Christopher Nolan's Odyssey - Homer and History

[00:00:01]Hello there. I really thought I ought to do a video about the new Odyssey film, the Christopher Nolan one that's just come out in the cinemas the end of last week. And while I'm sure everyone and his dog on the internet will be making videos about this and praising it, damning it, doing all that sort of thing, I feel obliged to do something because it's a film set in the ancient world about one of the most important pieces of literature from the ancient world, inspired by that. And that's the main theme of this channel is looking at ancient history and particularly because I've just done the Athens and Sparta book. So I've been looking at classical Greece, but of course the the Odyssey and the Iliad, Homer's works in general have a a deep deep influence and perceived relevance for Greeks and then subsequently Romans throughout ancient history as well as obviously later on as well. So, I thought I ought to say something about it, but also that I really needed to get in fast because chance opened up that I could see the film over the first weekend it was out and then to fit in with my normal release schedule, I thought, well, if I don't do a video for this Wednesday, then there's probably not much point because everybody will have had their say by then. Um, so rather like when I did the one on the Ridley Scott Napoleon film a few years back, this is the same sort of thing.

[00:01:18]Now, it's early days and obviously I don't want to give away lots of spoilers and ruin the movie for people. So, I'll talk about a few things, some impressions from it. Um, it is worth going to see. If you look at it simply as a film, as a form of entertainment, then it's very well put together. It is epic in scale. It's grand. It looks really impressive on the big screen. Um, now I I think that's, you know, characteristic of the director, but I must confess I've only ever seen Dunkirk before of his films. I don't remember watching any of the others. I didn't get around to seeing Oppenheimer, for instance, let alone the uh the Barbie movie that was out at the same time that was supposedly uh supposed to run together with that. Um, partly because it just didn't particularly appeal. Um, I confess as well, particularly in the cinema, and these films are are big cinema films, the the very long run time for my middle-aged bladder presents a little bit of a challenge. And um, it just makes me think twice. But something about the ancient world, something about the Greeks and the Romans, I really feel I've got to see. I would recommend you go and see it as a piece of cinema. You may well enjoy it. It's um, impressive.

[00:02:29]As I say, it is well put together. I felt again this might be my age and sitting down for a long time maybe it was just slightly too long but not to a big degree. Now when you're basing something on an epic poem like the Odyssey which has a lot going on within it then even a long film is not going to be long enough and they cut an awful lot out. There are some liberties taken with the story particularly at the end. um and some of the context of it is invented and doesn't uh quite work. We'll talk a little bit more about that because some of that has implications for history before we go on and talk in much more detail about little bit about the poems, a little bit more about the world they present and where if at all we might place this within real history. Uh by the way, apologies. One of the reasons that um as I say this is it's timesensitive to do this one so that it can come up on this particular Wednesday in July. So it's it's quite reasonably up to date. Um I apologize for the fact my hair is a bit of a mess. I had some minor surgery on my scalp beginning of the week and at the moment I'm not allowed to wash it.

[00:03:38]The combination of um spiky greasy hair and uh stitches means I'm my hair is doing its own really really wild and weird thing. Um, I've postponed one major interview I was going to do a couple of days ago. Um, simply for that reason, I thought I'd look a bit weird and I couldn't quite bring myself, while I was very tempted to get Michael Morgan uh, cricket cap out. Wearing a baseball cap, I know it's it's a YouTuber thing, but it didn't quite seem me. Um, yes, fine out ofdoors, but wearing one indoors just seems a bit strange. So, um, this is this is where we're going. So, apologies for that. If I look a bit odd, oddter than usual then perhaps that's we better use the comparative. Um then uh that's the reason.

[00:04:20]Um I'd also say from the start I am not a homeriic scholar. You know that is not my field. I am very much a historian classicist in the broader sense of I'm really interested in ancient history in the classical world. But the literary side of it for its own sake has never appealed to me particularly. It's not something I've studied to any real degree. um I'm aware of it, but um I'm certainly not an expert on this.

[00:04:43]There'll be other people far more qualified to talk in detail about Homer.

[00:04:48]What I'm giving you is a historian's perspective and of course primarily a Romanist, but um you know, I do some Greek stuff as well and more broadly and other periods of history. So anyway, back to the movie itself. As I say, it's entertaining. Um there are some slightly odd choices. Um, one of course that's attracted a lot of publicity is the the actress cast to play Helen and Clynestra um who doesn't actually appear in the film very much at all um but is uh African-American I presume or of um Subsahara and African Extraction. Um so it's the old colorblind casting that's been very fashionable for a few years because it isn't just her. It's quite a few Adysius's men who are all supposed to come from Ithaca and the, you know, the surrounding even smaller islands.

[00:05:35]They're a multi-thnic crew. So, you have um oh gosh, I can't remember his name.

[00:05:39]The chap from the Squid Games, the Korean um series that I watched a bit, but didn't really grab me. Uh he's one of them. Um you have people from obviously from sort of Asia, India. You have people from Africa. Um, I mean, the oddity about the whole thing is that that there's very few people that look particularly Greek in the film. They either look very Western, North European, um, or they look, uh, sort of multi-thnic from the rest of the the wider world. It's the same with the suitors. It's the same with every scene.

[00:06:10]So, it's one of those odd choices and I personally find the whole concept rather patronizing both to the audience but also to the actors involved that you are picking them on the basis of their skin color rather than their talent and you don't feel that somebody you know as big a name and a successful a director as Nolan needs to do this but that's the choice they made that's what they did you also get the suspicion and perhaps this is the the sort of the aftermath of the rings of power the Amazon series that one of the reasons for doing this is because they're not very confident about the quality of their series and then it allows them to criticize anyone who doesn't like it as a racist. Um, for me, I'm a historian, so when I see a small community where you see people from various different races represented in it, I can't stop my brain from working and I start to think, well, hang on a minute. Unless these people mix very recently, then why haven't the different communities within this one broader community intermarried? Why isn't everybody sort of broadly speaking? whatever complexion, facial shape and the like they've got to that sort of all merged into one and that then makes me think there's some sort of hidden apartite system going on and the whole thing seems more sinister. So I just find that weird wouldn't bother me at all on a stage play. I think then you see in the same way you can see a school play and it might be a boy school or a girl school where you've got boys and girls playing uh you know the opposite gender um it can still work because there's a a very human thing when you're actually in live audience and you're looking at people on stage you react to them on a film I find you want it to feel like a real world that you're watching and this to me shatters that illusion it doesn't make sense with these sorts sorts of communities. If you had, you know, your entire cast is black and you just decided that people in Bronze Age Greece look like that or were Korean or were whatever, then that would at least that would satisfy my my sense of what's logical and right. Um, but where it's a mixture that just jars. Um, and it seems very much an particularly as you often have this feeling that it's composed, you're using people rather like set dressing in that in crowd scenes, group scenes, there are always this sort of selection of different races shown. But of course, I mean, in the end, extras and things like that, they often are effectively a form of set dressing, whoever they are. So, that's rather odd. It's got an awful lot of controversy.

[00:08:36]Why they choose to do it that way? Well, that's something only they could answer.

[00:08:40]Does it help the film? I don't think so.

[00:08:43]Um, it probably hasn't helped the the actress in question playing Helen has given some unguarded or unwise comments about not liking not thinking too much of Homer and his portrayal of women, all this sort of thing, which if you're, you know, you're you're making a film based on something to trash the original source is usually unwise. It's not quite the storm you had with the the liveaction Snow White film, which not my cup of tea, so I didn't see, but you felt they were digging themselves into a hole and making things worse and worse.

[00:09:12]Um, but as I think the actress rightly said, how do you play the most beautiful woman in the world? Um, it's a difficult thing because everyone's concept of beauty will be different. I can't help wondering if um it might have been better to cast somebody better known.

[00:09:30]This might be me. I haven't seen the the lady in question before. So I it maybe that I just don't watch enough movies.

[00:09:36]Um somebody famous, the bigname movie star that you associate with glamour over a long time.

[00:09:44]I think that might might make it easier for you to buy in this idea that this person is exceptionally beautiful. But bear in mind this is Helen and of course Clyameestra that is not lorded as being quite the beauty of her sister even though this you know they're presented as twins. Um they're sisters certainly but well certainly this is all myth anyway. So um I don't know it's that maybe would help that if this was a big name and you saw it was oh so and so I've seen her in loads and loads of movies. Um, in the same way that if your hero is an actor you've seen in loads and loads of these action roles, you can accept it, which with Matt Damon, that works. You know, he he's fine as a DC. Generally speaking, I think the cast's pretty good. Um, one of the other odder choices they make is they do it in sort of colloquial.

[00:10:33]It's not American of any particular state, I don't think. Or maybe I'll be correct in that case, but it it's very sort of modern sounded contemporary American English. And you know they've highlighted things like um talking about dad and uh you know this type of it's very informal and again that might work for some people.

[00:10:56]For me I found it it sort of jarred me out of the the sense of reality of it all because it didn't feel I don't how to put it. It's almost as if that voices like that, accents like that I associate with the America and I I rather associate them almost with democracy and not with princes and palaces. Um that may not be have any logical reason for it. But that it just whereas you know there'd be no more reason to have them speaking with pucker English accents. Um and yet because we've had an aristocracy because we've been a monarchy for a long time somehow it's it's easier for me to make mental leap. That might be because I'm British.

[00:11:34]I'm minded all the time. I remember seeing a production at the RSC uh a few years back of Anthony and Cleopatra that had a racially diverse cast. Again, on stage, don't think that mattered at all.

[00:11:46]It worked because the cast was good.

[00:11:48]Less so though for me personally, they adopted a sort of eststery English, you know, that's the um uh southeastern sort of all right. Um no, I can't really do it. um that to me took away from the beauty of the language of of Shakespeare. On the other hand, I was near few rows away from a group of obvious what we call sixth formers. So that's you know 16 18 year olds um perhaps on one of their first trips to the theater certainly to see Shakespeare and they were really gripped. So it might well work for a lot of the audience if it doesn't work exactly for me. So all of these choices I you know I've heard uh interviews with the director where he says he's not sure whether or not he should have gone that way but that's what he decided to do. I found those broke me away from the the sense of reality of it that this was a world a fantasy world. It's very much it's best to view this as a fantasy film rather than trying to portray Bronze Age Greece or the world of the poem poem too too closely. you know, it's its own inspired by this, but it's got a flavor of that, but it could almost be, you know, they could be in some sci-fi or fantasy sea world and it wouldn't really matter for the story. That's probably the best way to view it than it is really set in the Aian and then the wider Mediterranean in 13th century BC or whenever you you choose to place the the Trojan War.

[00:13:17]Um, so it has um those odd bits for me and I expect for some people other people might love them and it might work.

[00:13:28]They didn't destroy the atmosphere. It still worked as a film if you just see it as a film and a story and that is still grand. That is still impressive.

[00:13:35]As I say the performances generally were good. I some of the interpretations the the way they portrayed Menaaus and Helen. um Akamelon is this mysterious rather sinister character you only ever see with his helmet on. Um more so aspects like that again didn't quite work for me. But that's because that's not how I to me the poem uh suggests that at all. That those are major divergences. This is where they're going out and they're making their story.

[00:14:06]Again, it's a movie. It is not a word for word visualization of the poem which would obviously take a lot longer. They made their choices. Some people may like them, some people may not. Um, it sort of the look of the whole thing is vaguely Greek, but with lots of the conventions of modern movies and costumeuming. So, there's a lot of trousers in the film. You know, men are going around wearing trousers because understandably, I'd be exactly the same.

[00:14:36]Most actors today don't particularly want to wear a skirt or a tunic. Um, and are less comfortable, don't move as well within that. And generally speaking, costumes do not understand the clothing styles of the past. And why should they? Uh, we're we have a very different system of the way we dress, the way we stand, the way we sit, all of these things. So, you know, you get everybody, as always of these films, they've got lots on their their wrists, all these, a lot of long sleeves, um, as well as the trousers, a lot of quite high boots. Um the armor is it's sometimes metal. It's sometimes a lot of leather that sort of vaguely has these segmented shoulder pieces that gets a bit Roman. They haven't gone it's odd because they're clearly trying to represent it in one respect as this is bronze age Greece and they bring in this sort of pragmatic thing. The reason for the war is less the abduction of Helen or the seduction of Helen, the carrying off anyway, the literal rape of Helen by Paris. um but you never see him or you know there isn't well you get flashbacks to um the Trojan War itself uh with a fairly impressive Troy but probably not as grand as you imagine it when you're you're reading either this or the Iliad um it's a fairly it's big but it's not that massive you know you have to look at it and think really would you spend 10 years outside this place it seems seems that it's not quite that formidable um but you don't really get any great detail it's presented as Aimenon wanted to control trade routes. You know, this is is at one point which I think something similar was said in the old Troy film from was it about 20 years ago? Uh the Wolf Gang Peterson one. Um which we might do a video on one day because obviously that's been out there for ages. Um so you have that pragmatic thing. The other thing there's this weird theme throughout it. There's two things. One, they go on about Zeus's law which is the law of sort of hospitality. assume that when a stranger comes to your house, to your hall, you feed them, you treat them well, and with respect just in case it's a god in human guys. Um, and that the violation of this is a a serious imbalance. And then they keep talking about people from the sea. So, this is the the sea peoples. So, they've bought in one sense into this idea of a masonian Greece, of the the sort of setting of uh Homer's story and of the the stories of the Trojan War. This goes back to uh the masonseran period when you have these large palace centers in uh parts of Greece on some of the Greek islands and that um they interact with the bigger empires like the Hittites and the Egyptians and others to beyond in the the near east. It's part of it's a more sophisticated form of civilization that you will get that when that collapses around about 1200 BC then you have the Greek dark ages there's no more literacy no more writing population seems to drop settlement size drops you have in later centuries the classical Greeks will look back at some of the monuments from the earlier period and talk about the um the walls as being so big cyclopian that they could only have been built by giants by the hands of cyclopses um you know And that's places that you've got that on the the Acropolis in Athens. There are trace of that and elsewhere. And um you know my that's very important the um the kingdom of Agamemnon uh in the Iliad and the Odyssey in those traditions of the Trojan War was not much of a place in classical Greece. Sparta is a big place where Menaaus is king and they have a cult of uh Menaaus and Helen. they develop even though the Spartans claim to be later invaders that have taken over the area. They sort of absorb the the cult and the famous uh royal couple as well. Um so you keep having this threat of all the sea peoples and people well it's just a rumor or has anyone seen them? Have you been attacked by them? And there's this sort of sense of impending doom which is then extended to oh well um this has happened because we've we've destroyed Troy and um sacked Troy and we were too brutal and we've broken the this this Zeus's law. I'm afraid I I um I didn't find the later series quite good. But I did used to enjoy Future Army, you know, the the sci-fi comedy done by the Simpsons uh team. And they had Branigan's law in this of this Zap Brangan. This this rather uh um a sort of Captain Kirk but made cowardly and obese and generally [laughter] useless uh is the the hero of the um democratic order of planets whatever it is in there. Um Branigan's law was all so that I that's my fault for picking up something else but it was pushed a little bit too far and this sense of impending doom and there's even talk our age of bronze will end and and things like this. So they've sort of placed it in reality of mine Greece without really going for the look of that at all. I mean I suppose vaguely with some of the palaces but not to any great extent. The armor there's lots of helmets that look pseudo um hoplight like um shields are an odd mixture. They do show bronze weapons, bronze axes, bronze swords though the way they use them. Um, you know, there's lots of sword fighting where you're parrying on the blade, hard blows. The impression is bronze weapons tend to be a lot of the swords are very, very light and they show clear evidence of heavy usage, of repair, of nicks on them. But, you know, really slamming them against each other is probably going to be bad for either of them. This is a type of fighting was very much about speed and subtlety rather than clanging on in best sort of Hollywood fencing style. And you know, this is Battle Wrathburn and uh Errol Flynn belting life out of their each other's swords going down the as they bend going down the staircase in Robin Hood. So, there's bits like that where there's an element of that, but it's [snorts] um it's very stylized. It really is a a sort of a loose caricature of that inspired by but it's its own look. The Trojans they have in these whitened curasses and helmets I think to make them distinct. The Greeks look very sort of dra blackish most of the color of their equipment but it means you can tell them apart you other things the ships that they have particularly the main one of Adysius is you know and I I read somewhere that they used it's a reconstructed Viking ship so and it looks like a reconstructed Viking ship but on the other hand it's a real boat that floats that sails while I'm sure a lot of the scenes were done in studio and CGI it looks pretty good um as a boat it looks like a real vessel rather than so that does give an element of a reality if not the reality of um classical Greece let alone earlier. We don't you know to reconstruct a masonian ship be quite difficult. We don't really know all of the details of that earlier period but it's um it this is definitely you look and think oh yeah that's a Viking long ship that's that's you know it just jumps out at you as soon as you see it. So there's lots of oddities like that, but again, if you accept it as its own largely mythical, largely fantastic world, there's a sort of coherence to the look of it all. Um, it's just not particularly historical. It's certainly you got nobody in the Dendra armor or anything like that or with, you know, Busk helmet or um things of this sort.

[00:22:00]It's it's much more general. There's a lot more archers around um than you get in uh the Iliad and the Odyssey.

[00:22:06]Obviously, the bow figures heavily in the Odyssey with Adysius's return and they they do that. They did that quite well. Um so, as a film, it does create its own world. There are bits where for me that world didn't quite work. Um and you know, if I have offended anybody by expressing these opinions, they are simply opinions. This is my reaction to it.

[00:22:30]I think you can go along and watch this as just an entertaining adventure movie set in a fantastic world with a Greek flavor. Um there's probably more it's closer to the the poem than I I partly expected. A lot of episodes are rather raced through. I would have want you know I rather like the uh the Polyphimas the Cyclops story and that's that's done but it's done very quickly. Uh, and I kept thinking, again, this is my scatterbrain mind of Sydney lopsides. Is it lopsides or lopsided in um the Terry Pranchet stories, one of the the beggars um from the look of the cyclops? But the lystragonians when they appear and it's all quite quick when it wipes out most of memory serves as the have about 12 ships and only one gets away. Uh he has three in this, but again that's a reasonable downscaling for practicality.

[00:23:22]Um, they look a bit sort of medieval plate armor when they appear as these giants that just hunt down and in some cases spear and sort of harpoon and eat his men. Um, you don't get all of that.

[00:23:32]You do get them just sort of smashing up ships. It's fine. Um, Cersei is rather homely. Um, not quite the impression you get from the poem. Uh, but you do have that episode. Calypso Charison. I mean, that's where she's got that glamour, even though she's a sort of beach coma type figure. the glamour of someone who is that much more famous and has played lots of these these glamour roles. Um I think that adds to it but you have you know and Hathaway as good as as Penelope um and Tom Holland as as um Tmicus. So it it's you don't get others. You get the story of Adysius and his dog. You get the the blind servant. You you don't get his father. Uh you don't get Leertis. He doesn't appear gets mentioned but he doesn't doesn't appear.

[00:24:16]There's lots they couldn't do. there's now sicker and things like that. There's lots that simply are not in there. Um it's very much a Nolan thing where you go back and forth in time. Uh lots of flashbacks and things like that. But again, the poem itself is like that. You know, it's here rather than in the Iliad that the fall of Troy is recounted. Um so, and you get it it starts and then Adysius tells his story as to what's happened to his men. So actually that I thought fitted with the flavor of the poem. So all in all it's [snorts] by no means a close adaptation and attempt to present the entire Iliad as a film and present it either as um a full sort of m fullon masonian Greek world or even as perhaps the archaic Greek world of Homer as we'll we'll talk about in a minute depending on when you date the poems. Um, it's a sort of world of its own, but it is detached from reality. And some of the aspects that they they do within that, as I say, didn't quite work for me or at least kept taking me out of the illusion that I was in this world of the film and that I could accept this as this is a world with its own rules, its own reality. You know, it's real enough for me to enjoy and to care about the characters. Um, so but even so, it's it's a good watch.

[00:25:42]You know, it's a good movie. Um, I'm sure the critics will rave about it, but the problem with with um film critics is that unless you know somebody has similar taste to your own, often something they love, you won't like, and something you like, they won't. So, it's they're not much of a I'd say the same about, you know, book reviewers. um it helps to know what this person likes and doesn't like because it's more likely to guide you as to what you would do. So for my two penith it's it's worth a go.

[00:26:12]It's worth a look. It's big. It's impressive. I think I hope it'll get more people to go and read the Odyssey.

[00:26:18]I hope it'll get more people interested in Homer, interested in ancient literature, interested in the ancient world and ancient history. And it might well do that. For others for whom it's just, you know, an entertaining few hours at the cinema, then great. That's a good thing. I, you know, I'd prefer this to yet another superhero movie, though. I'm sure there are good superhero movies, and because I have a a 12-year-old son, I will go and watch quite a few of them, and they're okay.

[00:26:41]It's just not particularly my thing. Um, it's this is closer to the sort of stuff I enjoy. This is epic. This is big. It has some historical flavor. And I realize that there is no um economic value in uh making a film just for me.

[00:27:01]So that's it for the film, but let's talk and think a bit about Homer and these two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Uh, as I say, I'm not a homeriic specialist. This is very much the impression of somebody within the the sort of broader classical ancient history community. And, you know, we all find ourselves at some stage in a a career teaching bits of Homer and talking about this. And of course, because I'm a military historian in particular, then the Iliad is fascinating from the point of view of what does it tell us about the warfare of Homer's day and age, the warfare of earlier periods, the warfare subsequently when hoplights can still feel themselves inspired by the verses of Homer um and the you know the the these the behavior of his heroes that this has a direct relevance to how they behave in Fallank Warfare. That in itself is significant.

[00:27:53]Homer is very very difficult to date. We have clear evidence that manuscripts are being set down in the sixth century BC probably earlier. Basically speaking the final form there might be some variation early. There's some sense that the final form of these both poems uh take shape under the pyistrids the tyrants of Athens in the 6th century BC. Um, and that may be, you know, there was the the sort of this accusation made that the Athenians get a bit more of a mention they had before. It's still not much in the Iliad and the uh catalog of ships.

[00:28:27]Um, because this is this is where it's happening. Uh, but that's partly a reflection of Athens developing into the cultural center that it become to the extent where when the Tomies found Alexander or develop Alexandria, they try and make its constitution in New Athens. when they have the museum, the library, it's very much bringing helenic culture, but particularly Athenian culture and trying to promote perfect that. Um I think these days the consensus is somewhere between 750 BC 650 BC for the these poems. Um some people go later, some people go earlier average of sort of around about 700 BC for them taking basically the form in which we have them. though there might be some minor changes later on. [sighs] You have clearly a long tradition of epic poetry that stretches back who knows how far. Um, traditionally even in the ancient world not much was known about Homer, but there was talk of the, you know, there was the sense that the same man was responsible for both poems. Um, but other people were not so sure. the stories of this blind poet who would sing these long long songs. They are very long. Um they're also they're formulaic in the sense that you get certain phrases particularly descriptions or praises of a place, a person, an action that are used on numerous occasions and they're used because they fit the rhythm of the line.

[00:30:04]Um and there is a sense and this tradition you get in some of these these this this style of poetry that you will have a bard equivalent who will go around and will vary the poem depending on his audience. So depending on the length of time he's got perhaps also depending on who you make the good guys, who you make the bad guys, who figures most prominently. Um that basically the names of the heroes can change or the names of the places can change to fit with with what works and is most likely to please your audience.

[00:30:32]So you have there is that one school that developed in the latter part of the 20th century that saw these very much of a product of long development where there's a great tradition of these poems about these themes that go on. There are lots of variations then eventually somebody writes down a sort of final version of one. There's clearly something in this and as people have seen the patterns, the way the language work, the way descriptions work and you know there was talk that people were discovering even in the modern era there were some these shepherds who could sort of give these great long poems at the drop of a hat because they were taking sort of set pieces and fitting them in and then they had an idea of just how to join the gaps up. I think like a lot of literary criticism to me and this shows that I'm the historian not the literary bod. Um so maybe I'm I'm being unfair. I think sometimes they overthink it and most stories fit particular patterns.

[00:31:28]You know we know what we're going to expect whether we're reading a book or watching a film that is say a romance or a western um or murder mystery. There are conventions, you know, and you get all this stuff about there only being so many plots in fiction, the hero's journey. Um, the nature of stories is that, you know, we want a clear beginning and ending. We want excitement. We want drama. We want passion. Uh, we want emotion. We want these things. So the fact that people will be telling stories and will be fitting to particular events, episodes, settings maybe shouldn't really surprise us at all because isn't that what storytelling is all about? I think to me, and this is a personal view, I do think that both the Iliad and the Odyssey suggest a single author and that he is more than simply adapting a mass of material that's already there. He is taking themes, styles, episodes, and ways of presenting this, you know, the the cliches, the tropes within stories that you'll see again, you'll see in a movie like the uh the Odyssey one, you'll see in any movie, you'll see in any book. Um how you tell, how you present things, how you describe things. So he's using all that that language in a sense um all that um stage management set pieces all of these things but actually there is the genius of an individual behind them.

[00:32:53]There is that human element. There is the thing that in for a modern example AI will never give you. You could feed all of Dickens into AI programs and they could probably if you said write me something like this of such and such a length. It would produce a story that would be vaguely coherent, but it probably wouldn't move anybody. It doesn't have that emotional heart. These poems have that and they have it very strongly. So for all the cliches, all the conventions, all the formula that trot out, there is clearly to me an author that's there, a composer perhaps is a better term.

[00:33:31]The Odyssey is generally accepted. I don't think anyone would seriously challenge this as the later of the two.

[00:33:37]Some people put it three or four decades later. Um the basis for that is a little bit shaky in terms of saying well there's different different forms of language, different types of um things described in the world that that make it later. I'm I'm not so sure about that.

[00:33:55]Um I would still see to me it strikes me as most likely these are works by one individual and the same person did both of them. I might be wrong. That's a gut instinct as much as anything. That's how I I feel it. Um, and I'm certainly not putting myself on the same level as Homer or anyone else, but the more I write, the more I I feel this that there's there's a sense of a voice there. And even though the voice and the tone of the Odyssey is different to the Iliad, it's akin. It's not so radically different that this suggests somebody else, two people. But again, that is subjective. And I might be wrong. Many would disagree with me. So, we've got a date of, let's just say for simplicity sake, around about 700 BC. Maybe more like 650, maybe a little bit earlier, maybe as early as 750.

[00:34:45]Couple of things to start off with. Very clearly, these fit into a much wider tradition. There were lots of other epic stories that are not preserved, and many of them were in poem form um similar to this. So, you know, the example before you could say with the Odyssey, it starts out with Adysius, with Penelope, with, you know, Ithaca. Um, they're waiting for um the return of, you know, is is Adysius dead?

[00:35:17]Is he not? Um, you don't have to introduce that to Story. You don't have to set the scene very quickly. You mention these names and very quickly, with minimal setting, everybody knows who they are and where they are.

[00:35:30]uh even more in the Iliad you start singing of the anger of Achilles. You don't have to explain who Achilles is.

[00:35:36]You don't have to explain who Agamemnon is. You don't have to explain who Ajax, Menaus, Adius as they pop up, Paris, Hector, all of these people. There's a broader set of stories, a broader memory, a broader tradition of a Trojan war that was supposed to have happened in the distant past by the time that the poems are written down. And you know we are talking as six [snorts] six centuries 7 centuries again depending on the date either way back in what we would call the masonian period simply because of the spectacular finds at msini and the association with Agamemnon. Um but you know the masonians didn't call themselves the masonians. Uh interestingly enough as theidities points out Homer doesn't talk about Greeks very much. Helen gets used as a as a a term a couple of times but it seems more specific. They're generally the Aayans or something else. Uh but they're not Greeks. Um very often. So people like Thusidities generally accepted that the Trojan War was historical as did most Greeks. You get a glimpse of some of these wider stories associated with it. You'll sometimes see it in scenes on vasees on other artwork.

[00:36:47]You will see it in some of the uh the plays that appear. there are other traditions that um existed and were better known then we see bits of this we don't get the whole picture so that then brings you to a question is writing about a world that he presents as a world that is in the distant past long ago and he talks about palaces he talks about armies where lots of people ride chariots and go to war in this way that doesn't seem to be the case anymore by 700 BC or as I say if we go a bit either side this is not a world of kings and princes there are some tyrants but um in the main cities are run by aristocrats or they're becoming some of them are becoming democracies of some shape or form um when the Greeks go to war there's maybe some of your wealthy people might ride in a chariot to get there and get to the battlefield but they're not fighting in the way that Homer's heroes sometimes do.

[00:37:54]When Homer describes palaces in both works, they don't really resemble the remains of the Masonian period sites that have been excavated.

[00:38:06]So he doesn't seem to know what that world was like in very specific ways.

[00:38:13]And yet he does describe buildings, places, farms, cities in considerable detail. Now whether he is describing what was familiar from his day, what these things looked like then, or whether he's describing in a sort of imagined bigger, better, more dramatic version of that, uh, that's very hard to say.

[00:38:33]And that comes to this basic problem. Is this a world that is simply historical stroke myth, stroke fantasy almost in from the author's point of view and for his audience, this is not the world in which they live. This is the how they imagined the distant past, what it was like. In the same way you could think in movies and fiction, the Middle Ages, um, you know, the again the whole sort of the whole spate of Robin Hood films we've had and that keep on coming out every now and again, uh, where you take folk tradition and turn it into something that then develops into a more coherent story with, you know, the the reappearance of Richard the Lion Hart with moments like that that become cemented into it largely because they've been fictionally represented several times and it's a good idea. It strikes as a good story.

[00:39:20]that becomes the reality of that story and the sense of sort of you know Merry England, the Middle Ages of Knights and peasants and churchmen and um in the same way you could argue the Wild West was being mythologized as it was happening but as it developed through the dime novels into the early movies into TV and movies ever since lots of conventions have appeared that make it it gives us a sort of a sense of place, time, characters that you can vary in how you present them, but essentially the audience recognizes very quickly.

[00:39:55]So, this could be a a semi- mythical, a semi- imagined world, but one that everyone's familiar with. Therefore, this is how they expected to be, and they're quite happy with that. Um, so that you have, you know, gunfighters in the Wild West, a word that wasn't really used at the time by anybody. Uh, and you have concepts like the fast draw, things like that that become a really big deal in lots of fictional portrayals. um but wasn't the way things really worked in quite the quite that way. Um the way you know the the Indians become the Native Americans get portrayed differently over different generations, but there's still a basic you can represent something and the audience knows right where we are, right? We're presenting it a different way. This is how we're showing things.

[00:40:38]We've changed who the heroes are, who the villains are. We're making it all grayer and messier. Um, but basically speaking, it's a world, even if it's a semi-imagined world, is an exaggerated caricatured version of the real thing.

[00:40:52]That could be what Homer's talking about and that everybody is aware of that. So, you've got that possibility. This is just not representing reality in his day to any great extent other than in the little details when you describe how an animal behaves. Perhaps leertes working on his farm um alongside his his slaves.

[00:41:11]Um it could be and that could explain some of the odder bits of it. So you have Adius as the prince, the ruler, king even of Ithaca, Basilos, you know, as they're all referred to, which later means king. It's used for Augustus and the emperors uh in the Roman period. Um but his father is still alive. And so how's this happened? He hasn't succeeded to his father. his father's just retired. Uh his son is not automatically inheriting. They make a big deal in the film. Um you know, Tom Holland in some of the interviews has said, um it's the last time he's going to play a boy and all this sort of thing cuz you getting on a bit. But on the other hand, Harry Kerry Jr. was playing these these sort of young kids when he was about 40 odd, I think, [snorts] just cuz he had that youthful face. Um it isn't automatic that the son inherits. The impression is there's a clear advantage in marrying Penelopey for the suitors. So that somehow that might in confer rule on them that might allow them to occupy the palace.

[00:42:13]Oddities like you have Menaaus and Agamemnon, two brothers who are kings of different cities and marry sisters. You know, it it's there's there's weird bits in here where you're thinking I don't quite know how this makes sense. Um, another way of looking at it is to see it as more historically based, but historically based either to Homer's day and age or perhaps to the day and age of 100 years ago, a few generations back.

[00:42:39]So again, as we romanticize things, think how the Victorians in particular would romanticize the um the restoration England, you know, Charles II, Neluin or um Elizabeth in England or the middle middle ages. and we do the same thing just different the things we choose to emphasize um that this actually is representing real Greek communities in archaic Greece in exaggerated forms because obviously you have mystical creatures you have monsters you have the cyclops you have the last dregonians you've got silla um you know you have the the sirens you have very direct intervention of gods and goddesses in everyday life um and you see scenes on Olympus where they, you know, they decide things um and sort of barter, well, you know, I I particularly like this human or this one's upset me.

[00:43:32]I want my revenge or I want to protect this this one that I'm fond of. Um you also have these heroes who are larger than life, stronger than real people, you know, who can lift ridiculously heavy weapons, throw vast stones and smash people's skulls in. um who can take on loads of enemies and just slaughter through a line of foes very very quickly without apparently getting tired. So you have elements of the exceptional which brings us back to the sort of wild west idea why where you will have the the John Wayne the Clint Eastwood character who can mow down all sorts of enemies and not take a scratch.

[00:44:08]Um there is that exaggeration that can work in storytelling. it seems to be something that that people like um and that we we just find satisfying, but that you have a coherent world within it that makes some sort of sense and may reflect realities of um archaic dark age Greece. Uh so you have for instance, you know, it's it's an old book now, the the world of Adysius, the Moses Finley book that tried to sort of present this as as a plausible world and associated in time. Um so within this you have this structure of an aristocratic elite um the heroes of the stories who rule and lead and have the best of things because of the way they distinguish themselves primarily first and foremost in battle.

[00:44:55]They are not simply braver and more willing to go to the front but they are more deadly. They are better killers. So it isn't just about courage and showing how brave you are. its efficiency as well. They are also universally very very good-looking. You know, this there's this great emphasis on and that's one of the things that I think is a problem for the film in that the way you take the poem literally virtually everybody all your main characters are pretty stunning in appearance whether they're Cersei, Calypso, Helen, uh Penelopey, Adius, you know, all the Achilles, Agamemnon, um everybody sort of looks good and talks well. That's the other thing. this um fluency and wisdom in your words and your judgment and the way you voice them within a council.

[00:45:45]So you have aspects that people see as perhaps more akin to the developing city states within um the Greek world that will develop in the archaic period where um at Troy particularly in the Iliad you get these meetings where the Greeks assemble to decide what to do. You know they're doing this because Achilles sulking they're suffering this plague.

[00:46:05]What do we do? How do we we deal with this? And the heroes have the most prominent role, but everybody is allowed to speak. But there are limits. You have the classic case where thirsties, you know, the the least valiant, the least capable and the ugliest man in the Greek army. You know, he's sort of bald head is starting to stick through his hair.

[00:46:24]Um, and he lays into Agamemnon, blames him for all that's going wrong. And Adesius, who's the holding the Harold staff, the sort of marshall, the the the referee of this meeting almost, um, pummels the man and pounds him and drives him away for speaking out of turn because he hasn't got the right to do that because of his status. You know, he is not one of the pro mcccoy. is not one of these front fighters. The men who go first, the distinguished heroes who bear the brunt of it, do the fighting, the killing, um, and look good and have wisdom and are respected for their past opinions, their past behavior in every respect. So, it's very much an aristocratic world. It's a world where peace and prosperity is celebrated. You have the famous scenes of um when the shield's being prepared uh by Fistus for Achilles and you have sort of contrasting scenes.

[00:47:17]You've got one of war of attacks on a city of raiding. Then you've got a city at peace, people working in the fields celebrating a festival. But interestingly in the city itself they are arbitrating in courts effectively by peaceful means but they are arbitrating the sort of the the price to pay having for a homicide. someone has killed member of another family, how do they plate that family? What do they have to give them? So there's still the sense of violence being a quite a strong possibility even there which you can see reflected in um Draco's legislation so long as well the lawgivers in Athens in the um 7th and 6th centuries BC.

[00:47:58]So you have this sense of peace and you have again very idealized view of a rural life with Leert's farm on Ithaca.

[00:48:07]Um when you see the old man working there tending vines, working with his hands that's developed because of course the ability of farmers to produce a bigger and bigger surplus is the basis for the development of the Greek cities and the development of the democracies.

[00:48:24]I'm just going to take myself a drink because uh my throat's going a bit.

[00:48:31]Ah, that's [clears throat] better.

[00:48:33]So, can you see that as as reflecting the development of farming and farms in this period that's leading to the heyday of classical Greece? This is something that um Hansen develops in his uh the other Greeks. Um there's a whole chapter on Leertes and his farm that's that's very interesting. Um, one of the difficulties is that archaeologically it's very hard to trace rural settlement. You there hasn't been enough field where there are some areas where there don't seem to be any farms and maybe everybody's living in the city and then walking out a few miles to work every day, which seems a little bit you think somebody would often stay there overnight. There'd be somebody needing to tend the animals, make sure uh and just do some of the the tasks that might occur at any hour. Um, elsewhere maybe it's a bit different. It's very hard to know without more much more field work and and field surveys all very well but ultimately it leads to excavation to really look at sites and get a general sense of how things actually work. Then you also have the military side and again a [snorts] theme I keep coming back to. It's going to be a major theme in the ancient warfare book I'm working on at the moment. Raiding is a big big deal. You have um Nester we'll talk you know the elderly the sort of wisest uh most respected slightly dodtery of the AANS at um outside Troy tells a story of a raid where you know he goes and steals cattle and they end up in fighting. You get this repeatedly. You get this sense, you know, this is where Achilles for the whole reason for the Iliad has got it's sacking another smaller settlement um has got the captive that will be taken from him. Uh you know, Briscus and this by Agamemnon. Um you have um when the you know they land and they provoke the Lonians his money because they're going and grabbing stuff which to their credit they show a little bit in the film. They do show them sacking one settlement though an abandoned settlement to take food because they're hungry and they just want to get home. Um and though you know that line of um Adesius to the shade of Agamemnon, you know, did some did you fall on some hostile shore and they killed you while you were rounding up their cattle and taking away their women. And there's there's this assumption in the same way that traders, Phoenicians, and people like that who arrive from the sea are a little bit like Vikings. They might come to sell you salted fish or woven goods or pottery or they might come to burn your house down and and take your family away and take your cattle away. You never quite know. You can't be too sure of strangers.

[00:51:04]Um, and a lot of emphasis on attacks on wall cities that ultimately that was the way to end a war was to take the city as of course they do with Troy. Uh, to what extent that reflects warfare in Mian Greece? Hard to know. Um, cities in archaic Greece start to get city walls. Not all of them immediately, but many fairly early on. And of course, you'll have the big problem in classical Greece is that nobody's very good at taking cities. At least nobody Greek is very good at um siegecraft until the Macedonians change things under Philip II and Alexander.

[00:51:39]You have battles where they're very fluid. People go to the front, retire as and when. Um but again, the battles in Homer, there's an interesting pattern in them. They start off often with these sort of sweeping panoramas of the marshalling of different bands, different companies, large numbers of chariots, large numbers of fighting men, and then they go into battle and then it very quickly focuses down as the camera will tend to in one of these things on our heroes who do their stuff. And on one individual hero who sort of goes on a killing spree and then runs up against somebody better and stops or gets tired or decides he's done enough. Um, you have [snorts] uh this this presentation that both sides basically fight the same way. The Trojans aren't different from the Greeks in the way they're doing anything, the way they're equipped, the way they fight. Um, they're just not quite as good. You know, they they tend to sort of wound more than they actually kill outright. Um, though again, they do kill plenty of Greek heroes. Um, the chariots, you have them almost as a battlefield taxi, which is the sort of thing Caesar describes talking about the ancient Britons. Um but in the masonian era is that what they were doing in that you have the contrast clearly with I think of a battle like Kardesh in the same broad period where new kingdom Egypt against the hit there are huge numbers of chariots driving around throwing up dust or if you accept the Ramsey's version it's basically just him doing everything. Um the numbers you get even in the Old Testament these talk of great squadrons of chariots. The Assyrians particularly early on the near even the near Assyrian empire will still be using large numbers of these things.

[00:53:20]They seem to be used for ar transport archers. Shooting is the main form of um combat they're doing rather than charging into them. That's not what you get. You know, somebody comes forward, jumps out, fights for a bit.

[00:53:33]Occasionally you throw a spear and usually it's the charioteer who gets hit rather than the the named and more important hero. Um but of course mainland Greece itself doesn't have a lot of this really open countryside where chariots would be great. On the other hand in some skirmishes maybe this is is how they are being used and it could enhance your status if you turn up this way and maybe scare people cuz they think well if you turn up like that you've got the time and the money to devote yourself to warfare and you've probably got better equipment as well. So maybe I do need to be careful when I'm facing you.

[00:54:06]So you have a pattern of warfare described that to some extent represents artistic um emphases in that it switches from the grand scope to the intimate of individual heroes just as a movie will do today with occasional then sweeping glances. You get these comments I mean Palibius will quote Homer when he's talking about the pelenistic pike fallank to say you know the emphasis on close formation that this is described there so he can see something from his world in this poem from centuries before there's one interesting passage where the Greeks fight better because they cooperate and that allows them to protect each other in this sort of ranked formation and they don't suffer as many injuries as the Trojans they're facing who are fighting more as individuals. So a sense of sort of group corporate fighting but generally speaking Achilles has the Meridans but we don't hear much about them once the fighting really starts it's all about him or earlier Petetrois um you get that reflected so there is a you can as Han van Hans Vanise and others have done you can present a coherent version of homeriic warfare that you can extend to how this might work practically and maybe this is what's going on in Greece in the 8th century BC perhaps even into the 7th um in some shape or form that you've got here aristocrats they're the heroes you've got warriors attached to them associated with them in their household who are a bit more practiced a bit better equipped than everybody else and you have masses who are less skilled uh but the battle depends on the few um and it's fairly fluid and there is a choice about going forward You could see this reflected in the poems of Chhateus the Spartan of the 7th century where um he's talking again about encouraging men to go forward and fight amongst the the front fighters the proccoy the you know close with the enemy but it's much more for the community. It's not about individual honor individual reputation in quite the same way. So there's a shift into these bigger communities that you'll start to see by that period. But it might be that Homer's poems reflect an earlier society and that this is something that's real and there are other you know aspects of it. the whole emphasis on hospitality.

[00:56:26]When somebody arrives, you know, um Menaaus will uh send off um Adius's son with gifts and again and again repeatedly when Adius ends up being entertained. He's given gifts.

[00:56:40]There's this sense of guests, particularly aristocratic guests, become your friends and you treat them, you lavish them with gifts, which shows your hospitality, your um wealth in a sense, and also your willingness to behave in an honorable way to people of status.

[00:56:56]And you even have the case where a Trojan and a Greek meet each other uh in the Iliad, work out before they kill each other that actually they have a family connection and extend instead of fighting, they exchange armor. Now, it's partly presented as, you know, the Greeks giving away a cheaper set of armor and getting a really good one in return. So, haha, aren't I smart? You know, aren't we smarter than these these dumb Trojans, these dumb Asiatics? Um, but you can see the element, and this is something that will of course persist well into classical Greece in that you have aristocrats that have deep connections, guest friendships with leaders and aristocrats in other cities.

[00:57:34]And this can go between Athens and Sparta, but Corinth anywhere. There will be people and they'll partly represent your your city, but they'll also represent their own interests. And you have these um people who will have interest elsewhere.

[00:57:48]There's there's elements of this old aristocratic tradition that persists a long time, which does rather suggest that it was quite real and that maybe Homer is describing something genuine from this earlier period. Ultimately, you come back to this. These are not really presented as formal histories. These are clearly epic poems to inspire.

[00:58:09]Um, on the other hand, as I said, most Greeks are accepting that there was a Trojan war, that this this was some reality, and that Homer has this immense um authority that allows him to be quoted, to be um used to justify behavior. And this will go right the way through into the Roman period. people like Cicero will will quote um Homer and other great authors to explain their own behavior, their own conduct.

[00:58:42]So it is a big deal and it even if [snorts] Homer is writing about something that is largely imagined, there are elements of of this that do seem to reflect some aspects of the world either in his day or the world a bit before his day.

[00:58:58]Probably more of that. I think it it's generally easier to portray it as representing that more than certainly any genuine memories of mine Greece. Um but perhaps there are threads. It's always very difficult. It's very hard to know. You know, the cults of Zeus, of Poseidon, of most of the Olympian gods and goddesses are attested in the Masonian period in linear B tablets and they reemerge or they're still there when we come into literacy resumes uh in the 7th century BC and we start to see Greek civilization emerging again, the cities developing, becoming stronger and Homer is part of this, a central part of the culture of all of them that unites you as being a Helen. The sense that knowing these stories, knowing these poems, knowing the events on that they talk about and the characters within them is a big big deal and that that is a sense of of it's part of the kinship almost more than the biological element. There is this strong cultural element as to who you are.

[01:00:07]So, Homer's very important. Homer tells us a lot about how Greeks thought even if he doesn't necessarily tell us about a specific events but also a very clearcut well-defined well-escribed world. It's a mixture.

[01:00:24]There are probably elements of reality though when that reality happened is harder to say but there's also exaggeration the conventions of stories within there as well. They are however well worth reading. I remember I think the first time I read any of the Odyssey um well I remember being told I don't think it was directly from it but being told stories from the Odyssey when we were quite young in school. I remember the the Cyclops particularly that's always stuck in my mind and you know Odicius telling Polyphimas my name is nobody uh so that when they blind the poor Cyclops know poor but cannibalistic Cyclops um and he's yelling out for help it's nobody is attacking me. So his friends just think, you know, the other uh inhabitants just think he's drunk. Um I remember when I was when my son was years and years ago in primary school going in and on one of their book days and trying to tell this just as a story to some of the older kids cuz I think it's it's a really good story. And then later on I remember doing it um in translation but at at O level. Um, the Odyssey I think is easier to read than the Iliad when you're younger and perhaps is an easier introduction cuz it's dramatic even though it's not a clear linear story. Um, you've got the monsters, you've got the adventures, you've got a a hero, a single hero primarily, who goes all the way through and eventually gets his revenge. The Iliad's a bit more complicated. Um, I find myself perhaps going to the Iliad more these days because of the military aspects, because the the sort of things I tend to study. Um, but you know, the Cyclops is a great story. Cersei is a great story. Siller and Kuribdis. Um, I remember as as uh bloodthirsty boys, as boys tend to be, we love the bit that the you know, the revenge when Adicius goes and kills all the suitors and the the gruesomeness of arrows smashing through teeth and jaws and uh eyeballs and generally speaking all that that violence that you get very heavily in um the Iliad in particular because obviously there's a lot more battle in the Iliad. Um, that's actually one thing to say back about the film before I finish. I'm a little bit surprised that in Britain it's been given a 15 certificate. Uh, this is much to the disappointment of my son who was hoping to see it. Um, but having watched it, there are there's a handful of rather unnecessary bits of swearing. Uh, a couple of uses three about three or four uses of the F-word for no good reason because it doesn't gel with the rest of the dialogue. um and seems unnecessary. There are there's quite a bit of fighting. There's a lot of people being killed, but I'd got the impression from interviews and things that the wounds were going to be gruesome and you know, polyphimmers might be ripping people apart. Well, you don't see a lot of this. Um it's not compared to a lot of 15 movies this day. These days, this is pretty mild. I'm quite surprised it isn't a 12 or a 12A. Um, so I don't quite know, but that again that's you never quite know on which basis they've done that. But there's not a lot of nudity. There's not a lot of, you know, this hinted at um sex, but not more than that. You don't get um a lot of the episodes that you do get in the um the poem itself. And um so that's slightly strange. I I don't quite know what to make of that and why they've done it that way. Um, so it's it's one of those odd things. So it comes back. Let's let's finish with the film. You know, I've rambled enough.

[01:03:50]There's far more we could talk about this. And as I say, the real the proper home scholars could go into far greater depth than I ever have anywhere um about this. And there is there is so much in the poems both of them. That's again like a lot of ancient sources, every time you go back, you see something new.

[01:04:09]You've not noticed before. And they are good just as stories. So if you want to read them simply on that that basis, they are very very good stories. So a little bit odd that it's got that certificate that it's it's a 15. Um don't know why because as I say, apart from those few bits of swearing that did strike me as rather unnecessary, um didn't weren't in keeping with the the general tenor of dialogue otherwise weren't particularly dramatic. Um, I think there's there's very little to um to make it disturbing. You know, again, because of something my son was doing at school, saw some of the Hunger Games films recently, I would say it's no more violent than those um uh or darker in its its idea. Um, one thing I suppose, but that's that's generally a theme. And I can understand why because it it's something that's disturbing when you see the sack of Troy and Adysius later on feeling guilty about this. Um you see the murder of a young woman um that is I think again it flashed up very quickly but I think it's Zandia the actress who's been playing Athena. um you don't there's no suggestion of rape uh of you know the atrocities and and the the abduction of women like Cassandra and the others um that would be dragged away you know the brutality of a siege of a sack of a city that is is hinted at a little bit in the Odyssey you get perhaps more of a flavor of it in the Anerid and elsewhere um but uh that's another final thing that I probably should have said in the bit when I was talking about the film. I was quite surprised even though they're presenting, you know, these monsters, these creatures, Athena is the only goddess you see. And again, given the level of publicity, photographs and appearances, she's not on screen very much, and she says very little. It's mostly about expression. There's actually much less of the goddess Athena, let alone the other Olympians in the film, than there is in the poem, which is is an interesting take. I'm surprised they didn't do more of that, but there was that rather odd BBC production where they had gods and goddesses wandering around sort of in the middle of battles of the Iliad a few years ago, sort of blessing different um heroes. I suppose it's hard to make it work maybe. Uh but you don't get I was surprised you didn't actually get any of the the transformations where uh Athena a couple of times appears in various guises and then reveals herself to Adysius. Um you don't get that. Uh so some of the sort of uh magical elements of it they don't really have. But anyway, main thing to say today is if you haven't read either of the poems for a long time, it's always worth going back and doing so. They are they remain a very good read. The Odyssey perhaps the easiest one. And the Iliad is a different type of story, but is is perhaps more more character- based in a wider group of characters uh in the sense of the decisions they make and the emphasis on personal reputation, pride, and what they should do. Uh, the Odyssey has a more straightforward adventure element about it, but nevertheless, there's, you know, there's interesting characters there as well, and certainly more women in it, or female characters if you include goddesses and nymphs and the like who have quite important and active roles in what's going on. Um, so as always, the ancient world, whether it's literature, whether it's history, it is fascinating. And that's why I do what I do, why I make these videos, and particularly why I write these books and would, you know, if I was writing these books, be reading up about this all the time anyway, for sheer pleasure and interest sake. For the film, as I said before, I think it's well worth a look.

[01:07:56]It's an entertaining film. Do not go in expecting this to be a realistic in inverted commas representation of mian Greece or archaic Greece or dark age Greece or um a very very close faithful adaptation of the poem. I guess the filmmakers would say they've got the spirit of it but it's clearly their interpretation of it. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I think it mostly works as a film, as a story. Um, and as I say, frankly, the more the merrier in terms of people making films about poems like this, about literature from the ancient world, about the ancient world, about the Greeks and the Romans and history in general and the past because it helps a lot of people to get interested. It helps to remind the wider world that this is out there. And even if many will only will stop with this and they won't bother to read anymore or find out anymore, well that's fine if they've enjoyed it from that point of view, it's absolutely fine. But it does help to encourage interest in the subject that we all care about and we all love. So I think it's it's well worth it for that. It's entertaining as a film. It's just you have to go in with the right mindset and not expect it to be anything other than somebody's interpretation. So, it's inspire it comes back to that Hollywood by I mean I saw there were a couple of adverts for the like the film Pressure which I'd like to see. Um and then another one about I think the peasants revolt or something like that where it's inspired by a true story or inspired by a book.

[01:09:34]Um usually that means you know it's been sort of waved in the general direction.

[01:09:39]This is closer than that. There are a lot worse out there. I remember one author telling me about a a crime novel he'd written that had been made into a TV movie and he said he only recognized one line of dialogue in the entire film.

[01:09:51]Everything the setting, the speech, the story had basically been changed. They just kept the title. So, you know, um Homer might not approve, but uh it's good to having the classical world brought into wider consciousness, wider culture.

[01:10:10]Again, just a reminder to people that it's out there and this is a bedrock of western culture. You know, this is the Iliad and the Odyssey are the two oldest pieces of literature from the Western world. So, you know, that makes them important in their own right and there is a reason why they have lasted as long as that and been revered to that extent because comes back to the my sense that I think this is the work of one man. uh even if written quite some interval apart there's genius behind these there is something there something special something intriguing something fascinating something deeply moving in these stories so anyway that's my take little bit out of sequence but I thought I needed something by this Wednesday otherwise it would be be far too long so next week we'll be on to the first Punic War at sea which I was going to do this week but as I said the opportunity opened up to see this movie and it seemed too good a chance to miss. So I thought let's do this and I'll post this for um day or two's time this coming Wednesday and um we'll be back to normal after that and then we've got a few things coming. A bit of variety for August. Uh but I think hopefully some some videos that I have certainly enjoyed recording and one or two that I've not yet done yet and I'm really looking forward to doing and quite a variation in coverage but um hopefully all the things that interest me. I hope that they'll also interest you. But anyway, that's it for today. my take on the Odyssey the movie and more importantly Homer and the world that Homer represents. So that's it for today. Thanks for watching.