the exact same read on it as Casey, though I did like cutting to the statue being decapitated. As a visual moment I felt it worked very well and looked cool.
From the common theme in the film being that Odysseys is tormented by the what happened during the sacking of Troy, it makes sense that he would kind of personify his guilt into Zendaya as one the priestesses(?) at Athena's temple and keep having these visions about her as Athena.
But this being Nolan, I would wager he left it ambiguous on purpose so people have something to theorise about.
I agree with the personality of Odysseys being a tad confused with the way Nolan decided to write the script. Him shooting the arrow at the cyclops as they're leaving felt more like a forced thing from the original text since he does taunt the cyclops just as they're about to leave causing the whole situation with them getting the bad storms from Poseidon. But for this film's version of Odysseys it just didn't make any sense for him to shoot the cyclops at that point, making it feel completely out of character and just a plain dumb thing to do for absolutely no reason.
Matt Damon being Odysseys fit physically into this role well and I think he could've pulled it together well if Nolan had given him better material. Having this kind of depressed and tormented character was clearly Nolan's goal but I feel there could've a lot more to explore in Odyssey's personality if he had been given more of quirkiness of Odysseys from the original text.
Would've loved more establishing shots of Ithaca as well to show the scale better. Now it pretty much felt just like you mentioned, that they have that one hall, a pig farm on the hill and that temple at the coast some hours away.
We saw it in "normal" 70mm, not IMAX 70mm. Now I'm wondering if maybe our screening was extra dark... or maybe yours was extra bright?? Once it comes out on blu-ray I'd be curious to watch it again and see how it looks...
Not to rain on the parade... but when I've seen the 70mm parts in Dunkirk and Oppenheimer between the IMAX 70mm (I saw both in 70mm IMAX), they always looked a step down. Just a bit muddier, especially on Dunkirk. So I wonder if the way they printed down to normal 70mm similarly reduced the quality.... cause coming from the IMAX 70mm it didn't feel nearly as bad as you stated. Worse, I feel like the tighter framing in normal 70mm likely made the "incoherence" you guys mentioned in the cinematography worse... :/
Also no sound issues for us, or brightness issues when we watched it, I was almost expecting it to be too loud because I often deal with that in action movies, but maybe the Alamo Drafthouse we went to decided not to crank the volume to a deafening level.
From how wikipedia describes it, Casey's interpretation was the accurate one on the girl getting her head chopped off being who Odysseus saw throughout the film.
Oh and I really liked how you described him returning cautiously from Agamemnon's warning from the dead as Shakespearean. I haven't read many of his plays, but certainly something like any of the few when a character returns in disguise (Merchant of Venice, maybe Hamlet?) or not being clear who he is, etc.
I agree where Ithaca felt a bit just like a castle on the hill compared to almost anywhere else in the film. Troy felt a lot bigger at least.
And I SUPER agree with the mystical/imaginative bit being excellent. Cerci smushing the men's faces and sticking her hand down the throat of a another to turn them into pigs as they ate was sooo good (I poked my sister and whispered SPIRITED AWAY at this part lol). The shades emerging from the ground and the spooky muddy guy were also excellent. I just liked those bits!
When the cyclops was picking people up and eating them I really felt that it was this large thing picking up people and letting big slabs of them fall on the ground. I did get a bit turned around and also was confused why some where still left and the fact that the rock was used as a door until the 2nd night of them being trapped. I mentioned Cerci and the shades. Oh and actually I forgot what was to happen with the "little" girl they met on the island with the giants. I saw this woman and then she had a young girl's head and I went "huh? why are you so big", then Odysseus' right hand man said something like "if that's a child i dont want to know what the parent are like" and then they get hounded on by giants in armor.
While I definitely agree on the decoherence of the cinematography, I felt that when he was battling the suitors most of all, and a few parts like where they popped by the whirlpool, however the darkness wasn't the worst for me? And I felt the color was nice during the daytime. There was this strange thing that happened where we'd see the sea and it'd look this deep blue, then half the time it'd look murky and brownish. Brownish was yucky, but the bright daytime look always seemed quite great to me. I thought the cyclops scene was alright, it could have been better with a bit more fill and more of that magical "the light comes from the same place as the music". On a technical note, Nolan has this odd tendency to make dark scenes look a bit... milky. Not reaching full black. It's odd because sometimes you can have better looking shadows in the brighter scenes.
On a more general note about lighting in filmmaking, I came in having seen you guys didn't like the cinematography from the summary of this episode, watched it, yeah I found those few bits of fighting incoherent, the darkness was irksome elsewhere, but I didn't feel it was ever as bad as many other films in regards to things looking super dark. Like Game Of Thrones Season 8 Episode... 2 or 3? whatever it was. I thought they did some of that pretty lighting you see less often nowadays that people always like and deride the opposite of where people are lit super flat and almost murky looking.
For some of my own perspective, I think that while the magic and everything was represented great, you definitely felt that he was stretching his sleight of hand a bit here in those incoherent moments I mentioned earlier. I think the only time I felt this actually would fall apart would be the explosions in Oppenheimer, but in The Odyssey it got a bit close at times when he'd make a daring shot of some cool looking effect and it seemed like he didn't have enough of it. Or the editor was too judicious. I don't know, I felt some of those felt a bit jumpy. Still thought all those effects were great.
The only parts I remembered from the story coming in was the end, him returning to his aging dog who wags his tail one last time when he sees him ;~;, the feet washing, oh and him killing all the suitors I was eager to see! If only I could see it... hahaha
Great episode you guys! So happy to listen to another Molly Movie Club episode!! :D
I interpreted the scene the same way as Casey. I imagine the Anna interpretation can arise due to the out of order story telling. It does feel like he was already talking to Athena before that, but in the order of events, he wasn't.
I agree, I think that’s likely why I interpreted it the way I did. That, combined with the immediate cut to Athena’s statue getting its head cut off.
I am also team Casey on Athena interpretation. Was actually really surprised to hear Anna calling her interpretation straightforward and obvious since Casey's interpretation was what I felt straightforward and obvious while watching, never even thought about the other one. I also really enjoyed the movie, the body horror of Cirice and the depiction of cyclops was phenomenal.
Well, it seemed the most obvious and straightforward to me since it’s what my brain defaulted to :) It definitely appears to be the much less common way of reading that scene.
I had the exact same interpretation as Casey for Athena/Zendaya, the scene where we see her get her head cut off was very impactful and emotional to me because up to that point I didn’t see the point of having Athena/Zendaya as a character in the movie. I understood Odysseus seeing Athena as an innocent murdered woman as a way of illustrating his PTSD.
I recommend watching The Return (from last year), which is in my opinion a much better interpretation of the Ithaca scenes, especially when it comes to the characterization of Penelope and Odysseus. It is however not a “I felt like I saw a big movie experience”!
As a point of clarification, did you see the "normal" 70mm film version or the 70mm IMAX version?
Being in Europe means that proper IMAX is not really an option and our local theatre is all digital everything, which would be pretty closely cropped to the 35mm version (which in turn is an even tighter crop of the "normal" 70mm film version).
I feel the cinematography, especially for action scenes, was made a lot worse for many scenes because of this where the shots were just too tight for the format, making them harder to follow than they would be on a taller screen.
Can't say I can relate to the film being too dark, quite the opposite in fact. Especially in the cyclops' cave scene I felt like they pushed the brightness way up to the point that it wasn't really believable the cyclops wouldn't see Odysseys and his men while they're completely lit up by the fire in the cave.
Same goes for the audio, it didn't feel especially loud for us and the dialogue was actually way more audible than I expect from a Nolan movie, was really suprised.
I've seen multiple other people complain about this loudness however so there definitely is something to that which makes it even weirder.
With film theatres being more common in the US, and I would presume most people online talking about this would be in the US, maybe it could be some kind of difference with the digital package vs. the film releases? Would factor in with the visual aspects too.
Otherwise I thought the cinematography was quite stellar. Getting 70mm IMAX cameras into dialogue scenes and getting that razor-thin focus plane, made possible by the enormous format, is just magical (even if the focus missed the target during some scenes :P).
I got very similar confused feelings from the cyclops' cave escape sequence where it was definitely that it looked like everyone got out of the cave with Odyssey being the last one out, then he notices the rock being put back into place and decides to rush back to the cave alone. Then in the next scene everyone is back in the cave again for some reason?? I guess this could be the same case as what you mentioned with the increasing amount of people on the ship(s) as the story goes on even when they should be reducing, but still felt very weird.
RE: the Athena stuff, I got pretty much the exact same read on it as Casey, though I did like cutting to the statue being decapitated. As a visual moment I felt it worked very well and looked cool.
From the common theme in the film being that Odysseys is tormented by the what happened during the sacking of Troy, it makes sense that he would kind of personify his guilt into Zendaya as one the priestesses(?) at Athena's temple and keep having these visions about her as Athena.
But this being Nolan, I would wager he left it ambiguous on purpose so people have something to theorise about.
I agree with the personality of Odysseys being a tad confused with the way Nolan decided to write the script. Him shooting the arrow at the cyclops as they're leaving felt more like a forced thing from the original text since he does taunt the cyclops just as they're about to leave causing the whole situation with them getting the bad storms from Poseidon. But for this film's version of Odysseys it just didn't make any sense for him to shoot the cyclops at that point, making it feel completely out of character and just a plain dumb thing to do for absolutely no reason.
Matt Damon being Odysseys fit physically into this role well and I think he could've pulled it together well if Nolan had given him better material. Having this kind of depressed and tormented character was clearly Nolan's goal but I feel there could've a lot more to explore in Odyssey's personality if he had been given more of quirkiness of Odysseys from the original text.
Would've loved more establishing shots of Ithaca as well to show the scale better. Now it pretty much felt just like you mentioned, that they have that one hall, a pig farm on the hill and that temple at the coast some hours away.
We saw it in "normal" 70mm, not IMAX 70mm. Now I'm wondering if maybe our screening was extra dark... or maybe yours was extra bright?? Once it comes out on blu-ray I'd be curious to watch it again and see how it looks...
Not to rain on the parade... but when I've seen the 70mm parts in Dunkirk and Oppenheimer between the IMAX 70mm (I saw both in 70mm IMAX), they always looked a step down. Just a bit muddier, especially on Dunkirk. So I wonder if the way they printed down to normal 70mm similarly reduced the quality.... cause coming from the IMAX 70mm it didn't feel nearly as bad as you stated. Worse, I feel like the tighter framing in normal 70mm likely made the "incoherence" you guys mentioned in the cinematography worse... :/
Also no sound issues for us, or brightness issues when we watched it, I was almost expecting it to be too loud because I often deal with that in action movies, but maybe the Alamo Drafthouse we went to decided not to crank the volume to a deafening level.