Beware of Greeks bearing Gifts- An Odyssey for us all-

Reflections on the Christopher Nolan Film- Brian Keeler

The allure of a well-known classic, like The Odyssey, Homer's poem from 750 BC is apparent and upon us now as the new film by Christopher Nolan is out- after great fanfare, glowing reviews and anticipation by myself. I have been looking forward to it for some time. And as we went to see it at our local art theatre, Cinemapolis (in Ithaca) to underscore Ithaca as nicely convenient and crucial to the original.  The theatre was almost full- which is virtually unseen in recent years. So viewing a cinematic spectacle has its own rewards when done in a theatre with others- a communal happening and not viewed from our Iphones or computers.

Above- The author's painting- "Ulysses Sirens- Tyrrhenian Sea" is 44" x48" oil on linen.

It turns out that I have been engaged in the Ulyssean narrative for many years- The Rosy Fingered Dawn, that refrain and recurrent phrase has been evoked as I look at the prelude clouds in the early morning.  And another refrain, the wine-dark sea has also been contemplated. Neither were used in the film.   So we see that the influence of Homer is ubiquitous as it is astounding.  We love the tenderness of Ulysses toward Argos, his 20 year old dog as a foil against the cruelty and barbarism of war.

In my paintings and travels and study of art in museums and reading the tale of the return to Ithaca has been with me for decades. The long travail of Ulysses to his home presents a kind of encouragement to us all to persevere.  The Aeneid by Virgil also adds to the narrative as sequel to the Odyssey and provides the foundation myth for Rome in addition to the Romulus and Remus fratricide story.

Most recently in Rome, we we visited two marble statues, one from antiquity, the Pasquinades near the Piazza Navona and a 19th century genre scene in Trastevere of people looking at this depiction of Menelaus holding Petrocolus'  dead body., These essential aspects to Rome were brought to light through the recent book by local author, Anthony De Renzo,  And at the Borghese Gallery in Rome there are those exquisite marble statues by Bernini with one being of Aeneus carrying his aged father Anchises out of burning Troy.  

Above- a reinterpretation of Ulysses and sirens by the author.

The foundation myth and moral take away,  "beware of Greeks bearing gifts" has to do with the warning from the God Laocoon in regards to the Trojan Horse full of Ulysses and his cohorts.  The famous and iconic statue has been sketched and studied in the Vatican in Rome and the copy in Uffizi.  This virtuosic figurative ensemble of Laocoon wrestling with a python while his sons contort nearby is work that surpasses Michelangelo, in my opinion and done during the Imperial Roman era- 1500 years prior to Michelangelo's endeavors.

Most recently this adage about being leary about how one accepts gifts has been evoked in regards to the Airforce One jet that was donated to Trump by Qatar.  And as it turns out those analogies had some relevance as the jet was found to be insufficient for security reasons and probably lots of other more insidious ones if not ethical transgressions of law.

While traveling around Italy there are many locales that evoke the Odyssey. One being the string of Volcanic islands north of Sicily called the Aeolian Islands.  I visited and painted there on an early trip.  Aeolus is the God of the Winds and he comes to play in the travail as the winds are unwittingly released from a sack held by the Ulysses and the result being to blow the intrepid off course.  The coastline of the Cinque Terre was used as the setting for my own depictions of the sirens.  The craggy and rugged coastline easily evokes the setting for this episode.  The soldiers on board stuff their ears with wax while their leader is strapped to the mast so he can hear the intoxicating melody that would lead to his death if left unrestrained.

I have taken some whimsical liberty with Ulyses.  A few years ago, an allegory was painted that was sort of a parody or spoof of the heroic tale.  I chose to place the exalted hero in a much too small row boat - rowed backwards by a cohort while sirens supplicate and implore him swimming in the water below. He escapes in my variation by levitating his small boat out of our pond. We should be able to embroider and embellish a narrative, right?  In fact this figures into the epic when it was written down at some point- there by freezing it in form.  Heretofore it had been an oral form- a poem that would continually be morphing and adapting to the times. 

James Joyces's Ulysses has been part of my own interest as well.  VIsiting Dublin we trekked in the footsteps of Joyce to revisit the scenes of Leopold and Molly- his inverted versions of Ulysses and Penelope.   One chapter in Joyce's book called, Circe in Nighttown being one of the creative adaptations Joyce indulges in. Joyce shows Circe as Dublin Madame overseeing her whorehouse as Leopold protects young Stephen Daedelus from being overcharged.  But Nolan's psychedelic transformation of gluttonous men into swine before our eyes is not lacking in cinematic bravura or bizarre ghastliness.  As with Leopold and Stephen in Joyces' version, there the father and son bonding with Ulysses and Telemachus.  And with Penelope being a paragon of virtue and fidelity, Joyces' Molly Bloom is the polar opposite,  a "Yes" woman with an unbridled lust and a monologue of one long sentence that recounts her affair with Blazes Bolan.  I love these inversions. And instead of a heroic return slaying suitors, as does Ulysses at the end of the Odyssey,  Leopold Bloom somehow encourages the erotic escapade. 

Crossing on the Ferry between Italy and Sicily at the strait of Messina is another point in our travels that evokes the Odyssey.   Here is the treacherous water that Homer uses in his epic.  The sea monster Scylla, a six-headed dragon, plucks the hapless sailors from their boat.  This was just after they skirted around the whirlpool named, Charybdus.  Apparently the currents and whirlpools in the straits of Messina are still notoriously violent.  We passed by here while visiting nearby Taorimna and on a previous trip enroute to Lipari- one of Aeolian islands.

Art inspiring other Art has been one of the inspiring results of this epic by Homer. The pottery. frescos and literature of the ancients, the Renaissance and others right up to today is the upshot.  A marvelous painting by Turner of Ulysses fleeing from Polyphemus is one such beautiful work. Of course,  Raphaels. Galatea in the Farnesina Palace in Trastevere in Rome is considered the epitome of the high Renaissance. 

So as with the recent movie with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, The Return - this new film by Nolan enriches our experience- lets us draw lessons and parallels today.  Binoche has a poignant rebuke to Ulysses about destroying families and the effect this Trojan war has had on families and lives.  She ask him if he has raped and killed.   Both offer questions and challenge any too romantic interpretation of a gung ho version of these spear and sandals tales

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Speaking spears and sandals the film revives classics, an entire genre that my generation grew up on. I can still recall seeing Kirk Douglas in the Keystone Theatre in Towanda, PA with my friends and father  in Spartacus.

Things were left out. I found myself waiting for some pivotal moments, some happened others didn't.  The dramatic scene where Ulysses has a stool flung at him in the final scene is there. But the moment of taunting by Ulysses is omitted when he turns to hurl a pantheon shot - an insult at Polyphemus is edited out.  The sex is out with Calypso, Circe and Penelope,  And I don't this Nausicaa  made the cut either.  I was awaiting the famous beach scene where he ask her if she's a God or mortal.  The vengeful and disgusting war crime is also left out- where Achilles drages the body of Hector behind his horse around Troy.   Both of these scenes were wonderfully recontextuallized by James Joyce. The Poythemus becomes a truclent and racist bar fly spouting off and raging in a bar. And instead of throwing rocks he hurls a mere biscuit box as Bloom makes his getaway in a jaunty car.

The New Yorker Magazine also took issue with the paired down interpretation. Here's a passage -

This is not for the obvious reason that much is left out—putting any extended literary work onscreen inevitably involves omission and compression—but because of a more pervasive absence: the gods. In the poem, the first scene is of a council in Zeus’ palace, on Mt. Olympus, at which the gods argue over Odysseus’ fate. In Nolan’s film,  people refer to the gods, but there are no divine debates on Olympus, and, indeed, the only member of the classical Greek pantheon who actually appears is Athena (Zendaya), watching over the action intermittently.

All in all, I enjoyed immensely and especially liked the interpretation of the famous Trojan Horse episode- done quite imaginatively and dramatically.  How did all those Spartans coexist in those cramped quarters for all that time? The nearly three hour film goes by quickly as we are immersed in the deft cinematic vision of Christopher Nolan.