Klavans On The Culture: The Odyssey Review | Ep. 6

[00:00:00]I don't think it's a problem with the movie exactly, but it's telling that we are more ready to watch Nolan put a sea monster on stage than or on screen rather than a god.

[00:00:12]>> Well, well, well, think about it for a minute though. If if I said to you, God has put it into my heart, you know, to come over your house cuz I felt thought you might be feeling sad and you said, "Wow, I I was feeling sad and you know, that's an amazing amazing." But if I said to you, you know, God here and here he is, you know, you'd think I was nuts, you know, like I mean the postmoders say, well, there is no God because we can't see him. You know, we think that's silly, but we would think it was also silly if if you did see him uh and and it weren't a a national event, you know, All right. Hello and welcome to this Hello. Welcome to this special home edition of Clavens on the Culture.

[00:01:27]Since this is about a great piece of uh Greek literature, we've decided to bring on one of the foremost American experts in Greek literature. But you are and in fact almost every article that has come out about this has been written by you by me. Yes. Certainly all the best.

[00:01:43]>> I have nothing left to say. because I'm I'm afraid I've I've spent all of my No, it's it's been I'm a little bit shell shocked to be honest because >> even though this movie was obviously going to be one of the big ones of the summer and even though people have been talking about it a lot and there's been controversy and backlash and pre-lash and postlash, I I still wasn't prepared for how huge a phenomenon it was going to be. And you have to understand if you study ancient Greek literature for a living, you're not used to being interested in things that people care about. You know, you're not used to having lining up something to say about the big issue of the moment and especially not about like the big cultural blockbuster of >> it's I mean I went at 2 2:00 in the afternoon on a Monday and the theater was absolutely full. Sold out. people are are are pouring into it and they're talking about it's it's kind of nice to have people talking about a great work of Greek literature in in this uh you know in this context. It is also the height of what I'm now calling white boy summer or Hollywood where suddenly all the after all the DEI and all this they just brought all we want to make money. Could you bring back the white the white filmmakers? So I we should just we should just start with what we thought of the movie and do you want to go first or shall I? Well, I will say a little bit very briefly and then I actually really want to hear what you guys as you as you mentioned. I've been talking about this movie for a week straight. I think I've written a book chapters worth on it. Um, and we've talked about it for a long time in ad going into it, which is part of my experience of the movie because there was all of this furore over Nolan's casting decisions, some of the preferences he expressed about different translations of Homer and just this real sense among people online in our corners, that is mostly on the right, that this was going to be a desecration, to use the word that Elon Musk used. And so I think inevitably my initial judgment of the movie was characterized by that which I resisted only in the sense that I didn't want to make a judgment before I saw them.

[00:03:52]>> You fool.

[00:03:52]>> I know I have you never heard of the internet.

[00:03:56]What's what's wrong with you?

[00:03:57]>> That's what I'm saying. I'm not used to this sort of thing. You know, I like to live with my old books and stuff. So that part of it, I want to say very clearly that I don't think that people were crazy or stupid for feeling the way that they felt because >> it was something that they were really sensitive to from years of these idiots in Hollywood telling us that our most cherished cultural treasures are garbage and we should feel bad for liking them.

[00:04:26]You know, they are bad and you are bad for caring and if you protest, you're extra bad. And and then the casting thing only goes one way. You know, you can't cast a hearing guy to play a deaf person, >> but you can cast a girl who thinks she's a guy to play a guy. Exactly. And so all of that, besides which, like leaving the the racial part of it aside, casting Lupita Dyongo as Helen of Troy, casting poor Ellen Paige who is visibly unwell when transgenderism is the the the mental sickness of our time in some major way. I that is offensive and there is a derangement to that. What I found going into the movie is that the d that derangement is is part of the culture not really part of the movie. In other words, it's sort of exterior to the movie. And in general, I found that the pre-lash had ended up being counterproductive because it was so committed in advance to passing judgments on things that were always a mistake.

[00:05:26]>> Yeah. So when you went in, there were criticisms that I I think you could make of the movie, but they weren't the ones that people had been making. And so it all got a little bit clouded in the wake of that and in the wake of my deep attachment to this source material, which I was a 12-year-old boy, you may remember, when I read my first ever Big Boy book, and it was Richmond Latimore's translation of Homer's Odyssey, and it changed my life. I lay awake hours into the night on the floor of of my grandparents apartment, your father's apartment, and just flipped paged through this work of great literature.

[00:06:00]And it altered the trajectory of everything thereafter because this story is indelibly, deathlessly great. It is simply so full of the richness of humanity at the same time as it is kind of a blockbuster epic. It's this glorious adventure story. And of course, I then went into like the most lucrative career in the world of classics. I became a classicist. And so I'm so attached to this material. I'm I'm invested in the online controversy. And it was sort of funny in the wake of all that to go to this movie and think like it's pretty good. You know, it's not perfect. It's got some of Christopher Nolan's classic flaws. Um it it's uh I think more of a visual epic than a verbal epic. I don't think the screenplay is a is really at the level of of Homer and of Homer's language, which is a big uh ask. And it's also a take on it's a version of this story.

[00:06:58]Yeah. It has to be both because it's an adaptation and because Homer, one of the things that is surpassingly wonderful about him is that every time you come back specifically to the Odyssey, you find a new dimension to Adysius character and to his moral dilemmas. And Nolan is coming at this as has been observed um from a a perspective that is very definitively not the Greek perspective because he's an American filmmaker and he's infusing it with a lot of things that I think are modern concerns like for example the horrors of war that's present in Homer. Homer is alive to the horrors of war, but he's not guiltridden by it in the way that Nolan's Adysius is.

[00:07:36]>> And his characters are not >> and his characters are are not. They do express sorrow over the ravages of war, but they also express real, you know, there's real glory in in the Trojan War.

[00:07:47]Um, there is a real sense that like, you know, Greek civilization is is good and that the Greekness is not like fundamentally wrong. And it people think people have said that this is Nolan, you know, uh, attacking the Greeks or undermining Homer, desecrating Homer. I don't think it's quite that at all. I think just that Nolan doesn't realize how steeped he is in our modern outlook and even in some ways Christian assumptions or or uh Christian adjacent assumptions. So I think all of that is true of the movie. Um, it's also the case that Adysius has been reimagined and reinvented a million times, including by Dante, by the Greek Tragedians. Um, and often with kind of commentary on it that's not unlike Nolan. So, all told, you know, I would say people should probably not write this movie off in advance. That it's worth going to see. That, you know, the bottom line for me is just that we've been through now a summer where the most successful blockbuster I think of the year is an adaptation of one of the great works of Western literature. And it is not actually a desecration of it.

[00:08:58]It's not a perfect adaptation, but it's an adaptation. And it has sent people to the poem. And that's a good thing.

[00:09:03]That's kind of where I'm at. I mean, one one thing for me is very very important that with political people and maybe especially on the right because we've been excluded from the creative process for quite some time now, there's an idea that if you agree with something, it's good >> and if you disagree with it, it's bad.

[00:09:18]And I I just don't believe that. I believe that art is essentially an aesthetic experience that brings along with it messages that, you know, that add to your soul. They add points of view to your soul. You may hate them.

[00:09:30]They may be reprehensible, but that doesn't make the work of art bad. I think of that film one battle after another which I felt was a a despicable film but not a bad film. Wellade yeah well made well acted certainly and >> I will confess I fell right asleep during the movie but I know what you mean like it's you know you can make movies from a perspective that is not ours that nevertheless >> so I I went to this with an open mind.

[00:09:52]Uh I really enjoyed it. I I thought it was a really good epic and as you say it's a visual epic but the the best thing about it are the set pieces and the reason that's so important is that's what you remember when you read the Odyssey. In fact, when people return to the Odyssey, every time I've returned to it, I'm always surprised at how long it takes to get to Adysius. He's not not there for like four chapters.

[00:10:11]>> And it's book nine out of 24 before he starts telling those great stories, those great stories, the witches and the monsters.

[00:10:17]>> But that's what you remember, the monsters, the witches, and all this stuff. And and he he does that so well.

[00:10:21]I could name a bunch of them, but I mean certainly the Cyclops, but also the the taking of Troy, the the Trojan horse was so suspenseful, you know, it's gonna happen and yet it was so suspenseful.

[00:10:32]And I was on the edge of my seat a number of times.

[00:10:35]>> Uh I just I do want to say the only thing I want to say about the woke casting that was kind of gratifying is that it's it's very minor as you say, you can ignore it, but every time it comes up, it's bad. He made the wrong decision. And especially as you say, I mean, I thought uh Ellen Paige, Elliot Paige, whatever she wants to be called, I I thought it was as if he had cast in the middle of this expensive epic his seven-year-old son, you know, it's oh, he wants a part, you know, and it was just it was just embarrassing. I I am a big uh Lupita Nyongo fan. I think she's lovely and I think she's a wonderful actress. She did not belong in this movie as Helen and she just didn't. So every time it comes up, which is only twice I think that it really kind of sticks out and the guy who opens the movie is the storyteller looked like some kind of rapper or something. I don't know. Yeah, he's a musician.

[00:11:20]>> I mean, it was ridiculous. Every time it comes up, it dampens the story. And since I believe I have no proof of this, but I believe he did it so he could win an Oscar. Uh I think when he is an old man, he's going to wish he had the quality of that movie back. Just even even 1% rather than the statueette that he will almost surely uh take away. But the the thing about the script is what keeps it from being in my mind a great movie. The script is is is bad. It's it's not bad, but it's just it's just not good in in important ways. And even though I agree with you, I mean, look, it >> there came a moment right around the 60s when a certain kind of uh work became an anacronistic. The musicals for instance, all the musicals made after the 60s with the except the huge exception of the Sound of Music which if you were an intellectual you had to hate even though the people loved it. Yes.

[00:12:10]Oh, it's oldfashioned all this stuff.

[00:12:11]But all the musicals were terrible. They would make Man of Lancha and Camelot these wonderful musicals but they'd have to make them real and gritty and uh and self-doubting and all and they sank, you know, it was just it was just terrible and put in actors who couldn't sing and all this. It wasn't until Chicago when they started working back. Also the epic the epic in 59 or 58 is Ben her great great great movie with Charlton H who is a statue of a man and plays a statue of a person and then you get Lawrence of Arabia you get this internal self-doubting gay psych Yeah. And there are by the way adaptations of the Odyssey from that sword and sandal period you're describing where it's just swashbuckling and unapologetic and fullthroated. But, and this is another way in which I'm inclined to grade this movie on a curve. There have recently been some adaptations that are exactly as you describe. In particular, Uberto Pasolini's movie The Return, >> which was both which we saw together, I think, and which is genuinely bad and in exactly the way you were describing and ponderous and kind of overly.

[00:13:13]>> So, so this is his attempt to to pull off an an epic, a real epic, which is, like I said, the set pieces are wonderful. many of the scenes are are excellent, but to give him doubts about what he's doing.

[00:13:26]>> Here's the reason I think that was a mistake and and I agree with you that it's almost as if he did it automatically and he makes him guiltridden about a ruse of war that he would have a ruse to gare that he would have been thrilled.

[00:13:37]>> Here's the reason it's a mistake. There are two great character moments in the film, very small moments >> that tell you that come, you know, that are very close to the Odysius of the of the book.

[00:13:48]>> Okay.

[00:13:48]>> One is in the Cyclops scene. The cyclops is eating people and just derisively the cyclop they've escaped and he's letting them go but he derisively throws out the helmet of one of the guys he's eaten and Odicius turns around and just shoots him in the face and they say oh yeah fat you know and you think like yes great people have people have complained that they took out of that moment the where he yeah he tricks him and he says my name is nobody Utis and and then the cyclops says nobody is killing me and his friends go away and then Adysius tells him his name which is what enables him to invoke Poseidon against him or whatever, but but they did put that spirit in there with that moment to give him his >> Yes. And the other one and it's the moment when Matt Damon, who is a heroic actor, he's an actor who plays Heroes come comes to life. You can watch his face. He suddenly is suddenly more mobile. It's like is when he says they go past the sirens and the sirens are beautiful women who sing this song that you just have to go hear and crash on the rocks and die.

[00:14:44]>> And so everybody puts wax in their ears and Odysish says, "Tie me to the mass."

[00:14:48]not out of strategy, he just wants to hear it. And that's Adysius. He's an adventurer. He's a man of adventure. And so when they ask the key question of the movie, what why does he not want to go home? Why does he sort of arrange his own thing? They come up with this guilt, you know, ridden. Remember, Christopher Nolan is British. So he's not just a modern westerner. He's coming from a a dying society, a decaying society.

[00:15:10]>> An former empire.

[00:15:11]>> Yes. Yes. Which is what he's working with. Yeah. Yeah, >> but I thought I thought the character plays more to the Tennyson poem that's inspired by the the Dante uh verse where he talked about the last uh thing and basically Odysius goes back to sea after returning because he says I will not rest from travel. I must drink life to the le >> all times I have enjoyed greatly. So, I mean, a great poem, a different version of of >> Adish. Yes, but but that Adysius is in here and would have gotten Nolan everything he wanted >> with a much more legitimate thing. So, aesthetically, I thought it was off. I just didn't believe this warrior character who shoots a guy in the face just at a being ticked off and wants and is willing to listen to these sirens. I just didn't think he was going to come back and say, "Oh, boohoo."

[00:16:02]>> Crippled, you know. Okay. So there is a moment in the poem of a key and I think gorgeous moment in book eight of the poem. So right before Adysius starts to tell the stories that we all know of his adventures which uh you know those are the parts that we as you say we associate the poem with Cersei and Sillin and Ribbdus and so on and so forth. That's all told in in flashback as it is in this movie for in a slightly different way. Right before he tells that story, he hears a song about the Trojan horse, which is what what is filling him with with guilt in this uh movie. And there is a moment where he bursts into tears remembering the Trojan War. He weeps and we have one of the most famous home similes. Homer's famous for his comparisons, his artistic similes, and Odysius is compared to a woman whose husband has died in war. And it's not really, it's not made completely explicit, but you get the sense that he is identifying with his victims, which is one of the most remarkable features of Homer in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, that the Trojans are very sympathetic characters. Hector is probably >> the nicest character in the book.

[00:17:12]>> The Trojan Hector is probably the most sympathetic, at least to us, the most sympathetic character.

[00:17:18]>> I think Nolan has interpreted that. I mean, he he references it in the movie.

[00:17:23]He at the very end, Penelopey says something to him like, "The songs of your exploits must seem silly to you."

[00:17:29]And he says, "They make me cry." And I think that Nolan has has misread that episode. The episode is again just there's so much more in it than you could possibly ever get on screen. You almost have to do a take on it. And it's interesting that all adaptations have to make the thing smaller because really >> the simile itself says everything that you need, right? This is a moment where Adysius really near the end of his journeys. He's in Fatia, which is like the almost the last port of call um is finally ready to reckon with all that he's been through and it's unlocked for him by this moment of storytelling, which of course is also what what Homer is doing. So, it's about the power of stories to tell us who we are and to reflect us back to ourselves and kind of open up all the stuff that we otherwise can't quite access. Nolan thinks that all of this is because or he makes it about Adysius guilt over the Trojan horse specifically and then he casts the Trojan horse as a violation of Zeus's law, the law of guest friendship. And that that frankly just does not make sense.

[00:18:39]in that episode. Uh and so that is a major problem with the movie. The other one being the screenplay as as you pointed out.

[00:18:50]>> Yeah. Yeah. And and there is this stuff in the screenplay that people were picking on before it came out where he tries to use modern languages. There a couple of fbombs in there, you know, and I I I didn't mind most of it. There was one moment that almost made me laugh out loud.

[00:19:04]being quiet because it was such a crowded theater. But um there they there's a question of whether they're going to kill the cow the cattle that belong to the sun goat to Helios the sun god. And uh they just call him the sun the sun gods. I think they call him the sun god. No the sun god.

[00:19:19]>> The sun god. Yeah.

[00:19:20]>> And there's just this part where Matt Damon in this perfect like Boston accent is going like are you going to violate the sun god? You know you don't want to violate the sun god. You know >> don't want to tick the sun god. Let me tell you about the sun god. Yeah, >> I just thought woo. You know, you know, this is something that actually holds good from the all of the pre discourse because like the rest of it I thought, you know, if if anything it was it missed the mark like maybe you you were more bothered by it than I was. I see why. I understand that. Um, but the thing about the screenplay, which people immediately reacted to when they saw the trailer, because he was saying dad and and daddy and all these things, which >> what was so interesting about this, I agree that the screenplay doesn't work.

[00:20:07]>> It's also true that Homer's Greek, his language is really hard to get right in exactly the way that epics are now hard for us to get right. So, like you said, right, >> we have somehow lost our authentic access to that sense of grandeur that movies once had were able to they kind of were our epics, you know, they were able to capture that in some way. And I think it's part of our post-war moment, part of the kind of disillusionment of uh the West and of Europe, especially in the in the wake of the war, is that we we can't do that anymore without feeling like it's corny. Somehow >> Homer in Greek, and this is something that people have commented on forever, is somehow both viscerally powerful, direct, and plain and elevated. He's He was speaking in a language that at the time was felt archaic, felt grand, felt decorated and beautiful, but also felt very immediate and visceral. And Nolan made things worse by mentioning among the different possible translations of of the Odyssey by mentioning Emily Wilson's translation um which in the introduction to her translation this is the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English and she's very celebrated by all the right outlets or whatever but she's basically says that we have simply romanticized Homer and we've made him into this kind of he wouldn't have sounded uh old-fashioned to the people there and that's that's the point of view that Nolan has picked up. He hasn't take used her translation in in the script. That's something people were worried about that he that he hasn't done. But he has somehow whether through her or elsewhere embibed this idea um that in its original this poem wouldn't have sounded like an epic the way we think of it now. And that's just not true. It comes from a place where people were able to have a more immediate and authentic sense of the grandeur in the poem and it didn't feel corny and it didn't feel and and Nolan I think is trying imperfectly to get back to that place but we are still I think not there yet as a as a society. It's important to think about why >> and as I as I say and I think in his in his set pieces he sometimes does in his action sequences he sometimes does and it is in that language. I mean, it reminded me if you've ever seen the Ten Commandments, it's a one. You can't stop watching that film. It's a wonderful film, but it's so corny and it has this these moments where like the the seductress will come up to Moses and say, "Oh, Moses, Moses, you irritable fool." You know, you're like, "Oh, please, you know, don't don't do that."

[00:22:50]But, you know, the thing about this is is again my my these comments that I'm making are completely aesthetic. In other words, that it didn't work for me that the guy that I was watching on screen was saying the things that he was saying. And and I think that that that is my problem.

[00:23:06]>> Also, I think that there's a way to do what Nolan wanted to do. I the best place I've ever seen it. I don't know if you've ever seen Kenneth Browning's Henry V.

[00:23:16]>> Oh, that's so many times.

[00:23:18]>> Yes. I think it's a a a genuinely great movie. For me, it's the best Shakespeare film ever made. And Brownie went through this little arc when he was just one of the great Shakespeare interpreters. Uh and >> I think he was sort of uh untouchable.

[00:23:33]That and is it much to do about nothing?

[00:23:35]>> Much to do about nothing. It's also a beautiful film. But Henry Henry V is a really interesting play because it's about the hero king.

[00:23:41]>> Yeah.

[00:23:42]>> It questions what it is to be a king and what it mean why he's a king and all this. That's kind of what the story is about.

[00:23:48]>> But it is about the heroic battle in which he becomes the great king, right?

[00:23:54]where he at a core where he his I I don't know how many people it was like a thousand against 10,000 or whatever it was he he wins through the British bow and what Branig does is he lets the characters be the characters in their time >> but he films it from our time so if you watch like just you only have to watch the last 10 minutes the whole the whole thing they're fighting over is nothing like this little piece of territory and inheritance is all ridiculous and then he just has them stacking up bodies while they sing a non-nobous a beautiful non-novas and and and they're kind of pounding each other on the shoulder. We won and how beautiful this is and all this stuff. So, they're living their life, but we're also seeing it through our point of view. It's a work of genius. And and and I think that Nolan does not have that genius. And I I think that he has he has never >> he's never yet I believe he's an artist.

[00:24:43]I believe he has a point of view, a vision. And but and I believe that one day he may make a truly great film, but I do not believe he has made one yet.

[00:24:51]And this isn't what this is. I think it's an entertain I think it's a really entertaining epic but I think at that this level you know once you start to get up the mountain you know you start to criticize it more and that's >> and when you propose to make the Odyssey >> the Odyssey and something that a friend of mine Lebrasco said which I think is really right is that if you go into this movie expecting it to be the adaptation of the Odyssey you will be disappointed if you go into it on the understanding that this is a story that's been told and retold many many times and in fact contains within it. This moment right after the one I just mentioned where he weeps at the song of of Troy, he then also says, you know, I'm going to tell you my story. Where should I begin and where should I end? You know, and and well, first I'll tell you my name. So, this is obviously itself a poem about stories and it's about finding your identity through remembering and returning to the scene of your of your of your suffering and your sorrow. And so this has been it's it's almost an open invitation to to sort of reinterpret and to uh to riff on it and people have been doing that again since the days of the Greek tragedies, right?

[00:26:01]If you go into it with that understanding and you say, "Well, this is one inroad into this story," I think it it has a lot to offer. But I do agree that Nolan, you know, the movie this reminds me most of of his is Interstellar, that movie about space travel. Yeah. Because that's where he's also clearly obsessed with the idea of, you know, human relationships transcending time and space, people reaching out to each other across these impossible distances. And he makes it mythic on the scale of of outer space in that. And in this, of course, he finds it in in Homer, which is that part is certainly there. you get this kind of idea of Homer of Adysius and Penelopey his wife like overlaid on top of one another throughout the poem and you know and the poem of course begins not with taking us right to Adysius story but with the story of Tmicus his son and Peneline is absent so from the beginning there's this abs Adysius is an absent presence and we're wondering who is he where can we find him all of that stuff and so I think you know Nolan you're right like has that connects to a lot of this stuff aesthetically has an instinctive feel for some of the artistic potential of it. And that's another reason actually why I don't agree with people who are saying well he's subverting or he's trying he's not he's not actually thinking in those terms and in general I don't think artists are thinking >> well he's looking for a way to make this guy relatable as it were not a statue not just an epic figure and and here's here's the thing you know we're we're criticizing him a lot u because these are the f you know it's easier to talk about the things that are wrong you always have to remember when you're talking to actual artists to start with the praise compliment. But here's something he gets right.

[00:27:48]>> Yes.

[00:27:50]>> Well, he gets half right, I'll say. Is that he doesn't he doesn't take away the monsters >> and and even and even even the gods, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't Zenaia, I guess, is playing Athena and she's there. You can't tell is she in his head, is she? But but that is the way the gods would have presented themselves. This is something that I have refrained from talking about until this moment because I feel like it's a really key. It's one of our themes on this show and um I wanted to talk to you about it and what you thought of it because I feel like yeah, a lot of adaptations have shied away from these big mythological elements. As you say, one of my favorite things about the movie is that he really doesn't. He kind of goes for them and he gives you all of these stories on screen. the cyclops for >> you see a monster you see a cyclop siren and he does it I mean he it's it's almost all practical effects like he had this giant puppet thing that he was working with and all of this is incredible and and like the relish of the story is there that was one of the things that I really loved about it too my favorite scene probably in the whole thing is Cersei the witch who >> it's great a great it's a great scene it's there a lot of great >> there's a lot of really good yeah and that's clearly what captivates him about the story again that's what he's interested I think it captivates everybody of us.

[00:29:10]>> Of course. Yeah. Yeah. The thing about the gods is really I I'm curious what you made of it because it seems to me like the Greek gods are where this stuff about epic comes to a head, right? Where the stuff about can we >> allow ourselves to see the world the way the Greeks saw it as just teeming with supernatural life, with towering life.

[00:29:32]Right?

[00:29:33]First of all, it's fair to say that the gods are more ambiguous in the Odyssey than they are in the Iliad. In the Iliad, they're down on the battlefield fighting. They're you heroes in the Iliad wound gods. There's a moment when Aphrodite gets a a wound from one of the heroes. Um >> he pulls she pulls Achilles hair at one point. Is that >> Oh, that's Athena. Athena at the beginning. Yeah. Nobody again. She Achilles is enraged with Agamemnon famously and he draws his sword and Athena yanks him back by the hair.

[00:30:03]>> In the Odyssey, Athena is very much there, right?

[00:30:07]>> She's often in disguise. She's the goddess of wisdom and is part she's a match for Adysius because he's the great trickster of cunning and and wilds. Um but Poseidon, the great antagonist, is much is actually absent at the beginning of the poem. he's off with the Ethiopians and then he also I is mostly seen through his effects on the storm.

[00:30:26]You know, we get we get one intervention by Hermes, but we get a lot less, I guess I'm saying, of like actual the gods are here. And it's it's part of the idea. We're moving out of the realm of war and glory and we're moving into the world of domest human domesticity and human civilization and society. Um, and so it's possible even in the poem to raise the question like are these physical beings? Are they embodiment of the natural forces? Just are they psychological? Like what are they? And and the Greeks raised this question.

[00:30:58]Greek philosophers raise this question.

[00:30:59]All of that is true. Nolan, I think, does a pretty cool job putting that on screen for us, except that the title card at the very beginning. Do you remember this? You could take this title card away and fix like 90% of my problems at this movie.

[00:31:19]>> I I thought that that was that was a real mistake and I the minute I saw it, I kind of groaned inwardly and it really won me won me over with its suspense and things like this. But but yes, this is but this is the thing. Well, we should say what the title card says. In a time of apparent magic, it's like editorializing from >> Exactly. Why? Why? Why? It didn't even belong there. Who cared? You know, like >> it's not that apparent. Turn dudes into pigs, man. Like, >> exactly. Exactly. And and so you know there is an aesthetic problem here is that if you put the gods in the story physically as opposed to on the page in in pros you get this kind of Ray Harryhausen you know the guy who did all the old the old monsters the special effects of the monsters in old sword and sandal pictures uh was this guy Ray Harry howen you get this kind of clash of the titans corniness with you know >> a movie I loved as a kid I watched that movie so many times but yes it was the stop motion one.

[00:32:15]>> Yeah. And and and the gods are like, you know, Lawrence Olivier, I think was Zeus or whatever it was. And you go like, you know, it's just it's just old-fashioned and it feels wrong in a in a modern world. And so I think he made the right call.

[00:32:28]>> He, you know, when they violate the gods, the gods pay them back. You know, the people say Poseidon's going to get angry, and he does, but he doesn't come out of the sea with his trident and all this. And, you know, it doesn't make you feel like you're in a Marvel comic thing, right?

[00:32:40]>> But at the same time, he did have those monsters. You know, it was not like, you know, there's a whirlpool on one side, and I've seen it where they play both, you know, sharpest and sil between the two. And I've seen it play where both are whirlpools, but here they say it's a whirlpool on one side, there's a monster on the other, and when they go by the monster, there's a monster. There's a real monster. Yeah.

[00:32:59]And and I I just thought that that was excellent and brave and bold and and actually made it made it work. I mean, I don't know if you've ever read uh the book uh the origin of consciousness and the breakdown of the bike.

[00:33:11]>> I'm so glad you mentioned it. I was going to if you didn't. Yes. This is this idea that >> basically the two hemispheres of the brain weren't bridged in the same way at a certain time.

[00:33:21]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:22]>> And and and he reads he reads Homer that way and it works.

[00:33:26]>> And so I think that I don't I don't know whether that theory is right or not.

[00:33:30]I've heard scientists say it's not. But but it doesn't matter. The point is >> the gods do tend to speak to you >> uh through your soul and that's he what he portrayed.

[00:33:41]>> Yeah. You know, it's interesting. So, the parts of the story that are really mythic and over-the-top and fantastical are told in flashback in this movie and in the poem. And so, there is the possibility of asking, is Adysius misremembering, misrepresenting, is he lying, is he trying to conceal or to dramatize this what was actually a more h human thing. Um, that's not my preferred reading of the poem or of this movie. I think it is a story about a world that contains these mythological elements and as you say Nolan like really goes for them. I do think it's telling. I don't think it's a problem with the movie exactly but it's telling that we are more ready to watch Nolan put a sea monster on stage than or on screen rather than a god. Yeah.

[00:34:32]>> You know that what does that say about our sensibilities?

[00:34:35]>> Well well think about it for a minute though. If I said to you, God has put it in my heart, you know, to come over your house cuz I felt thought you might be feeling sad and you say, wow, I I was feeling sad and you know, that's an amazing amazing. But if I said to you, you know, God here and here he is, you know, you'd think I was nuts, you know, like I mean, our experience uh this is this is the modernist uh path, you know, that that the modern say, well, wait a minute, you know, is there a ghost? You know, is that really happening? Are our values real? Do these values, these literary values work in real life? These were all questions that modernism asked and led us to this consciousness that we have now. We have a postmodernist consciousness. Even if we disagree with the ideas of the if the postmodern say, "Well, there is no God because we can't see him." You know, we think that's silly. But we would think it was also silly if you did see him and it weren't a national event, you know.

[00:35:27]>> Yeah. Well, this is another way like the language. This is a way in which the experience of the original hearers of this poem might just be inaccessible to us, you know, and it's part of the agony of our modern experience that we can't reactivate >> even the experience of God that the medieval people had that people in the middle ages clearly saw something in the world. It was part of their experience with God. Yeah.

[00:35:57]>> Can I can I give you an example though of how this is I recently read a poem and I I believe his last name is G. He's a he's a good po poet and he's written he's writing a poetic trilogy of the >> Arthuran uh legends.

[00:36:12]>> Okay.

[00:36:13]>> And I read it and I thought this is really good. And I started to think well why is there no good movie? There's not one really good movie about King Arthur.

[00:36:21]And the reason is the main character in King Arthur is Jesus Christ. That is what In those stories, the knights act in a certain way because of Jesus Christ. They go to look for the holy grail because of Jesus Christ. The violation of uh adultery that brings down the kingdom is a reenactment of the of original sin. It's all and Ke lets that happen in his poem and every movie cuts it out and every movie is we're going to show you the dark the real art of what was happening under the surface >> under the surface and it's all the sex and the ugliness and and I think like no it was a world of magic. It was a world of faith. But even there, you know, Jesus does not appear, right? But but other things, other supernatural things appear that communicate his presence to you. And if if you somebody could make that movie, the movie of this poem, for instance, I I think it would be a great King Arthur movie, I I don't think Nolan has quite gotten there with this, but at least he he made a stab at it.

[00:37:18]>> Yes. Exactly. I I I admired it as an attempt to solve this very this very thorny >> aesthetic artistic problem. You're reminding me of that movie they made of Gowane and the Green Knight, another great Arthuran story, middle English poem. And that too, it was like he was reaching for some of the more luminous supernatural elements and not again not quite getting there. Like that movie I had more problems with than I had with with Nolan's Odyssey. But I do think that something about this is coming back into the world like at a at a level abstracting away now for a second from the summer of fighting over Homer that we've had and like this particular movie and placing it in the >> trend line of our culture and our civilization. Like they call this re-enchantment, you know, the idea that >> suddenly the world is starting to look this way again.

[00:38:19]>> It's mysterious. It >> is mysterious. It's it's incredibly myster and even science is imbued with tremendous mystery. There are ways in which the world just seems shot through with life and consciousness at a level that was is not accounted for in the old Newtonian picture as Newton himself freely conceded. This is just a picture and there's more. And now I think we're just butdding up against that and people are starting to be more open and receptive in ways good and ill to the the magic of the world. And I think that Nolan's kind of engagement with this subject is actually a litmus test. It's actually a sign of where we're at, that he he he can't bring himself to believe in the Greek gods, of course. Um, but he he also takes it very seriously that they are expressions of how people saw the world. And whatever is quote unquote under the surface isn't actually under these myths. It's in the myths. In other words, like it's not like, oh, there's the myth and then there's what was really going on, right?

[00:39:25]It's like the myth contains everything that we can know about what that was.

[00:39:29]The natural and the supernatural are one thing. And that and that once you start to see that, you start to understand, you know, one of my big beefs about not not just American thinkers, but about philosophers in general is they think without time.

[00:39:43]>> And and if you read the Bible and if you read the Bible without time, you can't understand it. You know, in the Bible, God comes and says, "This is how you perform a sacrifice. I'm going to give you 10 pages on how to perform a sacrifice." And then you time goes by and then God says, "I don't want your stinking sacrifice. But you think I I was here for s you think I'm going to eat your stupid cow. You know you're like what were we doing? Well, I was showing you something about sacrifice and about about commitment. You know over time over time I'm going to write my laws into your heart. And so the scientific valley that we've been through the scientistic val valley I should say that we've been through where we think like oh everything's a clockwork very natural thing to think.

[00:40:21]We're about a hundred years beyond the point where that was actually rational.

[00:40:25]And and the fact that our friends Steve Meyer and other people are bringing this to to people's attention, I think is changing the game because right now I think it's kind of like being a socialist. If you're a socialist, you're actually not a progressive. You're a regressive. And the same thing is true of atheists and and people who don't believe in in God.

[00:40:42]>> And it took 500 years for that for the materialist thought to work itself out.

[00:40:48]>> That's right. You know, that's right.

[00:40:49]There was >> slow. They got >> Yeah. Yeah. And it it it has to work its way not just into your brain, but into your psyche, into the way that you experience and feel the world. And I do think we're just at the beginning of that process.

[00:41:02]>> So actually this white boy summer that has brought Hollywood back to life is the beginning is the beginning of a spring.

[00:41:10]>> You know, I I would not be at all surprised. It would not I I really do believe that we lost the power. We we not only lost the power to tell these great stories, we were losing the power over the last 5 years to tell any story.

[00:41:23]Because to tell any story with that has no meaning is is to lose the point of telling stories. And to tell any story with a meaning is to say that human actions have meaning and then you start to get into a whole new >> Yeah. It's funny. Last time we talked about back rooms, which is kind of what it looks like with when there is no form, you know, when things start to just unravel no matter how hard you try to to bring them into order. And this week we're talking about a a a flawed but valiant and I believe truly sincere attempt to kind of recover something that can give a trajectory and meaning to our civilization based on one of the great origin points of our civilization.

[00:42:02]>> And and you know it's it's no small thing to make a three-hour film that's entertaining. I was entertained.

[00:42:07]>> I looked at my watch expecting half an hour to have passed and 90 minutes.

[00:42:11]>> Yeah. I don't That's right. That's right. And so it's a summer movie. uh you know the popcorn was good and uh the living was easy and you know I felt I got my money's worth and I think it's a good movie and I just think you know it's another unfortunate thing about American criticism that everything's either great or crap and also all these voices saying well I didn't agree with this so it stinks you know it's like that's also a problem but as a as an aesthetic thing I just think this was a really good epic movie that that that made an effort a good effort to bring it back >> completely agreed >> so now we we opened by talking about the fact that we're not sure this show is going to continue and we hope that you'll come to the New Jerusalem Substack to hear from us on other issues. However, we have to end by talking about the fact I I said at the beginning that this show is the best uh culture show on the internet, which I just think is not even I really don't think there's anybody comes anywhere near us. But there's no best book. There are no best books, only a top shelf of books. And we have two books coming out by one by uh one of my favorite scholars of language and classists namely you uh which is called Away with words why language makes humans irrplaceable. It's beautiful cover is now it's just >> I can't take credit for it. I mean it's a great great cover and uh and and hopefully when we put this out for the general public they'll put a picture of it out. We I should say just a brief >> thing about you know this is an ancient philosophical idea that mankind is understood and defined at least in part by being the language using animal the animal that has logos which is this big Greek word about the order of the universe just like we were talking about that we're able to take that into ourselves and express it in the in we have the inner word in our minds and the outer word that we're able to to put into uh spoken or written language.

[00:43:58]Obviously with the advent of AI there's this big challenge to that that it looks like now machines can do something like talking too. This is the book about why we remain unique and why >> and it's it's a lovely book. I actually read it and it's a book and I would like to promote my book Find Me Nowhere which is part of this validictory project I'm writing the the sort of the final my final uh offering to crime right American crime writer >> by the best living American crime >> by the best living American crime writer I'm willing to share this that top shelf but I will not say that I do not belong in it I belong on that top shelf and find me nowhere is the sixth I think Cameron winter uh story and I've made each one so you can read it separately so I hope you will go out and These are both these books, by the way, are out for pre-order. So, I hope you'll go and pre-order them. Find me nowhere. You can also pre-order at the Daily Wire Shop and get a signed copy of it. Um, in in this one, a uh a American soldier is blown up in a part of the world where we're not supposed to be anymore, the Fatah, which is between Pakistan and Afghanistan. And very shortly thereafter, his father is killed in a small town in Pennsylvania. And Cameron Winter is sent to find out whether there's some connection between these two deaths and finds that the next death is could very well be his own because this entire town wants to kill him. I I am so uh proud of not just of these books but of the series which is turning into a single work which will soon be finished >> with an indelible character at the center of it. And I have not read this one but I cannot wait to find out what happens. He is kind of in a new part of his life.

[00:45:30]>> He's in a new part of his life. It's it's he's had a real progression from he starts as a very depressed character and is now in love and he's a very uh changed man but find me nowhere is the new one. Find me nowhere and a away with words. We have to stop there. Oh wow. So the last of uh contracted uh clavvens on the culture is over. We very much hope we'll be back. We have loved doing this and it's just I think I think it's just matchless. I think it has been just a great show.

[00:45:54]>> A true delight and uh it's nice to see you. I'll have to find other reasons now to come out and visit >> for the time being. But yes, it has been a joy and thanks everyone for listening.

[00:46:04]>> We'll see you again.

[00:46:05]>> Mhm.