00:00:00.000Long story short, I think that I would describe Odysseus as proto-Jewish.0.61
00:00:09.840He's maybe the world's first Jew, but he's an Arian Jew, if that makes sense.
00:00:19.000He's a little bit halfway between Jacob and Esau, and he has components of both.
00:00:25.820And I'm just thinking of Schleskin's The Jewish Century, which is right there on my bookshelf. And he understands Odysseus in the same way. He's a man of twists and turns. But he's also a man who wouldn't apologize for pillaging and raping a village.
00:00:45.540and so he sort of is right there in the bronze age at the birth of all of these things but
00:00:53.920just a couple of things to remember here and we talked about how the olympians are are split
00:01:01.480on greece and troy um he is descended from hermes he is hermes plays a role in uh homer's
00:01:12.000the odyssey is you know smallish but he plays no role in nolan's film and it's very interesting
00:01:20.660when i think when they're navigating the whirlpool and um selah and charybdis they um when we have
00:01:28.700the ultimate crash of the vessel and the death of all of his men odysseus actually saves himself
00:01:35.860by grabbing onto a fig tree and the fig is a totem of Dionysus and I absolutely think that0.90
00:01:48.620there is gem if we want to call it it's sort of proto gem because obviously Judaism doesn't exist
00:01:56.480in 800 bc or thereabouts whenever this was written but much as we saw with the greeks
00:02:06.320the achaeans argives with the iliad we see the same thing in the odyssey uh with this sort of
00:02:15.500it's not over the top and it's not it's not right in your face but there's a dionysian or or hermes
00:02:25.120mercurian connection with these people vis-a-vis other civilizations and so i i think homer and the
00:02:35.000homeric hems etc i i think they they might be thought of best as proto gem or gem that hasn't
00:02:43.260been fully actualized or worked out but they are gem and i would say this in contradistinction
00:02:50.620to people who want to be like, you know, the Odyssey is our Bible, you know, it's the war
00:02:56.660cry of Aryan man or something. It's like, no, it is the epic of the first Jew. That's how I would0.90
00:03:08.480describe it. I don't say that as a criticism. It's not like it's not great. And I'll mention also
00:03:13.640one other thing real quick before I talk about Christopher Nolan's work. So this is mentioned
00:03:22.460in the book, and we also mentioned this in our course when we were reading selections from the
00:03:27.940Iliad. So during the Bronze Age collapse, there's this fascinating group called the Sea People,
00:03:37.660the people of the sea. And we know very little about them, but we know that they were
00:03:43.120catastrophically terrible and they invaded multiple lands and ransacked them and so on
00:03:51.620who were they were they roving pirates possibly were they sort of the equivalent of illegal0.99
00:03:58.880immigrants or refugees like roving bands of marauders uh wreaking havoc everywhere0.86
00:04:06.920collapsing civilizations did they cause the bronze age collapse probably not i i would say that they0.97
00:04:13.980probably were a symptom of a bronze age collapse um but one interesting theory that a few people
00:04:22.440have thrown out there and we sort of throw it out there as well in our book we're not positive about
00:04:27.500it is that the iliad is a kind of mask on the sea people and other illegal immigrant quote unquote
00:04:36.620to refugee peoples that were invading these civilizations as they were declining and collapsing0.97
00:04:41.720a thousand years before christ and um so the greeks are the sea people they arrive in black1.00
00:04:49.280ships they're at a lower level of civilization they're you know black ships in homer homeric0.98
00:04:56.600hymns the uh these are ships from crete uh basically gang raping pirates pedophiles who0.94
00:05:05.260then become priests uh but anyway they they are the bad guys and troy represents a higher0.96
00:05:14.980civilization now what do we make of all of this is it interesting that paris whose trojans stole0.61
00:05:24.160helen the hellenes the the essence of beauty of blondness etc uh and took her to civilization0.98
00:05:33.800What do we make of that? Is that a kind of twist on what I'm saying? I don't know the answer. It's no doubt worth going into. But the whole Iliad epic might be a mask because it's written hundreds of years after the Bronze Age collapse.0.92
00:05:49.680it's a sort of like mask placed on these people and much like in some civil situation where
00:05:57.820let's say the united states collapses and then we have due to climate change or whatever we have1.00
00:06:05.340all these millions of refugees from mexico and south america come in and they kind of ransack1.00
00:06:11.460the place but then sort of later on establish order and maybe they even learn the virtues of0.79
00:06:17.800america from the defeated freem who comes and speaks to them or something like this0.99
00:06:22.840200 years later we would create this epic where like the illegal immigrants were0.82
00:06:28.860like catholics or from of the west or or noble people or a founding population or something0.93
00:06:36.400so it's it's a mask on top of uh the the the notion that these are like the greeks the people
00:06:44.040we should root for something is a little bit spurious or suspicious in my mind um and nolan
00:06:52.260in his film i'm not sure he's well he sort of is addressing this so he he adds a number of things
00:07:02.460one of them is that uh penelope uh odysseus's long-suffering wife and telemachus his son
00:07:10.240they're speaking and she's like the people of the sea they're like we don't know anything about them
00:07:15.040but they're coming and they're dangerous so we need a king so it sort of adds some urgency0.50
00:07:19.420and then later on in the film there's at least a suggestion that the Greeks might be the sea people
00:07:28.440or at least they inspired the sea people that after the Greeks sacked Troy that this inspired
00:07:35.040waves of banditry and stuff like that so i i did find that uh rather interesting and that that's
00:07:42.200something that is not in the text and nolan is bringing it in but i guess overall and nolan
00:07:50.640i mean this movie was i found it very entertaining in the way that oppenheimer was not very
00:08:01.100entertaining although visually interesting in many places but was a bit of a slog and i've not
00:08:08.760re-watched oppenheimer and i probably won't re-watch oppenheimer maybe for another few years
00:08:15.020uh but i i think differently of this one it is a nolan movie it looks like a nolan movie
00:08:22.640for better and for worse i mean there's been this nolan effect that has been in hollywood
00:08:28.920since the dark night desaturate the image it's gray and brown with maybe a light blue tinge
00:08:38.900and everything's serious and sort of ultra moral as well like the dark night even though it's you
00:08:47.860know it's a dark and gritty reboot and that's true to some extent but it's remarkable how moral
00:08:54.700christopher nolan's batman is he just you know the whole i don't kill thing was sort of more
00:09:01.160honored in the breach and the observance i mean tim burton's batman would just kill people
00:09:05.720these crazy clowns and uh various villains that he would face but christopher nolan's version was
00:09:15.500you know we need to set a good example for all of gotham that they can learn that they too can be
00:09:20.460good liberals like myself it's he created something and you see that definitely in
00:09:28.540james bond movies after the dark night like skyfall inspector uh you see this even in the
00:09:36.600marvel cinematic universe they sort of adopted some of the nolan like things see a lot of nolanism
00:09:42.520in hollywood and you definitely see that here so there are a few moments where there is a
00:09:50.120a bright blue sea and you really feel like you're in the mediterranean or gnc or southern european
00:10:01.700land or islands but that's the exception to the rule it is gray and brown and it it's deadly
00:10:10.860serious and i think this is a big problem with odysseus because i mean i don't i certainly don't
00:10:17.740hate matt damon i mean i i would say that i like matt damon um but matt damon i i he's best at
00:10:27.600playing characters who are guileless and straightforward and that works in christopher
00:10:39.820nolan's odyssey but the the fact is the man of twists and turns the the world's first jew so to
00:10:48.860speak the um this trickster who like jacob out maneuvers people and someone who by the way
00:10:59.200says flatly we we went to this island and raped and pillaged and uh yeah that was fun without any0.71
00:11:08.980pang of conscience um that's not the odysseus here and matt damon he's shell-shocked from the
00:11:18.700trojan war in a somewhat moving way but is that odysseus or is this now a kind of
00:11:28.980you know white american hollywood imagining what it would be like if there were a man
00:12:05.180So basically, if you are a traveler, you will receive accommodations gladly.
00:12:14.880They'll give you food and drink, let you stay a night or two.
00:12:19.400Don't be the guests that will not leave like the suitors.
00:12:23.860But there are just rules of hospitality.
00:12:26.180And the old wives tale that justifies this is that you never know if that traveler might be a god in disguise.
00:12:35.180and this he makes and and this is an important thing about the ancient world there's no doubt
00:12:42.720but he almost makes this custom custom i would say like the scent the the centerpiece of bronze
00:12:53.260age morality and the bronze age world and there's this problem where the suitors are that so if you
00:13:02.780don't know the basic narrative of the odyssey so odysseus goes off to war he it takes him 10 you
00:13:09.320know the war takes 10 years takes another 10 to get back etc etc but um the the suitors for
00:13:16.920penelope are just staying in odysseus's house they won't leave they're threatening uh they're
00:13:25.000depleting the supplies their leeches etc etc and and odysseus kills them all at the end when he
00:13:32.420returns um but they they make it this interesting thing where it's like to kill this the suitors are0.95
00:13:42.340disobeying the spirit of zeus's law no doubt but to kill them would almost be worse and and and
00:13:47.980odysseus if he kills them would be rightly hunted by everyone but also the gift of the horse at
00:13:54.660troy was this he broke the law as well like odysseus is almost responsible for the bronze
00:14:02.400age collapse due to a declining morality i'm not even exaggerating here i think this is what
00:14:08.460christopher nolan is saying and and what he's putting forth like the trojan horse was an equally
00:14:14.700egregious more egregious breaking of zeus's law and he's guilt-ridden for it and he just sort of
00:14:25.360i don't he looks like moses and he's wearing greek armor from the fifth century but it's
00:14:35.220in the bronze age and odysseus is a moralist and so the movie is incredible
00:14:42.340and overwhelming even in the visuals and imax certainly adds to that the whole thing holds up
00:14:49.640i was definitely never bored and the movie is three hours but i was never bored uh good action
00:14:55.640characters etc uh but it's it's a christopher nolan movie it's like dark odysseus rises
00:15:05.040basically it's like the story of Bruce Wayne as opposed to Homer's Odysseus and
00:15:15.480you know there's some other things I want to add here but that's my takeaway from it
00:15:22.080it really is great though I don't I don't want to I don't want to bash it because on some level
00:15:28.800The fact that Hollywood, which is clearly in decline financially, but but also in decline in terms of relevance, is still able to make a product like this is incredible.
00:15:42.700I mean, the amount, I mean, it's written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan, but the, the amount of manpower that goes into like tightening up that script and making sure that everything works to get all these actors and all of the actors are good.
00:16:00.760i mean the the what we'll tie we can talk about woke casting later but you know all the actors
00:16:05.400are very good uh the music is overpowering uh it's all filmed on imax so it's just huge
00:16:15.720visually impressive uh uh realistic i would put that in quotes you do definitely feel like you're0.59
00:16:24.880on a boat and you might be taken in to a whirlpool i mean it's and then there's some cgi with some of
00:16:33.580the monsters like the cyclops and things like that so to as a product of corporate hollywood
00:16:41.880it is incredible and i know that's not a backhanded criticism like hollywood is still
00:16:47.300able to produce something at a grand scale that is entertaining and impressive and thoughtful
00:16:56.980and thought-provoking so i i wouldn't want to bash the movie at all but i think maybe due to
00:17:05.340the fact that christopher nolan is likely autistic that he wants to make everything literal you know
00:17:14.080like the horse has to be sinking into the beach now maybe that's a symbol in itself like a decline0.63
00:17:21.000or something like that but it seems like he just wouldn't be he was like well what if they built
00:17:27.200this giant wooden horse wouldn't it sink and oh i don't you know we need to make this real he's
00:17:31.980autistic and thus he takes everything literally and so i think what he's done is update the odyssey
00:17:41.580for a modern audience but in doing so he's evaporated odysseus's character and he's really
00:17:49.700evaporated any symbolism that is in homer's epic and he's made something that's sort of appealing
00:17:59.900to modern audiences like here's another example um search uh circe circe circe however you
00:18:10.620pronounce the witch who turns odysseus's men into pigs and and and actually lets him go visit the
00:18:17.420underworld and and things like that um she's done fine i mean i kind of wanted that character to be
00:18:26.860a little more over the top uh like you're you're a witch you sort of look like a normal woman i
00:18:33.300i don't know you're i i sort of wanted that to be scarier and also when he goes to the underworld
00:18:40.140achilles is not there so i don't know why he made that choice and he takes out some of these things
00:18:47.100like when he's they're trapped with the cyclops and and um uh odysseus tells the cyclops i'm no
00:18:53.220man what's my name i'm no man no one it's a and so when the cyclops is saying i'm being attacked
00:18:58.900by no one all of his fellow cyclopses don't come to save him he just gets rid of that fascinating
00:19:05.380line i am no one um and also with calypso now calypso basically takes um odysseus on as her
00:19:20.040gigolo so to speak i mean basically he is making love with calypso all night and he's you know
00:19:29.800eating the white lotus and going off into dreams this is also an interesting symbol
00:19:34.020which is definitely being used in that um hbo series the white lotus but he's eating the lotus
00:19:40.260flower and and drifting off and so on and she's keeping him as a a love slave she is a goddess
00:19:46.480herself and in this version she's played so also particularly with like calypso music and the
00:19:55.880adoption of this like you wanted something overwhelmingly sexy or exotic or weird in some
00:20:02.840way but it's charlise theron who's heavily botoxed and she reminds me of like an island0.90
00:20:11.780milf or something like she's some rich widow who just lives in hawaii or something like she's just0.97
00:20:19.120too when she came on screen i was like oh yeah this is 2026 like that you are a wealthy maybe
00:20:28.680slightly loose but sophisticated modern american woman like there's no there's no weirdness to
00:20:38.740nolan there's nothing that like takes you out of it or is wild he he takes everything literally
00:20:45.800and he makes it relevant to basically an american and western european upper class audience
00:20:54.000which is also why i don't think he should do a james bond movie because none of his women are
00:21:00.140sexy or dangerous or a little bit crazy he just doesn't do that everyone's moral
00:21:08.120odysseus is no longer the man of twist and turns he's a shell-shocked vietnam veteran who feels
00:21:15.200guilty about the loss of his men um penelope is a well acted i i really liked penelope's character
00:21:26.100but a bit of a boomer feminist maybe i mean i don't know the you know she's like why can't i0.94
00:21:34.060be queen i have so much experience you know i mean which is to be fair she makes a good point but
00:21:40.420it's not like she's not from an ancient world she's she's from the 20th 20th century the 21st
00:21:47.680century and calypso is an island milf i i it's it's like he due to his autism it his autism
00:21:59.180probably is his greatest strength but it doesn't allow him to explore things symbolically because
00:22:06.600he has to take everything literally it sort of stifles his creativity and so even though it is
00:22:14.960a great film it's very it's a gray film it's very gray in all senses of the word it it's just
00:22:25.300there's nothing exotic there's nothing ancient about it even though it does play to that because
00:22:33.240the only way that christopher nolan could understand the ancient world would be like
00:22:37.040what is its like overriding moral system like what is its source code oh zeus's law hospitality okay
00:22:43.460well he breaks hospitality like that's how he does things which is smart on some level but
00:22:49.680is very limiting on another level so i don't know dark odysseus rises i mean that that is maybe how
00:22:58.440i would describe it it's a great movie but it's a christopher nolan movie and it could have been
00:23:06.080a great movie with a different source material and all of the symbolism that is present in homer's
00:23:15.780epic has been defense traded so that is my critical appreciation of the odyssey but
00:23:25.300i don't know if you guys have any thoughts on this