The Odyssey, but not epic poetry

The question of adaptation has been an open one in culture since people began doing them in other media, as it were. Just like the fact that sex wasn't invented in 1968, this is not a 20th century or now 21st century phenomenon. The Odyssey, the epic poem ascribed to Homer, was most likely just a written rendition of what had been oral tradition for many years or even centuries before the point where he is acknowledged to have written it (~8th century BCE.) But legends of this sort have been the subject of books, plays, operas (one of my favorite moments in Amadeus refers to this quandary, when Wolfgang argues against constantly using the same, old subjects) and more recently, film and TV. No one is ever going to get it "right" because there is no "right." The best creators understand that this is their world and welcome to it and I'm assuming that's what motivated writer/director Christopher Nolan in the latest film adaptation of The Odyssey.

Now, right up front, one has to acknowledge that even in a three hour film, which this almost is, there's almost no way to reasonably encapsulate all 24 books of the original poem, so things are going to be left out. Nolan does follow some of the same narrative pattern of the poem by first introducing Odysseus (Matt Damon) already living with the nymph, Calypso (Charlize Theron) and trying to remember everything he went through after he and his followers left Troy. To his extreme credit, he also weaves in a few more elements that would likely have been excluded, such as the eating of the lotus flower causing Odysseus' lack of memory (a different adventure in the poem) and the inclusion of the Laestrygonians destroying most of the expedition; a moment that most have likely never heard of if they hadn't read the original story. I also appreciate that he weaves in actual history to the proceedings, as one of the concerns of the time is the encroachment of the Sea Peoples, who are cited in the historical record as the most likely primary cause of the collapse of much of civilization after the Bronze Age (~12th century BCE.) So there's enough here to make an epic story. But I'm not sure there's enough to make an epic film. The main theme that Nolan operates from is the actual desire of Odysseus to forget what he has done and what kind of person it makes him. In doing so, it ascribes a very modern perspective to a very old story. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, intrinsically. Again, this is Nolan's interpretation and the theme that he assigns to the protagonist is a very understandable and, indeed, laudable one. It's not at all in tune with the poem, given that Odysseus and his crew raid the Cicones, allies of the Trojans, on the first step of their journey home and promptly sack their town, slaughter all of the men and sail off with the town's money and all of their women to be slaves of one kind or another. This is how it was done in 750 BCE.

Nolan also focused more on the case of the suitors than the poem does. That story is prominent in the poem, but not to the extent that it's the focus around which the story revolves. We spent almost as much time with Telemachus (Tom Holland) and Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) as we did with Odysseus. I realize that's an attempt to not only give an emotional attachment for a modern audience to revolve around but also to give some agency to Penelope (Anne Hathaway) who otherwise has comparatively little in the poem, in contrast to other women like Calypso and Circe (Samantha Morton.) If Odysseus is not only trying to get home for 20 years but is in conflict with himself over whether he even wants to make that attempt, it's nice to know something about the people he's going home to. But that focus on the suitors also meant that some of the other stories were kind of given short shrift. The most notable is the encounter with the cyclops, Polyphemus. In the poem, Polyphemus speaks normally as he's eating Odysseus' men and Odysseus eventually gets him drunk to get him to talk to them as humans, rather than dinner. That's the point where he falls asleep and they blind him in order to escape. But the whole point of that encounter is that Polyphemus, as a host, violates Zeus' law which is supposed to be emblematic of the collapse of proper society and was a main theme of the film. Instead, it's just a cyclops who looks more like a mutant derivation than an entire race of them (the island on which they land in the poem is inhabited by many of them) and the whole episode becomes just a run-in with a monster which, again, minimizes it and denies another opportunity to point out one of the central themes of the story.

Another of those themes was the rejection of divinity. Unlike in the poem, Odysseus frequently questions any kind of faith in the gods. That walks hand in hand with the perspective of a man who rejects the 10-year-war and wholesale slaughter that he's just been a part of, because why would the gods bless something like that? The fact that Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter to make sure they had the favor of the winds is just reinforcement of that question. In that respect, I appreciate not only the central thrust of that idea but also that all of "the gods", with one exception, were left to appear as they were to the ancient Greeks: as forces of nature. "Zeus" was the crack of thunder. "Poseidon" was rough seas. Yes, "the gods" might have been there and Poseidon might have made it difficult for them to return because of what they'd done to Polyphemus (one of his many sons) but there was no way to verify that in the same way there's no way to verify the influence of any kind of divinity. That's what faith (or lack thereof) is and Odysseus was a man who had lost it, in more ways than one. The lone exception was Athena (Zendaya) who appears multiple times to simply ask the questions that bring the story along. I thought that was smart and it follows with Athena being one of the more human-approachable of the Olympians in many of the myths (the other one who has a significant role in the poem is Hermes, alas.) It's just too bad that it didn't transition from those elegant themes into the dialogue.

Straight up, the dialogue was weak. Most of it was boilerplate and overly obvious. If you had to fill the dialogue balloons of your average adventure story, these lines would've fit right in with little effort. I can't think of a single memorable line from the film, which is disappointing, especially considering the source material (i.e. epic poem.) Likewise, none of the performances really stood out to me except the two pig people: Leguizamo as the earnest pigherd and Morton as the witch who sees people for what they truly are. Given the opportunity to make Circe the villainess that many have presented her as over the centuries, Nolan stuck to the poem and made her a far more understandable and sympathetic character (She and Odysseus become lovers and live together for a year in the poem...) But, unfortunately, as with the rest, none of Morton's lines really stick out to deliver that. It was more about her ability to deliver through acting; again, to her credit. On a technical level, it's perhaps fortunate that none of the dialogue was that great, since a fair amount of it gets lost in the SFX noise. It might have been just a product of the sound system at the theater we were in, but I've heard other complaints about the sound mixing, as well. It's also notable that, despite the poem being replete with sex and sexual encounters, the film has none of that. That's not really surprising, as sex has never been a major driving force in Nolan's films and, again, this is his interpretation. It's just kind of funny to see such a major element of the poem become completely invisible.

In the end, it's a decent film that present an interesting moral quandary for its protagonist and one that I'd be willing to see again but one which I also think falls fairly short of most of Nolan's other achievements (Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception, even Oppenheimer.) I also appreciated some of the timing of it, not least the encounter with Scylla and Charybdis since we just finished our third chapter which revolves around namesakes of those legendary creatures. I wrote that story 15 years ago after first imagining my interpretations (ahem) of them 35 years ago because, of course, I'd read The Odyssey. I'd still recommend sitting down for three hours and watching the film, so that's my interpretation of it.

The limits of expectations

There hasn't been much traffic here lately. A combination of other activities (vacations, etc.) and a lack of compelling films at the Michigan/State Theaters has led to a similar void at this blog as currently occupies extratime.blog (which is a result of it being the off-season for Euro football.) But we have been watching new things. They've just been on the small screen. Back in the day of cable bundles, there were often complaints about how one might be paying insane fees for some channels simply to gain access to the smaller ones that you really wanted. This was frequently from people paying ESPN's fees as part of their cable bill when they weren't sports fans at all. Given the variety of my interests, I never had that issue, but still found myself bemoaning the fact that I had access to 300 channels and actually watched less than a tenth of those. The idea of splitting everything into distinct networks so that one could actually get what you were paying for was seen as the ideal transformation. Of course, now we have the (predictable) opposite problem, in that there's so much fragmentation among streaming networks and show producers that in order to see everything you'd like, you're paying basically the same amount you would have for that cable bundle, but in eight different directions, instead of just one. This was a long preamble to get around to the fact that we've engaged yet another streaming network, in the form of Apple TV+, because Tricia recently replaced her iPhone and was given three months' access to the network for free. Given that Apple is the home of such heralded shows as Ted Lasso, I was half-excited and half-cringing at the idea of paying for yet another streaming service, if we found that what was on offer was actually worthwhile. The results have been... mixed, to be diplomatic about it, so there may be no need to be concerned about another bill when our free time runs out. But let's start at the top.

Ted Lasso. This was the show that put Apple TV on the map, coming as it did during the dark days of the initial COVID lockdown in 2020 and giving people at least one ray of severe positivity in their lives. That circumstance of timing is what I would suspect is one of the main drivers of its popularity. At that time when people were actively concerned about leaving their homes or associating with their friends and relatives, it must have been awfully reassuring having Jason Sudeikis on the screen on a regular basis to remind you that there was still some sunshine in the world. And that's all well and good, except that it doesn't really replace the rather average quality of both plot and writing. The basis of the show- that the vengeful new owner of Premier League club, AFC Richmond, somehow hires a Div. II American football coach to be the club's manager in the hopes of driving it into the ground (or at least to relegation) -is essentially the plot of Major League (and, indirectly, Slapshot) so we're not really seeing anything new here. This involves completely ignoring the ridiculous media firestorm and likely outright revolt by the club's members and supporters that would accompany any such move, to say nothing of inquiries by the PL wondering why one of their clubs is seemingly sabotaging its own- and, thus, the league's -product. But let's put all that real world stuff aside, accept our absurd premise, and get down to the meat of what the show is. Or, more accurately, isn't.

The main problem I had with Ted Lasso is that it wasn't funny. It's not that it wasn't cerebrally funny or didn't really appeal to my often obscure sense of humor. Those are both difficult paths to walk and I've watched (and laughed at) more than one show that didn't really hit the nail on the head in the same way that, say, Rick and Morty does. But this show wasn't funny at all. It was really just pedestrian. Characters did obvious things with motivations planted in front of them to do so. The joke was already right there before the dialogue came from their mouths, making it akin to already having heard all the jokes even before we watched the show. Certainly, I'm probably very far from the target audience, having watched English football for 45 years and having fully acquainted myself with the George Bernard Shawisms ("Two people separated by a common language.") of the dialectical differences between the States and the mother country. It's not particularly interesting (or funny) to me to see people wondering about calling cleats "boots" and comparing them to the trunk of a car. Indeed, the only time I laughed out loud during the entire first season was when the staff were talking about other managers getting in touch in the face of Ted's obvious failures and started listing names of those who'd contacted the club: "Tony Pulis, Alan Curbishley; Harry Redknapp has called three times." Now, if you know anything about English football over the last decade-and-a-half, that line is hilarious. But it was also utterly lost on probably 99% (at least) of the American audience who were otherwise apparently intended to be amused by the "aw shucks!" approach of Sudeikis and Co.

And, of course, a lot of people were amused. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. (see above about "obscure sense of humor.") But I'm always far more interested in shows or movies that are going to make me think. I received much advice about "turning my brain off" and just being entertained by what Ted and others were doing and that's never, ever going to happen. If I'm going to spend an hour watching something, I want to get something out of it other than just having spent an hour not having to think. There has to be a story that interests me. Or at least a character that's compelling. Or even a couple lines that I'd find interesting enough to repeat or remember or even try to swipe for something I'm working on. Ted Lasso had none of that. The characters were all very obvious and mostly quite simple. The story is, as noted, reprocessed from previous efforts and/or so unrealistic as to make me think that the writers didn't even bother to research their setting. And the dialogue is simply routine. There's nothing there that's memorable outside of a an offhand joke that an extreme minority of viewers would appreciate. My reaction to the show has drawn all kinds of negative reactions from my friends; ranging from disbelief to disdain that I wasn't able to appreciate something that was universally-praised. This is not a new phenomenon (see: Titanic among many, many others.) So, yeah, it could be "just me", but it was also a really poor start for Apple TV if I tuned into their hallmark (ahem) property and came away completely detached. We watched the first season and I have no interest in pursuing it any further.

Foundation. So then we moved on to something that is actually rooted in the familiar (e.g. not an obvious outsider's take on something like English football.), in that I've read all of the novels by Isaac Asimov upon which the show is based. The problem that has followed the books around for decades in terms of trying to adapt them to other media is that they're far more Glengarry Glen Ross than Star Wars. In other words, Asimov's work was often about two people in a room holding a conversation on high-end topics (cultural, political, scientific), instead of going through events or initiating actions that tell a story about how the galactic empire is dying. There's a lot more talkin' than there is actin' and that's occasionally a difficult problem when trying to adapt said prose to a visual medium. It's not insurmountable. As GGR displays, it's quite possible to tell a great story about people talking about doing stuff, rather than actually showing them doing it. It's just a different approach and Asimov's books are cornerstones of modern science fiction for taking that approach and showing just how cerebral that kind of storytelling can be; even when not considered "hard" science fiction (e.g. sticking to the actual physical constraints of the universe and embedding those principles in the storytelling approach.) But the problem is that Asimov's rather distant relationship with most of his characters burdens the story with the problems that everyone predicted (Psychohistory!) over the many, many years of thinking about how to adapt the Foundation series to film or TV.

The first problem is that the story is huge. This is a tale that is almost required to take place over decades and centuries in order to come to its conclusion. So, unless you're willing to markedly deviate from Asimov's work and introduce things like suspended animation or time-shifting (not something I would advise unless you want to be accused of ripping off Star Trek's worst excesses), you're going to need to do one of two things: 1. Simply carry forward with multiple actors filling the roles of the books, such that few characters are seen for longer than a couple episodes, giving the audience no chance to develop familiarity and, thus, relate to them. 2. Tell your story in a non-linear fashion so that multiple, concurrent storylines are running simultaneously in "show time", even if they're at different stages in story time. They chose #2, which is clearly the wiser choice if you expect to get renewed for multiple seasons. Now, don't get me wrong. I love non-linear storytelling. Among many standout elements to Pulp Fiction, one of its strongest is that non-linear approach that sets up the story to work and then later blend together in ways that simply going from point A to point B would not have allowed. But that approach works well in a film because you're telling your whole story in two hours. I've found it to be less viable in TV series because, unless you're binge-watching the whole thing, it's quite easy for the average audience member to lose track of- and, thus, lose interest in -what's happening when you're shifting between characters, their children, and their grandchildren, all ostensibly pursuing the same goal. Having to do so much setup of those characters, their surroundings, and their motivations only adds to that potential confusion. In watching the show, I'm OK with it because I read the books and I know what's going on. I know that Tricia tuned out almost instantly, not only because of its slow pace but also because, unless she was riveted to the screen, she probably lost track of what was happening pretty quickly.

Visually, it is impressive, which is what you'd hope for given the massive scope of the story and the modern techniques we have for conveying that majesty. I've only watched the first four episodes and I've been able to appreciate what they're trying to do here. Of course, they also never fully escaped the problem that has dogged attempts at the "unfilmable" series in the past in that, in many ways, it is kinda unfilmable and they've had to make alterations to the story already that many purists would reject and which deviate not only from the narrative but from Asimov's thematic intent. The Star Bridge and its destruction? Doesn't even exist in the books. The cloned emperors? Nope. Both of those are seemingly attempts to add compelling narratives to the story (unrest in the galaxy leading to the dissolution of the empire; said unrest perhaps arising from the "same" man/men being in power for so long, but also struggling with their own preprogrammed roles) but neither are present in Asimov's work because the story he was trying to tell was about the loss of knowledge from one generation to the next and Harry Seldon's attempt to forestall that. Having a ruler who is cyclically cloned from his predecessors and is, thus, infused with their knowledge and history from birth is directly contradicting Asimov's entire premise. It's seemingly become a story of rejecting history, rather than forgetting it. The former is a great premise, too (witness Ron DeSantis' fervent attempts to almost literally whitewash history and education in the state of Florida), but it's not the story Asimov was trying to tell. But in doing so, they again haven't escaped the essential problem, but have instead simply presented another version of a slow, difficult story in a visual medium. Will it be worth it? I don't know. Like I said, I've watched four. I'm not fervently compelled to go back to it and Tricia has no interest whatsoever.

Severance. In a final attempt to see if Apple TV was going to work for us, I picked up a suggestion that came from friends on ThereWillBe.Games in the form of a dystopian version of Office Space. Now, anyone who knows me will know that I am all over dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic stories and will almost always stop to watch anything that carries one or both of those labels. I created an entire comic universe called "Dystopia" and wrote hundreds of pages of script about it so, yeah, I'm onboard for most of that stuff. Having watched the first three episodes in our first evening of trying it out, it's quite possible that the third attempt is, indeed, the charm. Tricia sat up and took notice in the first couple minutes it was on and we've both stayed fully involved in all three episodes. These are fully-formed characters, with human idiosyncrasies that they struggle with, and a premise that, while still firmly in the SF/Twilight Zone realm, isn't that far removed from the present day (in true, Twilight Zone fashion; RIP the genius that was Rod Serling.) Unlike Ted Lasso, I was instantly interested and familiar with what they were presenting. The production design (the austere, brightly-lit, maze-like corridors of the workplace; the dark and shadowy or bleak and gray depiction of home life) is excellent and the themes (the cult-like devotion to the founding CEO (at least mildly ironical in its presence on Apple TV...), the attempted division between work and home life but not for the benefit of the employees) resonate with what our world is like right now. On top of all that, the cast has multiple highlights in the form of Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, and John Turturro.

But the best work so far has been done by, appropriately, the lead, Adam Scott, as Mark S. He's the first "severed" person we meet and it's clear that he's struggling with many other issues above and beyond that from the moment we first see him, crying in his car outside Lumon Industries. His reason for being severed is a perfectly understandable one, if extreme and tragic (People are often like that.) And he provides both a perfect example of what Lumon expects their employees to be (chipper and constantly motivated and positive at the office), as well as what an actual emotional human can often endure outside (devastated by his wife's loss and his largely friendless existence.) Indeed, he's almost the case study for why Lumon would want to do this from a work-efficiency (and emotionally void) perspective, in that he's the model employee at work because the severing prevents him from bringing personal problems into the office. (Hearken back here to Gil's (Steve Martin) argument with his boss in Parenthood; the latter of whom chides Gil for constantly complaining about problems with his kids while his competitor for a partnership is always on the go ("I'm not even sure if he has kids!")) But Scott isn't alone here, as Jen Tullock does great work as his concerned sister, Devon, who nevertheless doesn't want to interfere in either Mark's grieving for his wife or his decisions as to how to handle it. Likewise, Tramell Tillman is excellent as the supervisor, Seth Milchick, who exudes an aura of chipperness and menace at all times; often simultaneously.

This is the one show among the three that instantly had me thinking: "Oh, yeah. I want to see more of this." That came from not only being interested in a story about actual, fully-formed humans, but also being interested in how those humans deal with a story that respects the viewer. This isn't simplistic like Ted Lasso or overly-burdened like Foundation. It is possible that, like many of these mystery premises, we could end up with an overly-elaborate justification for why all of this is happening (see: Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) But it's also possible that we could end up with something more along the lines of True Detective, season 1, where the essential elements of the story aren't the genre itself (in this case, SF; in TD's case, crime), but the people involved in it. It's not like there haven't been a couple missteps. Britt Lower, as Helly R., provides a dynamic personality and a much more typical reaction to the circumstances of being essentially imprisoned on the "severed" level. But that immediately led me to question why she would have been accepted into the program in the first place. Considering the amount of psychological screening that takes place in major corporate hiring practices in the real world, it seems like something as drastic as the severing process and her reaction to it would have been flagged by Lumon long before Helly underwent the procedure. She's the one flame in the otherwise tepid existence, which is a great conflict element, but still seems quite out of place at the moment.

So, that's Apple TV. I'm still not certain that we'll hold onto it, since we have multiple other services to watch (and some that should probably be turned off by now), but Severance at least provides something of a compelling argument that was otherwise lacking to that point. We'll see how it develops.