| The Odyssey | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster |
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| Directed by | Andrei Konchalovsky |
| Produced by | Nicholas Meyer Francis Ford Coppola Dyson Lovell |
| Written by | Homer Andrei Konchalovsky |
| Starring | Armand Assante Greta Scacchi Isabella Rossellini Vanessa L. Williams |
| Music by | Eduard Artemyev |
| Cinematography | Sergei Kozlov |
| Editing by | Michael Ellis |
| Distributed by | Hallmark American Zoetrope |
| Release date(s) | May 18, 1997 |
| Running time | 176 min. |
| Country |      |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Odyssey is an Emmy award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated [1] miniseries on NBC from 1997, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky who won the award for "Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or a Special". The series is based on Homer's classic The Odyssey. It was filmed in Malta and Turkey, as well as many other places around the Mediterranean Sea where the story actually took place. For its DVD release, The Odyssey has been edited into a 3-hour film.
Contents |
Plot
This is the story of "The Odyssey", about Odysseus' decade-long return from the Trojan War to his homeland of Ithaca in Greece. As well as the Odyssey, the series also shows a bit of Homer's other epic poem, the Iliad, with battles and other scenes. It also includes bits from Virgil's Aeneid, such as the scene involving the Trojan Horse.
Cast
- Armand Assante as Odysseus
- Greta Scacchi as Penelope
- Isabella Rossellini as Athena
- Vanessa L. Williams as Calypso
- Geraldine Chaplin as Euryclea
- Eric Roberts as Eurymachus
- Irene Papas as Anticlea
- Bernadette Peters as Circe
- Christopher Lee as Tiresias
- Jeroen Krabbé as Alcinous
- Nicholas Clay as Menelaus
- Vincenzo Nicoli as Agammenon
- Alan Stenson as Telemachus
- Tony Vogel as Eumaeus
- Michael J. Pollard as Aelous
- Ron Cook as Eurybates
Differences from Homer's story
- Events such as Odysseus’ encounters with the Sirens, the Laestrygonians, the Lotus Eaters, and the cattle of Helios are left out of the movie.
- The story is presented in chronological order here, whereas Homer's Odyssey actually begins in medias res, or in the middle of the tale, with the beginning of the story coming later in a flashback by Odysseus.
- In the book, Telemachus was already a few months old when Odysseus left for Troy. In the movie, Odysseus departs on the day his son is born.
- Nicholas Clay’s portrayal of Menelaus shows him having black hair. He is stated to have had red hair in the book.
- Hector challenges Achilles to fight, instead of the other way around.
- Achilles kills Hector in the midst of battle, rather than during a duel.
- Only Laocoon is eaten by the sea monster, and not his two sons.
- In both the book and the movie, Odysseus has a feud with Poseidon, who is a large factor to his delayed return home. Yet the scenes where Poseidon speaks to Odysseus about this through the waves are only in the movie.
- Odysseus originally had a fleet of twelve ships, but eventually lost all but one of them. In the movie, he has only one ship throughout.
- The men only stay in the Cyclops Polyphemus’ cave for one night, instead of two. Also, only two of them are killed, not six.
- Polyphemus’ brothers do not appear in the movie, though Polyphemus does call out to them for help.
- Odysseus never saw Aeolus's face in the waterfall in the book.
- Odysseus finds Aeolus alone, sitting on a small throne in a cave, instead of in a large palace.
- The sack of winds is cut open with a knife, instead of being untied open.
- The men do not return to Aeolus’ island in the movie.
- The scene where Odysseus finds out that the five days he spent in Circe’s palace were actually five years in the outside world isn’t in the book. In the book, they only spent one year there.
- In the book, Odysseus's mother Anticlea does not specify how she dies, only that she killed herself. In the movie, she says she commits suicide by drowning herself.
- In addition to Tiresias and his mother Anticlea, Odysseus also encountered heroes from the Trojan War, such as Achilles, Patroclus, Antilochus and Ajax, during his trip to the Kingdom of the Dead.
- In the book, the men came back to Circe's island after their trip to the underworld. They never do so in the movie.
- In the book the men only turn into pigs, whereas in the movie, they are turned into various animals.
- Penelope never tells Telemachus about what happened the day his father left in the book.
- Circe turns some of Odysseus’ men into various different animals, such as lions, monkeys, etc. in the movie. In the book, she turns them all into pigs.
- The shroud that Penelope weaves to stall the suitors is not supposed to be for Odysseus, but for Laertes, his father.
- In the book, Elpenor dies by falling of the roof of one of Circe’s houses. In the movie, he is swallowed by Charybdis .
Three of Scylla's heads as portrayed in the film. It depicts each head striking with snake-like speed and accuracy and devouring men whole.
- Scylla apparently has only three heads in the movie (although she is never fully revealed from the shadows), instead of six in the book. Likewise, only three men instead of six are eaten by her.
- In the book, Scylla lives high on a rock, and boats must steer close to the rock in the narrow strait to keep from being pulled into the whirlpool of Charybdis. In the movie, the ship enters a river through a cave with Scylla hiding inside, and at the other end of the river there is a waterfall that dumps the ship into Charybdis. This introduces a logical flaw to this part of the route, inasmuch as there's no way to survive it.
- Telemachus didn't leave Ithaca immediately after Athena persuaded him in the book.
- When Telemachus travels to Sparta to see Menelaus in the movie, he does not encounter the king's famous wife, Helen.
- Odysseus stays at Calypso’s island for only a little more than two years (5 years) in the movie. In the book, he was there for seven years.
- Odysseus didn’t have to go look in a cave for dry wood in the book.
- Much less of Odysseus’ arrival in Phaeacia is portrayed in the movie.
- Melanthe’s role has been greatly extended in the movie.
- The old dog Argos that is the first to recognize Odysseus upon his arrival is left out in the movie.
- When Euryclea encounters Odysseus, she does not reveal which of the servant girls had conspired with the suitors. The hanging of these twelve girls is also never shown.
- Antinous actually never tried to string Odysseus' bow in the book.
- Many of the suitors die differently in the finale. For instance, in the movie, Antinous is speared to the wall by Telemachus, whereas in the book, he dies from an arrow in the throat.
- No suitors in the movie survive.
- Penelope does not test Odysseus about their great rooted bed.
- The movie ends sooner than the book, by having the last scene being Odysseus and Penelope’s first encounter in twenty years.
