New Film The Odyssey Brings Ancient Greek Epic to the Big Screen
The highly anticipated film The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena, hits theaters this week. The movie follows the hero's perilous journey home after the ten-year Trojan War, based on the ancient Greek poem attributed to Homer.
Homer: The Mythical Bard Behind the Epic
Homer, traditionally depicted as a blind bard from the coastal Ionia region, is one of history's most revered writers. However, historians now believe that the epic poems the Odyssey and the Iliad were composed by multiple authors over centuries as part of an oral tradition. According to legend, Homer died after failing to solve a riddle posed by fishermen's children: “What we caught we threw away; what we didn't catch we kept.” The answer was lice, and Homer reportedly died of grief.
The Bloodbath of the Original Poem
The original Odyssey is a brutal tale. Odysseus leaves Troy with a fleet of 12 ships and around 600 men. By the end, due to storms, monsters, and the crew eating the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios, only Odysseus survives to return to Ithaca. The film captures this violence, with director Christopher Nolan emphasizing practical effects over CGI.
Behind the Scenes: Practical Effects and Real Beards
Nolan shot the film entirely with IMAX cameras, using more than two million feet of film. For the Cyclops Polyphemus, voiced by Bill Irwin, Nolan built a 60-foot-tall puppet in a cave in Crete. Matt Damon grew a real beard for the 91-day shoot, which he called the “toughest” experience of his career. Nolan explained, “I’m not a big fan of wigs and fake beards. You want the physicality of real hair, so that you can put a firehose on the guy and do all the things we need him to do.”
Filming Locations and Lost Sequel
The movie was filmed in many of the same locations as the poem, including the Sicilian island of Favignana, where Odysseus barbecues goats with his men. A lost sequel to the Odyssey, called the Telegony, survives only in two lines. In it, Odysseus is accidentally killed by his son Telegonus, who then marries his own mother. Given the dark content, Nolan is unlikely to adapt that story.
