Christopher Nolan's Odyssey 2: Instant Verdict
7/15/202651 min
Mary and Charlotte emerge from the premiere of The Odyssey, pausing only for a night’s rest, before regathering in the morning with strong coffees to give their instant verdict on Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster.
Headlines
Winners: Complicated, twisty-turny timelines; multiculturalism; Samantha Morton; Charlotte Higgins
Losers: Feminism; humour; The Gods; Mary Beard
To find out what all this means, listen to the episode!
Further reading (and watching):
The basic message here is “go watch the movie”. Mary is perhaps less keen overall, but still urges you to go see. It is also worth having a look at (and comparing) Ubert Pasolni’s The Return which is focussed on the second half of the poem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_(2024_film)
Charlotte mentioned Colm Tóibín’s novel House of Names.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Charlotte Higgins· Host0:30
It's the biggest movie of the year, which we and a massive number of other people across the world have been looking forward to seeing with enormous excitement, and for us, I have to say, a bit of trepidation for some time.
Mary Beard· Host0:42
Not only that, but it's a lightning rod in a culture wars row with Elon Musk wading in to condemn the casting of Lupita Nyong'o as Helen as woke nonsense, because Musk is, after all, such a noted Odyssey expert.
Charlotte Higgins· Host1:00
But actually, dare I say it, we are Odyssey experts. Uh, at least, I mean, in this very particular sense, we have, uh, both actually seen the film and read the poem several times, may I say, unlike Elon, who, at least at the time of the recording, had not seen the film. We know that because we both went to the world premiere last night. Lucky us.
Mary Beard· Host1:23
My first time at a premiere, so I was very starstruck. I, let me tell you that to start with.
Charlotte Higgins· Host1:27
[laughs] Well, me too. Me too.