thetakeup: You are now entering the takeup place together when the film is over. I'm your host, Joshua Ray, and as always I'm here with my co-host, that is the managing editor of the takeup.com, Andrew Wyatt. Hello, Andrew.
Andrew: Hello, Josh. And today I w s I wanna say that you have wise eyes, Athena's eyes today.
thetakeup: I think that's the lack of sleep, but today we are discussing whether or not Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey deserves a place in the take ups canon. And then we'll have one more thing. All right, let's get this talk out of the way. Okay. How
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: did you see Christopher Nolan's Theodyssey?
Andrew: I've only seen it once, not for lack of trying. it is imp
thetakeup: What do you mean? You're allowed to only see at once.
Andrew: it is impossible to see right now in St. Louis, if unless you unless you're want to sit in the front row. Yeah. I saw
thetakeup: I'm not. You know
Andrew: so I saw it once on seventy millimeter non IMAX film.
thetakeup: So same. I saw it once. I saw it during the day. And I guess it's kind of the same here in Paris, but there are like so many. There are four hundred screens in Paris, period. Can you believe that?
Andrew: I believe it.
thetakeup: Yeah. Yeah. I'm having a great time. Anyway. so I also there is an IMAX screen, not a seventy millimeter IMAX.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: So I I don't know. I think it's a conversation that I think is worth having. I'm glad people are having conversations about intended aspect ratios as an aspect ratio truther, as my husband likes to call me.
Andrew: We're we're we're nerds about this stuff. So like seeing seeing people on social media who don't normally engage with aspect ratio geekery go go ham about it is kind of fun actually.
thetakeup: It but it's also very annoying as someone who's like fire something up on streaming and I'm like, nope, that's the wrong aspect ratio. How can you tell? I just know. I just
Andrew: Ha ha ha.
thetakeup: know. And then I'll look it up and I'll be like, yeah, I was right. It's too tight. Anyway, I you know, this feels to have that conversation. I like to kind of modular or choose your own adventure, like the way Christopher Nolan and some other filmmakers, the filmmakers who have the all the power and the money, can can be these days, how their films are getting released these days, and the kind of, you know, a bingo card approach to seeing their films and
Andrew: Well, okay, here's here's what I would say about that. I think with a a f particularly a filmmaker working on this level, with these kind of resources and this reputation for being rigorous, I don't think there's a bad way to see the Odyssey. Like I haven't personally gone to a shoebox theater and watched it in ordinary digital you know, digital projection, but I gotta can't believe it. Christopher Nolan and Hoyt van Hoytema like would just sort of slap dash a bad pan and scan version of the movie that they've labored on. So
thetakeup: No, I mean there's intention in what they're doing, right? Like it's I'm framing for both kinds of screens. You have to do that. That's something
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Stanley Kubrick did. He would frame for VHS with open mat.
Andrew: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
thetakeup: that's something I mean, one battle after another, the same. So I think
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: it's really interesting, but I don't feel like we haven't seen the Odyssey because we've seen it in a two, three, five aspect ratio. I fucking seen it. although I am interested because I like a I I tend to like a really tall picture.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: if I can get really dirty for a second, my favorite aspect ratio is 1.66 to 1. Hmm.
Andrew: Really?
thetakeup: Yeah, that is between your TV and the Academy ratio.
Andrew: Interesting.
thetakeup: Anyway, that's it, folks.
Andrew: That's your is that is that on your is that on your profile, your dating profile? The favorite aspect ratio?
thetakeup: you know what's great about that is there is a theater here in Paris that's doing Claude Chabrol retrospective and he's got
Andrew: I have noticed because I've been seeing your your your your new wave guides have been on your your letterbox.
thetakeup: Well I'm I had already I had an arrow box set that I was going through
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and watching and These are like the OG ones.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: those arrow box sets are the 90 ones with Isabella Bear. But yes, tomorrow I'm gonna go see three, and that's my Monday activity. Although I do go back to work tomorrow. I forgot. We're recording a podcast. Hi, friend. well it's so good to be reunited after these seven days, not twenty years. What'd you think of this?
Andrew: You're just straight up laying it out. What do you think of it?
thetakeup: What'd you think of it?
Andrew: I am maybe a bit cooler on it than the sort of rapturous like this is a very well-received film among both critics and audiences. Just look if you look at the scores online, everybody seems to love it, other than a small contingent of cranky critics and the usual culture war suspects. Everybody seems to like this film. I may be a bit more cooler than some of the rapturous responses I've seen, but I also feel like Nolan is one of those filmmakers who usually does grow on me. And if I see it again, if I see it in IMAX and I revisit it and I continue to think about it, I'm sure I'll come around to maybe regarding it higher. I really enjoyed
thetakeup: The rest
Andrew: it. I really enjoyed it. I really had a good time with it. I just maybe a little bit more mid tier mo nolan for me, right at least right out of the gate. But as we've seen with the prestige, maybe that that opinion can change over time, right?
thetakeup: With you in the prestige also.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
thetakeup: Because I have the kind of opposite reaction with this. I was really bowled over by it.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: i initially with the kind of warts at all approach. And I think there are some some big warts on this one. such a gross metaphor. Why'd I choose that? Like ugh. Anyway, I It's kind of dimming. It's diminishing a little bit.
Andrew: Hmm.
thetakeup: And I think you have you seen that meme of the Donny Darko therapy? It's like was it five stars or was it the grandeur of the cinema
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
thetakeup: of the cinematic experience? And I think some of that is happening with me. Like I saw it at Grand Rex Grand Rex. I don't know how
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I'd say that. which was this like palatial just gold leafed just beautiful place like little tiny lights on the ceiling that look like
Andrew: okay. Lovely.
thetakeup: stars and little fake clo like as the screens huge screen and it's an old opera house. So I was just kind of in awe of the kind of extra textual experience but the film is utterly transfixing to. but
Andrew: My my version of that extratual experience is that I saw it at a at the crappy, you know, suburban suburban Cineplex. Yeah. But
thetakeup: You see it at Ronnie's?
Andrew: it was storming, thunderstorming like crazy when we showed up to see it. And we even lost power briefly. We had like a a power surge while we were watching it. Which which
thetakeup: No. no.
Andrew: resulted in us the movie starting early. Like they lost power and they didn't show like all the previews and shit. So we went right from Lights go down to movies starting right away, which I actually really liked.
thetakeup: Well no, that's actually that's happening everywhere.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: no trailers, no commercials for Odyssey.
Andrew: Well they told us that it was supposed to have commercials and that we actually like lost lost that because of the power surge. I don't know.
thetakeup: Well lucky you. so you got even more extra time. I I just so I'm not that familiar with the Odyssey. I know a little bit of Greek mythology. I don't know where we wanna go with this.
Andrew: Mm-hmm. You didn't
thetakeup: I
Andrew: you didn't have a Greek mythology phase. Didn't we talk about that? Didn't we talk about this at your birthday this year? About
thetakeup: They tried We did, like
Andrew: how like everybody has a Greek mythology phase, but you didn't?
thetakeup: No, I didn't. And you know why? Because I didn't have like a Greek mythology movie that I loved. Like and and we had that conversation too.
Andrew: Hmm. Doesn't doesn't need a movie. It just needs you just need to have one of those illustrated books or whatever for kids. No.
thetakeup: No. Nope. That's how I work. And maybe if I had the Odyssey when I was a kid I would have gone just fucking headfriend.
Andrew: You should have watched more like Pasolini stuff when you were eight, I guess.
thetakeup: y you want me more of me. That's that's insane. but you know I have a like a baseline familiarity with
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the gods mentioned and you know Troy and yada yada yada. I so I don't really i i I don't know having a shallow well of knowledge affects your experience in this. He's of all of his films, this one is the kind of least hand holdy. And I think maybe that's because it's also
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: the least concerned with a kind of like trick, like a magic trick movie. And I and I say that as not necessarily recalling the prestige, but all of his films sort of feeling like a great reveal that's based upon
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: its kind of cleverness. And what he's doing here is so much about time and scope itself, that I don't know that much of that is required. But if you can kind of like set it up for us, what the fuck is the Odyssey?
Andrew: Well, yeah, I I tend to agree. I don't th but on the other hand, I don't think this film requires you to co go in with a deep well of either Greek generalized Greek mythology knowledge or a deep understanding of the Homeric epics and the other associated classical ancient and classical literature that feeds into them and the traditions around them. So I mean the essence of the story is sort I mean, this is one of the sort of Urtex of the Western Canon, right? So the story I think is familiar to most people. Odysseus involved in the Trojan War, as recounted in the Iliad, this is sort of the companion epic to the Iliad, which is really a war or almost sort of a post-war novel. this is sort of the homecoming homecoming novel. I'd say novel because that's how we tend to digest things, but of course these are epic spoken or sung novel. poems, right? Part of an ancient epic poetry tradition that would have been recounted orally by singers whose specific job was to memorize these and even do like improvisation, but over time sort of things become canonized and eventually they become written down. So Odysseus is the king of an island called Ithaca. It's not clear if this has a correspondence to the real Ith Ithaca off the island of Cephalonia. It probably isn't I think it's worth pointing out that even though this film is very grounded compared to other more fantastical retellings of this material, that Nolan definitely is working in what I would call sort of literary air. This is not a specific place and time. This is something in the distant past. And the people who are hung up on the historiosity of it are hung up on its faithfulness to the to the quote unquote real story are Missing the forest for the trees. This is this is something
thetakeup: Missing the the point entirely.
Andrew: else. This isn't even the past. There's a connection to our reality through this thematic through line that we're supposed that we can recognize is as deep into history and deep into myth mythological twilight as we are in this movie. There are these thematic through lines, but we're really just in another place. Like the geography doesn't make sense, and that's the that's part of the point, right? Is the geography doesn't make sense.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: but Odysseus is is trying to get better.
thetakeup: It it feels like a kind of like if a a fable in the way that Lord of the Rings and Middle-earth is a f a fable, like it's it's it's really tangible to us because it's rooted in parts of our reality, but we don't
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: know the time, the place. It's something else, but it is our kind of existence. And
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: By the end of the film, and and I want to point out Ethan Tarantella, his piece I thought was really well reasoned and well written and and a great piece and and that he really to the tick
Andrew: Yeah, not s strong piece strong piece and take up. The takeup dot com
thetakeup: up dot com that he really understood what Nolan was up to in this, which I think we can get into in in you know in a little bit. but it is a a political parable. as he sees it. Is that kind of is that a part of the Iliad or the Odyssey originally? or is he sort of like massaging it to be
Andrew: Well, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Because I do think this is a very modern adapt adaptation for modern
thetakeup: Mm.
Andrew: audiences. And the classicist has already sort of come out of the woodwork and critiqued that. As somebody who's not a classicist by profession or in or hobbyist, that doesn't bother me so much. But what do you mean when you say political?
thetakeup: I'm talking about the very kind of specific, like in time's parable that it is. It's like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: we've come to the point where Zeus, the law of Zeus is completely thrown out the window. There
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: is no like courtesy among men, there is no kind of like time or place that should be before us. There's the it's it's It seems very in the same way that one battle after another was about the now, but like kind of just swimming
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: in it. It seems the same way to me. And
Andrew: I think it's interesting that the thing that came to my mind when I was sort of grappling with that placement of it as a kind of proto apocalyptic story about about a civilization in its in its waning days, the film that reminded me of is the original Mad Max.
thetakeup: Yeah, no, I think this is an interesting hallmark because it's the sick but it's approaching it. Yeah,
Andrew: It's not quite post apocalyptic, it's like n nascent nascent apocalypse, yeah.
thetakeup: yeah. It's like it's it's happened. Like we're watching it. And the there's a kind of build-up and
Andrew: Well to answer let me answer your question.
thetakeup: and rhythm to it too that feels that way. That when we were talking about the very kind of montagey filmmaking that he's lean in leaned into late as of late, there's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: a kind of like power this kind of rush to that kind of realization.
Andrew: Well, some of that is Jennifer Lame's editing and that score.
thetakeup: the score is just it it's it's probably one of the most incredible parts. You know, if anything I'm walking out of their feeling I'm feeling from that.
Andrew: Vibrating in that, especially in that final the climactic sequence, I think I would do the whole theater I could feel vibrating. So but to answer your question, I mean, yes, this is putting a very modern, I'm not a scholar of antiquities or anything, but to me, this strikes me as a very modern interpretation, but not entirely outside like later historians and writer. Herodotus would, you know, would have sort of probably liked this version of it in the sense that he definitely had this idea that the History was divisible into different ages, and that there were ages of fall and decline, and r and then he he
thetakeup: yeah.
Andrew: pinned the fall of Troy as a very important moment in the development of Mediterranean civilization and and one that presaged a bad period that was going to come. Herodotus, I don't know that he would say that it was meditated by the gods or by man or whatever, but it it's not I guess it's not it's a very modern perspective, but it's not completely outside. A sort of ancient framework for how this time was viewed. And there's some historiosity,
thetakeup: I don't seem to
Andrew: there's some historiosity of that this film. The part that really made me kind of like the history geek in me stand up and do the Leo pointing meme was like when they started to talk about the Bronze Age, they didn't use it in these terms, but they talked about the late Brange Age's collapse and the marauding of the sea peoples, which isn't like every history geek in the audience was like, ooh, I know what they're talking about. and that Bringing that historical aspect into it, I think, is another way that it creates this thread that leads back to our present day. Because he's not just saying, while the the tone and mood is definitely proto apocalyptic, ancient twilight of history, it also has that thread connecting it. They're saying things, the characters are saying things that are recognizable to modern historians.
thetakeup: You know, these stories are evergreen. That's the thing. That's Shakespeare's stories are evergreen. They should be instructing us. However, that's the you know, the ultimate folly of man is that we don't pay the fuck attention to the stories we keep telling each other. But I think the
Andrew: No, I mean my my overall impression is that I don't mind the modern adaptational choices to it. There's a lot of people who are nitpicking it to death already, you know, just a couple weeks in, what he left out and didn't leave, how he changed the characterization of Odysseus and blah blah blah. I I don't none of that really bothers me. Does the film does does the film work on its own terms or not? Yeah.
thetakeup: Whether it's whether horny enough whether it's horny enough.
Andrew: kind of.
thetakeup: does does that one get you? Look, okay. I'm He tried to get horny in Oppenheimer and and fell flat on his face. I don't want sex from my Christopher Nolan movies. Like, I don't think that man understands well clearly he does. He has children.
Andrew: I like I liked the bits. It is not a particularly horny film. I do l like the bit I think Damon and Hathaway have some really good chemistry, particularly in those flashback scenes. Yeah.
thetakeup: Sexy. There's there's a lot of sexiness carried from the actors, I think.
Andrew: There's something earthy and believable about seeing Odysseus and Penelope in that bed before he leaves for the war, sort of tangled up in the sheets. I was just thinking like, wait, did they just do it or are they about to do it? I'm not sure. I'm not I'm not sure. It's a don't look now question, right?
thetakeup: Who knows, right? Christopher Nolan, he doesn't know. He's like, I don't know, like roll around, I guess. But but I I like that it goes up to that point because and and part of what you're talking about in bringing it to this kind of hum human level.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And thinking about the representation of all of the more fantastical elements here,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: they're so so much more grounded than they could have been or have been in in I don't know, like y skeletons like Jason and the Argonauts or something like that, you know?
Andrew: Well, there's a there was a nineteen ninety seven television miniseries with Armand DeSante w that where they actually it was a terri one of those terrible hardmark channel miniseries from the nineties. Yeah. Where they actually do literalize all the fantastical elements and make it very make it very
thetakeup: my god. No, I remember this. Yeah.
Andrew: Clash of the Titans, yeah.
thetakeup: And I mean to to kind of in case you haven't seen it and you're listening to this podcast, but the few people who listen who haven't seen it, like I'm just
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: gonna listen to them talk about it, whatever. anyway, the way that he makes his fantastical things practical is think about the way. and I d I don't know that this is canon, but the way the Cyclops is like is like kind of malformed. His the reason that
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: he has a single eye is that the growth just did not have like it's a genetic mal malformation. And well of course also he's like what 30 times
Andrew: Well the cyclops, yeah, there is no canon here. We don't really know what the cyclops sh quote unquote should look like. I like that interpretation. It it is worth pointing out though the cyclopses are there's at least two different races of cyclopses in Greek mythology. The one that Polyphemus represents, but is an
thetakeup: Stop.
Andrew: actu is an actual race, but they tend to be, as they're portrayed here and in the original poem, they tend to be shepherds, right? But yeah, I dunno
thetakeup: Yeah, that makes sense.
Andrew: We only see the one. So in then in the original poem, he actually Polyphemus actually goes and like s tattles on Odysseus and his men to the other Cyclopses. And we don't get that. Here he's presented as more of a unique creature. But I like the presentation. It's very cathanic in the mythological sense of the way that it looks like a Goya paint
thetakeup: And that's Doug Jones, right?
Andrew: the whole sequence looks like a fucking Goya painting when they're in the cave with that firelight. Beautiful.
thetakeup: It's it's Doug Jones, right?
Andrew: No, it's Bill Irwin, the great clown the great
thetakeup: Bill Irwin, Bill
Andrew: theatric I mean he multi talented dude, but I know him as a c a clown. Yeah.
thetakeup: Irwin, my god. Well, you could see how I could get them together. Yeah. Bill Irwin's so great.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: my god. Rachel getting married. The plate.
Andrew: Yeah. I'm a parrot, so I know him as Mr Noodle from the Elmo shorts.
thetakeup: Incredible. What range this man. You know, if this film doesn't make it into the canon,
Andrew: All right. He's great.
thetakeup: Mr. Irwin, you are in the canon. If not just for the plate and the dishwasher. my god. Anyway.
Andrew: But I kind of I kind of dropped my description. So for those, again, for those people who handful of people who may not have seen it, you know, this is the story of Odysseus's travels through the sort of fantastical series of misadventures and trials and tribulations, this sort of travelogue of strange magical islands he visits and to the border very borders of hell itself. But sort of the root the quote unquote real story, we would might call it a B plot in a different kind of movie, but in some ways it really is the A-plot. What's happening on the island of Ithaca while Odysseus is gone. It's
thetakeup: You can
Andrew: the struggle for what's that?
thetakeup: Yeah I yeah, I think of the it as a kind of framing device almost, like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the the the political maneuvering that's happening or or Penelope's.
Andrew: Yeah, the first four books of the Odyssey are typically referred to as the Telemachi, meaning that they are the stories of Telemachus' perspective, not Odysseus's perspective,
thetakeup: Mm.
Andrew: because he's interested in what what's happened to his dad, and he goes out, sails around trying to g get word of him. but yeah, the the drama that's unfolding in the court at Ithaca, where Penelope is waiting, right? And she's got these this legion. I think the in the original poem it's specifically a hundred and eight suitors who come and For 10 years, 20 years now, she they've been feasting and using up the resources of the kingdom. I mean, it's worth pointing out that the the centrality of the palace in Ithaca in this story is not just about, kind of the Game of Thrones thing where we're telling the stories of kings and their maneuverings. The entire like Greek world, they wouldn't even have called themselves Greeks at this time. But the entire Mycenae civilization. was built around palaces, was built around the palaces like the fundamental unit, what we would probably think of as like closer to a manor house in European feudalism later. So the fact that these suitors are here and sucking up all the resources in the palace with their constant feasting and boasting and gameship and using the women of Ithaca and just making general menaces of themselves, there is an element of that that is taken up later in mythological traditions of the idea of the king, the king who is asleep or gone. And while the king is gone or asleep, the kingdom falls into disarray itself. Like the actual island becomes a wasteland, the crops wither on the vine and think bad thing the springs dry up. That's a very potent recurring idea in these mythologies.
thetakeup: But what you end up getting is like a narrative remix, as I understand it, of of the Odyssey in a really interesting way of like little nesting dolls of the stories. And for a filmmaker, yeah. For a filmmaker
Andrew: He's he's picking and choosing. He's picking and choosing, yeah.
thetakeup: who's interested in time, like when when we first saw like a teaser trailer and we knew Christopher Nolan was doing this, we're like, here he is again, talking about time.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: but It's really interesting the way he's sort of remixed and like expanded and condensed and but where he chooses to s to drop in certain elements or certain passages is very
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: interesting in the scope of the the entire film because it is a film, it does have to have forward momentum, but what you're you know, if you're sticking with Tom Holland's character for the first 30 minutes, and then suddenly he we watch like 10 more chapters of
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: Ulysses and you know it just becomes something else. But the way Chris Nolan has done it and and he's use utilizing all his resources, which is essentially the the world of cinema's resources, like everything. This is the man right now. To yeah, IMAX cameras.
Andrew: Onloca on location shooting, you know. Yeah.
thetakeup: in every single shot, which is absolutely insane. You know, the the the the measures that you have to take in order to be able to shoot IMAX because it is a a massive machine that can only hold so much film.
Andrew: he's making I mean he's making concessions. There's kinds of shots that he simply can't do right now, at least under curr
thetakeup: Absolutely.
Andrew: with current technology, using with because he committed to these cameras, the film, like as much as we view it in him as a filmmaker who just sort of operates without constraints, the whole film is constrained by that specific decision to use IMAX cameras.
thetakeup: And for that, this film is all the better. And I feel like a lot of the kind of weightless freedom of something like Inception bears out in really like, that's really cool but meaningless
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: set pieces. Instead, in this, the constraints bring it so like literally weighted, literally grounded that. The the Hades sequence, for instance,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the the the absolute zenith of creativity within limitations, I see
Andrew: Shot in Icel shot in Iceland, I believe. And it kinda and it once you know that you can you can't unsee it.
thetakeup: And w who's the the the kind of king figure that we're following the you know
Andrew: Agamemn Agamemnon?
thetakeup: Agamemnon. played by Benny Safety. Okay, choices. w we got
Andrew: Yeah. It's he it's 'cause the hair because he doesn't have to show his face, he has those beautiful Greek curls.
thetakeup: I mean, essentially you really only get the back of his head a and
Andrew: Okay, let me say something about that. Let me say something about that. Because when I first saw that first poster, and at the time we didn't even know what we were looking at. We just saw this sort of stereotypical Greek helmet with the plume, and then the golden sp vertebrae coming down the back. I was like,
thetakeup: Spinal cord with the vertebrate, yeah.
Andrew: what the fuck is that? That doesn't look like anything historical. That's stupid. I don't like my and my inner history geek was just like, that's dumb looking. And like, why is Odysseus wearing that? Okay, first of all, we find out that's really Agamemnon. In his fucking Darth Vader ass getup that he's he's giving he's wearing. But the imagery of that becomes so important. Like I shouldn't one of these things I should just learn to trust Christopher Nolan at some point. First, I say, you know, we get the contextless meme photo and we laugh at it and snicker at it. But then in the context of the film, that's what Odysseus sees. He doesn't see his king's eyes. He's a follower, he's a lieutenant
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: who is following. Death he's following fucking death and the the memento mori of that, the v golden spinal column right in front of his eyeline as he's following this king into ruin. Great, great shit. I love it.
thetakeup: It yeah, it's really it's really good and it means a lot once you get to that Hades sequence and Agamemnon is is on roller skates or something. I is
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: floating, is is without feet. And that entire sequence I think is one of the most kind of more breathtaking things I've seen out of Hollywood recently because because it it it does feel so grounded and he really and his editor and everyone lets you kind of rest in that and you wonder how will he visualize it and how do you visualize Hades? Fire, right?
Andrew: Technically it's not Hades, it's Erebus.
thetakeup: it's the my god, Andrew. Shut the f my god.
Andrew: Sorry to be myth mythological, actually. Well, it's important.
thetakeup: gate of Hades or whatever. Like what
Andrew: to the details, the tactile aspects of it are what is important. That blood in the pool of like volcanic soil, how gross and grotty everything looks, yeah.
thetakeup: It's incredible. It is incredible. And I mean, it reminded me of it to, you know, where I was talking about David Lynch, but if you watch like behind the scenes of of Twin Peaks the Return, which is like an eight hours thing on the Blu-rays, which
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: is amazing, you just see like David Lynch digging in dirt a lot. And it's like the same kind of like tactile stuff that I mean, there's a lot of digital stuff here. I mean, you can't like you can kind of see with the Cyclops that there's digital, but It's it's it's to make it seamless, and I understand that, but a lot of it is so kind of it the w weighted the weight of the world is it feels
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: so necessary. And I compare it to things that even Hollywood films that I've liked of the past year, something like Superman with its terrible CGI dog, and and and and the kind of like, you know, just Figures flying in the air and fighting each other, and the absolute kind of zeros and ones of that, and how it feels like nothing, where this actually feels like there's something. Film is physical, like, and it is a kind of like scientific reaction that's happening in your
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: head. And once you kind of like make it out of the physical world, it it just feels so much more. It feels like s something, you know, instead of feeling like nothing, which is what a lot of films feel like.
Andrew: I mean that I really like that Erebus I really like the Erebus sequence. I really like the way that they turned Circe's whole deal into kind of a body horror thing was kind of lovely.
thetakeup: my god.
Andrew: Samantha Morton never misses though, right? You know?
thetakeup: Well, this is the thing that last week you wanted to bring up Terence Malik and I was like because
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: a lot of this it it does feel Malikkian in that it is interested in the kind of grains of wheat, as I'll call it, like the natural world. But I think the farther I get away from it, I'm kind of losing those textures and the things that are sticking out to me. Are the more nolany pieces, and that's particularly
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: in the beginning and particularly at the end, and that's when people are talking. And the with the same thing with Malik is like when people are talking, sometimes things and they have the opposite languages. Malik's being poetic, and and interestingly enough, for this, Nolan's being the farthest away from. poetry.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I don't know if it would be better suited to actors who can handle it. I think there are some in here who fare better, particularly Robert Pattinson, who does this like conniving sniveling.
Andrew: do you know what I read to just today? That Pattinson
thetakeup: What, why, but.
Andrew: studied the the the performance he studied for Antoninaeus was James Woods in Casino. I knew you would love that.
thetakeup: my god, I do love that so much. my god.
Andrew: Just an evidently hateable, like he's like, I gotta make this guy as hateable as possible. Which isn't which isn't
thetakeup: The nastiest man, the nastiest man.
Andrew: not every version of of that character has been like that in interpretations, but Pattinson really leaned into, okay, I'm gonna make him really like just cowardly and awful and obnoxious at ever like every time he has the opportunity to open his mouth and redeem himself, he fucking doesn't. So
thetakeup: And I think Anne Hathaway you know, you know how I am. I think she's just
Andrew: She's great in this. She's great in this.
thetakeup: kind of incredible. She he seems to I think one of her best performances is Selena Kyle and Dark Knight Rises. I'm not joking.
Andrew: She's never in all three of her known performances, I think she's very strong. So she must have something she's an
thetakeup: What is
Andrew: interstellar too. She's great at Interstellar.
thetakeup: You know, I'm sorry to make anyone mad. I always forget about Interstellar. And then I look online and there's you guys talking about it. So
Andrew: Okay, so so here's the thing. I'm sure that Anne Hathaway, as a forty-something modern Hollywood actress, has had a little work done. But I am so glad she hasn't Botoxed the shit out of her forehead because her worry
thetakeup: Andrew.
Andrew: lines in this movie are like their own character. I fucking love it.
thetakeup: I I want to have this conversation. Do you know that when that trailer first came out and there were images of Anne Hathaway, the whole like acting isn't as good because people everyone has Botox now? Conversation started because of shots of Anne Hathaway.
Andrew: That's crazy to me because the thing I loved about her is how the the things her face is doing in this in this movie are great.
thetakeup: There's sh like everyone in this feels so unvarnished. Charlize Theron,
Andrew: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Samantha Morton, you know, I'm bringing up all the women, but Matt Damon too. And you know, it Matt Damon's like the structure of his face, he's always gonna look like a little boy, but his skin, like it is aging. I don't know,
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: but also like Matt Damon, like fuck. Popeye's had his spinach. Daddy.
Andrew: I really liked him. I thought he was very strong in this in a way I wasn't necessarily expecting. So who do you feel like are the weak leg wings? Le weak link.
thetakeup: Tom Holland. Tom Holland has a kind of like naivete or innocence to him, but it doesn't kind of turn at any point, and I just don't think you know, it might I was thinking about this, it might be why does he need to have an American accent? There's a choice made there.
Andrew: I guess just consist. Yeah, everybody just makes the consistency. It's not the accent work. I just don't think he's as strong. I think his one scene that I really enjoyed is actually like a reaction scene where he's listening to the King of Sparta Melanaeus, played by John Berthall, tell the
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: story of t tell at least version one of the of the Trojan horse story. And watching Holland's reaction to it, I think is really s he he's he's playing it very well and not as like movie acting movie movie listening. He's playing it as somebody who genuinely is hanging on this guy's words because the guy has possible word about his dad that might give some hint or thread about what Odysseus's fate has been.
thetakeup: Well, and I'm glad that you brought that up. And I wanna get to more performances because this movie's so stacked and there's one
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: performance I really want to talk about, and you know
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: who it is. We've already talked about her. And but when you get to version two of it and the film sort of reveals ultimately what it's been about and why,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: you know, Zinde is Athena is
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: is the way she is, which I did not know. I I don't know if that
Andrew: Technically that's the third glimpse we get, the final clomactic reveals. Because if you count depends on
thetakeup: Of what?
Andrew: whether you count the b the opening sequences where we see the horse and we see the Trojans and Sanan's death and the we see the Trojans riding up to get it.
thetakeup: Sure. I'm talking about the last piece where it's revealed
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: that you know, the kind of ultimate like anti war sentiment
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: or kind of anti godlessness that it ends up in. I I thought I d in a typical like spectacle, that's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: not a scene that you get. Is the whole point is that you would see some grand kind of battle. But this is, you know, what you're seeing is an actual like general who's totally like in a kind of fugue state as he accomplishes his goal and like has
Andrew: Mm-hmm. And it's ten years of pent up hunger and coldness and rage and loneliness and homesickness and frustration
thetakeup: And it
Andrew: from being on that beach, from being outside the walls, just comes pouring out in that sort of orgy of sacking and looting and rape and violence and revenge.
thetakeup: And and ultimately i it's just kind of his reactions like, for what?
Andrew: I wish they'd almost gone a little harder in that harder in that direction.
thetakeup: Yeah, I mean I c I get that. I think there's a lot of concessions made and I thought about the American accent thing too. and in particular, Nolan's h kind of dual edge of wanting to be a populist but also having particular hang-ups. And that is in sound. So in trying to be understood, like an American English accent is is better understood overall across the globe than like a British accent is in English. Does that make sense? And so like he makes a lot of choice. Well,
Andrew: So it's a almost a marketing concession.
thetakeup: I wouldn't even call it marketing. It's like He's Christopher Nolan is making films for the globe, and his kind of like common language, he's wanting it to translate to the maximum amount of people in a I think I want to share my message. I want to tell my story in a in a kind of Odyssey way, right?
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: So I think there's something interesting there that's happening in the kind of accent where in the language and the kind of concessions that he's making in choices of of representation of of violence. I I
Andrew: Yeah, he's absolutely he's absolutely making this palatable again through adaptational choices, making this palatable to a widest audience as possible, while also trying to like thread the needle of can we present these somewhat tricky themes to that same sort of mass market audience? I mean it's worth pointing out that the the the poem itself is not typically understood to be in vernacular. It's meant to be a literary poem in some respects, so it is not the language that the Greeks Of the 12th century or the 8th century or the even the 4th century BCE would have been speaking, it would they would have recognized it as according to my understanding as a literary style. So Nolan specifically choosing to put it in an American-accented modern vernacular, I think is a definite choice. It's a strong adaptational choice. But Nolan has also talked about the influence of Emily Wilson's 2017
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: translation. And her specific decision to keep the meter but modernize the language and avoid avoid using flowery, unnecessary flowery language to hit her like rhyming and meter goals. She wanted to sort of make it as spare and understandable as possible. And I I get, and as much as he's changed things from the original text, I feel like the spirit of that idea is one of the things he's going for, to make it as accessible as possible.
thetakeup: That Emily Wilson translation that we talked we talked about it in her Iliad Yeah
Andrew: Yeah, I mentioned it on the pod a couple of weeks ago, yeah.
thetakeup: I can't find it anywhere here.
Andrew: I mean props to her. She's getting she's getting her book, which was a big hit in two thousand seventeen, but it's now sold out again. Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: Yeah, I remember people talking about it then and then the Iliad and I just can't find it anywhere. it's on
Andrew: So let's talk about some other adaptational choices that that Nolan makes. he leaves out some islands and he changes some other islands around and changes the order of events. Although there is there is a overall pretty close fidelity to the sequ the the islands that he does show, the encounters that he does show, he kind of keeps in the same order. Although it's scrambled by the chronology nonsense that he always does, which is also the case in the poem. I should say the poem is almost entirely told in flashback. People recounting things that have already happened. the voice, there is some sort of third, third party omniscient voice in the poem. But most of the poem is told by people, by characters talking. It's an expositional poem where people say, Here's what happened. Let me tell you the story. No, absolutely not. No.
thetakeup: So that's not his invention. That is in the text.
Andrew: Yeah. Absolutely not. So that that is one way in which the Odyssey is oddly a a pretty spot on book for Christopher Nolan of all people to adapt because it plays with time and narration and voiceover in the same way that he loves doing. So I can initially when I heard he was adapting this, I'm like, is that a really good fit for, you know, for work and director? But the more I started to think about it, and then after having seen it, I get it. Like I understand why he was attracted to it and why it sort of fits in his wheelhouse in a sort of maybe unexpected way. But he makes some choices. he plucks some things from other versions. He's plucked some a few things from the Aliad. He's being he's mainly plu plucking from the Aeneid, which is sort of the Roman, the Roman or Latin reconfiguration, retelling of the post-Trojan War story from a more Trojan sympathetic standpoint, where the Greeks are the enemies. And so, like some elements. Some there's some of that tonally and thematically, but also just some elements like Cinnon is not in the is not in the Odyssey or the Iliad.
thetakeup: It is Sinon again.
Andrew: Elliot Page's character. The the the soldier
thetakeup: Yes.
Andrew: that they sacrifice basically to leave the horse with the Trojans. and I think I'm not sure that it has any basis in literature or mythology, but I think the whole thing or connecting it back to Antoninaeus and the idea of the draft lots that
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: That that Agamemnon sort of puts out the call and all the kings of all the different palaces have to put up a certain number of able-bodied men, right? I think that is Noan's invention, is connecting Sinon's sacrifice
thetakeup: That
Andrew: at the horse to
thetakeup: That is such a script lesson. It is such
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: a script thing to do is to plant the seed and let
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: it grow. And I think it the it really plays out beautifully, especially once it's returned to Robert Pattinson's character.
Andrew: Well, and that's an inception thing too, the token, right? We have there's two tokens in this movie. Antinaeus' token, the lot that he avo he's weasel out of, and then the Athena pin that becomes the way in which Odysseus is recognized. Starts to strain believability. Then twenty years
thetakeup: Trying.
Andrew: of war and travel and he never lost that pin. Okay.
thetakeup: Keeps both of keeps both of the very similar things hangs on to them.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: So okay, Samantha Morton plays Circe.
Andrew: Yeah. Who we always love. Who we always love.
thetakeup: She can just do she can turn a film fucking inside out in one scene. Did you ever
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: see she said about the New York Times reporters and then one
Andrew: Yeah, and she has that one Barner Burner scene.
thetakeup: barn burning scene? And well, it's not even like a barn burner, like, but it's just her.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And I was so I knew she was in this because she's doing a lot of press for it. Two and it's Samantha Morton, and it is just one of the Lois Smith. speaking of Samantha Morton, my
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: favorite one scene performance in any film ever, maybe, I'd have to look at a list, is Lois Smith in Minority. And sh do you remember Lois Smith? Lois Smith is the inventor of precognition. She is the lady in the greenhouse. Okay, you owe
Andrew: Okay, I don't remember I don't remember this name. Okay.
thetakeup: minority report, and therefore Samantha. Yes,
Andrew: I haven't I haven't rewatched it in like twenty years, but yeah.
thetakeup: yes, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. She is like out
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: of an Orson Wells film. but Samantha Morton absolutely fucking nails it here. Like, is she of this earth?
Andrew: Well, I love her like initial I'm just a scared woman alone in my house like from the v from the very first. Yeah.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm. Because you believe that. Like I didn't I don't know what Cersei's going to do. Like I have an idea of who Cersei is, but I don't know how this scene is going to play. I didn't
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: know that that was gonna go that way. So I believed her. I believed her as this kind of innocent, like, because why wouldn't you? Here comes 20 dudes who are like 20 soldiers.
Andrew: Right.
thetakeup: It's so good. It's so good.
Andrew: And the whole like I really liked her sort of rapport with Odysseus. Like it's a very
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: short it's a very short scene compared in the poem he like stays the air a year and bangs her. Like it's it's crazy.
thetakeup: Okay.
Andrew: but like everything is kind of sped up a little bit in Nolan's version. But yeah, like her just like her attitude shifts and the subtleties, like to film like Nolan loves her face, clearly. He loves getting right up in there in and like with all her grimaces and everything. I love it.
thetakeup: She's not a big performer either. it's just that
Andrew: No.
thetakeup: she milks every syllable for meaning
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and it's it but so effortlessly it's it's I think just a beautiful performer.
Andrew: Why is your s why are you keeping your sister as a raven? This works better for us.
thetakeup: So good. Okay.
Andrew: Great simplic drama between the margins there.
thetakeup: So I said that I think you did something when you put the prestige into the canon last week.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: But I have kind of turned around on that. I
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: thought that of the two of us, one of us might vote it in. And I thought that you blocked it from getting in because I would not vote. To have two Christopher Nolan films in. However, I don't think this is the other thing about doing new films. And
Andrew: Yeah, it's hard.
thetakeup: it's hard to kind of immediately say. I don't know that it's hard for me to immediately say that on first watch, this is probably my favorite Christopher Nolan film.
Andrew: Hm, okay.
thetakeup: I'm not. generally a fan. I think this is kind of a a pure film in a way his other films are not. it ha I shouldn't say a pure film. I should say that it has a kind of purity to it that I find I'm more compelled to.
Andrew: Going back to this going back to the source code in the Western canon, as it were. Maybe that kinda purify maybe that purifies purifies
thetakeup: Yes, yeah. Yeah, maybe that is it. Maybe that is it.
Andrew: up all the clutter in his interests, you know?
thetakeup: I think we both have seven I'm looking ahead to what will come the rest of the year and I'm not I will not vote for Chris Nolan's The Odyssey to go in the canon. It was a possibility.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: But if we had recorded last week, I probably would have put it in. I probably would have.
Andrew: I definitely need to re I definitely need to revisit in an IMAX. I'd wanna because now that I know what it's up to, I feel like I can pay closer attention to some of the
thetakeup: Mm.
Andrew: no not be so remove some of the immediacy of it, the immersiveness of it, and just sort of focus more on what it's doing and why, I think. But I
thetakeup: Yes.
Andrew: came I came away very impressed, but it is still right now for me more mid tier Nolan. just because And this doesn't have anything to do with the usual gripes I think that people have about the the usual suspects I've had about this. It has nothing to do with its quote unquote accuracy or is its characterization of Odysseus doesn't match the source material. Whatever. I don't care about that. I care about does the film work on its own terms? And I think it does, but maybe not my favorite execution of this yet. But you know, again, give it 10 years. Maybe maybe I'll come around. Right now. If I had to s put a gun on my head, I'd say that my faves are Prestige, Dunkirk. Really? Oppenheimer? Yeah. I know
thetakeup: Yeah.
Andrew: that's kind of recency bias, but I really like Oppenheimer. No Batman
thetakeup: I hear ya. I hear ya.
Andrew: films feels wrong, but yeah.
thetakeup: okay, so we're gonna for the time being stick with the prestige being the only Chris Nolan film
Andrew: Yes. And I'm happy with that.
thetakeup: in our canon. That's that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, so I'm gonna tease again that
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: maybe it'll all have the opportunity if in the future we do this again. We
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: will be doing an episode soon, in which we will add some of our older episode films. Some of the films
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: we covered on retake Because we are going to be doing a bonus upcoming episode where we are gonna look at the films we covered before the canon and add some more in there. and we might get some input from our old co hosts too. Hmm Hmm But until then we're gonna have to have one more thing. Alright, every episode, we have one more thing for you beyond our film. I think I go first. I might go first. Okay, I'll I'll
Andrew: Sure. Why not?
thetakeup: fucking go first. mine is an Odyssey of sorts.
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: it's called Cinablad. It is I don't know if I'm saying that right. Cinna as in cinema, and blod as in something else. I don't know what that means. but i
Andrew: It sounds German.
thetakeup: it's probably my accent. No one can place my accent when I'm speaking French here. They think I'm Italian. And I'm like, okay.
Andrew: Just roll with that. That's probably better than saying you're America at this point.
thetakeup: Well, no, you know, some people just absolutely love Coca-Cola and John Wayne and you know, it's you know,
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: I hear all kinds of stuff. but there's a wonderful woman, her name is Juliet. she does Cinema based tours in Paris. And I had the great fortune of going to her Agnes Varda tour.
Andrew: Ooh, fine.
thetakeup: so we were around the 14th arrondissement in Montparnasse, and we went to not only a few locations, films like Cleo from Five to Seven, Slightly Pregnant Men, where what, why, why?
Andrew: wait, did you see her how her beautiful house that she had with Jacques
thetakeup: Well
Andrew: Demi?
thetakeup: I mean, if you'd let me just finish, I was gonna say. Yes,
Andrew: Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
thetakeup: yes. Okay. I we went to the pink house. Okay, so I'm going to post all the pictures I took on the internet. But that's your
Andrew: Huh.
thetakeup: reaction is so cute because like that's exactly we were like, wait, my god, we're gonna see the pink houses. So there are children who I met her daughter at
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: because she was a producer on Faces Places.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: that film that she made with JR which was ultimately her final feature. Final
Andrew: Yeah, final one, yeah, I think.
thetakeup: theatrically released feature, I think. anyway, they they painted it like a duller pink, but maybe because they don't want like a bunch of loiterers.
Andrew: Ha ha.
thetakeup: But it's so cool because
Andrew: People want really want you to see their beautiful, like just off the street. Is it th they have that courtyard and everything, like and it's all sort of hidden away from the street.
thetakeup: Well, I have to say like they kept it pink and there's not you know, in that which is Rue de Guerre, it's if you've seen De Guerra Teep, which is the film that Agnes Varda made where I'm waiting on my set to come back from
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: from the war, from shipping, so that I can go through it and really have a good time. That's why I'm watching all this like Paris stuff that you're seeing vlog. Anyway, anyway.
Andrew: I love it.
thetakeup: so Juliet does this beautiful thing where she's got an iPad and she will like as you're standing in front of the thing, show you clips from films and show you like and I was like, wow,
Andrew: that's great.
thetakeup: technology, but also us doing this very like analog thing of just going on a walk together. It was so great. She was so awesome. And it was as a part of Lost in French Lation, which is a group that they do English subtitled films,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: typically French films, which is hard to find here. They're kind of one of the sole groups that show films like that and they do first run things, but it was partnered with them, so we got to do this beautiful tour of the neighborhood. That not only do we see all of this Demi Varda stuff, we also saw the street, the intersection where Jean Jean Paul. Belmondo is shot at the end of Breathless. and I made my husband, of course, stand in the middle of the street and hold his back like he was running away. And
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: so, yeah. So it's really cool. But she does other tours. She's doing like a midnight in Paris tour and and and she does a lot of great works, but you can find her website. Is C-I-N-E-B-L-A-D-E dot com and you can see her schedule there. but I will post my pictures there on
Andrew: That's amazing.
thetakeup: our Instagram, and it was a lot of fun. So if you're in Paris or you're traveling to Paris, do that. But then also, I don't know, watch Agnes Varda is my
Andrew: Never a bad it's never a bad idea to pick a Varda out of a hat and just watch it, yeah.
thetakeup: No. No. but then you can find us at the take dash up dot com and we've got a l quite a few new reviews up there, including Ethan's Odyssey. you had something Evil Dead Burn recently,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Cliff Freelick did trains. I'll have something forthcoming. Yay.
Andrew: Yeah. We're posting content again at the take up. How novel.
thetakeup: And doing podcasts weekly, wow. It's like life is getting back to
Andrew: Yeah. Let's see how long we can maintain this.
thetakeup: To normal. Normal. All right. And what's your what's your thing?
Andrew: I don't really have a ton to talk about this week. It's been a slow week. I'm gonna talk about my awesome new keyboard. I recall that years ago you talked about your addiction to a particular like brand of keyboard, like what you're making you're making faces, what?
thetakeup: No. No. Not it's worse. It was a TikTok account of ASMR of of the ceramic
Andrew: a particular I don't remember it was. It was a particular like switch sound.
thetakeup: keyboards.
Andrew: Yeah. Did you ever actually end up buying one or you just sort of vicariously loved them through the lips?
thetakeup: No, I didn't. I w I I just liked the click, the clack, the clonk. There are there are different sounds and I liked that. So please show me this keyboard.
Andrew: Well, I've never been. So I don't know if I can do this. I don't think I can do this. There we go.
thetakeup: Ooh.
Andrew: So this is I have never been a keyboard guy. The keyboard I when I built my compute my desktop computer during COVID, I just bought a standard full-size clicky-clacky mechanical keyboard from like just one of the standard manufacturers who de who develop components. But recently I started to like want something sp smaller and more specific for this computer I use mainly for gaming. So like I wanted something s smaller, more compact, but also had a maybe a different feel, not a clicky clacky typing keyboard, but more of a gaming keyboard. so I broke down and bought this all metal. it's called a the manufacturer is lemo key L-E-M-O-K-E-Y. This is a seventy-five percent magnetic switch keyboard.
thetakeup: What's that mean?
Andrew: it's just the switch style. So instead of having that really it has a relatively low carriage return, if that makes sense. So it's not really deep clicky clack. It's it's a little subtler.
thetakeup: Yes. Yeah. All right.
Andrew: it's more, it's very smooth. It doesn't have like that sometimes some of the some switches have like a feeling of resistance as you're pushing down.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: A sort of haptic style resistance. This is much more smooth. it's kind of designed for for gaming, but I just really like the look and feel of it. And now that I've used it a little bit for typing and writing too, I actually kind of prefer it to the more the deeper, the deeper, clickier keyboards. It's not like a laptop keyboard, it's not that subtle. there there
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: it has a full set of keycaps and everything, which of course you can change out with if you want to try something different, and you have full control over the like the the lighting on it, key by key, which I really like. it's got a little built-in volume knob, which I love, and it weighs about Ten fucking pounds 'cause it's solid metal.
thetakeup: And what what was the brand again? What was it?
Andrew: It's called Limo Key, L E O K E Y. Anyway, I guess I'm a keyboard guy now because I've I've fallen in love with this and I love it. It doesn't have if you're like an Excel person,
thetakeup: I love it too.
Andrew: you can't use one of these keyboards because it doesn't have like the right hand number pad at all. It just chops that shit straight off. So like if you're a person who sits there and does spreadsheets all day, you couldn't use this keyboard. It's specific, I got it specifically for my use case. So I won't swear this is for everybody, but the durability of like the the metal casing and like the braided cable, like i it's i it's expensive, but I feel like it was worth it because the material seems so solid. It's the kind of thing that's gonna like it's gonna outlive me. It's gonna survive a nuclear blast, I feel like.
thetakeup: I went mobile, I went laptop when
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I knew I was moving.
Andrew: Make sense.
thetakeup: but I appreciate the size of a you know a desktop and so I I would love a custom keyboard, especially one with a creamy clicky clack with seventy five magnetic something. I love toys.
Andrew: Anyway, I guess I'm that guy now. I didn't think of even it's recently as six months ago I didn't think of myself as that guy who was into keyboards, but now I like it. But I'm also like, this is one. I need one. I don't know these I don't understand these people who own like twelve different keyboards.
thetakeup: Well that that's that becomes a special interest. That's a yeah, that's a different story.
Andrew: Yeah. People who collect fountain pens and things. Like I just it's its own it's its own thing.
thetakeup: You leave my husband out of this.
Andrew: I'm not knocking any hobby. I'm just saying like there are collection there are collecting hobbies that I don't quite understand, but that's that's that's just me. That's a me problem.
thetakeup: Yeah, yeah. All right, well that's your keyboard. Where can people find you?
Andrew: You can find me at letterbox a y at seventy-six and at thetaup.com. I almost feel like we could have spent another hour blabbering about Odyssey.
thetakeup: Well, you have a wealth of information about Odyssey that I do not. But we
Andrew: Ha ha.
thetakeup: could we barely touched a lot it's a big fucking movie. And I don't think
Andrew: Yeah. Okay. You know my favorite you my favorite production fact that I one last thing, the favorite production fact that I've learned.
thetakeup: Yes. Yeah.
Andrew: So the you know he goes to the island with like the big towering warriors. And in the in the poem they're like cannibals. They're they're even more like brutish and terrifying. But that's all done in camera with a a five foot woman as the body double for Matt Damon and like a seven foot two dude as the lead general.
thetakeup: That's old school. I mean, that is yes, that is Elijah Wood in the fore and Ian McClellan in the back. Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, that's Lord of the Rings shit right there. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it.
thetakeup: All right. Well, yeah, hit us up with some Odyssey takes at TakeUp STL all over social media. and next episode, we're going
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: to cover something completely different. That is The highest some kind of metric critically acclaimed film of the year. It that is Sophie Romvari's film Blue Heron. Have you seen it yet?
Andrew: I've not seen it yet. It's on I'm I'm saving it for this week. It's on Criterion right now. All I know
thetakeup: Just premiered on the Criterion Channel X.
Andrew: about it is that people have been raving it to the like rafters, so
thetakeup: I am going to give you a trigger warning right now. Upsetting
Andrew: Okay, fair.
thetakeup: stuff. Upsetting family things.
Andrew: Can you can you be more specific without spoiling?
thetakeup: I cannot.
Andrew: Okay. I'm not I'm not generally a person who like who has to know going in if something traumatic happens.
thetakeup: It's it's
Andrew: Like I just I'm okay with merrolling with it. So
thetakeup: There are very similar things happening here as to the film After Sun.
Andrew: Okay, ouch. All right. Preparing myself emotionally for that now.
thetakeup: Auchie, Hurdy, but yeah, okay, but I won't say anything else about that. if you're in the States, you can watch it on Criterion channel. You can probably rent it to it's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: still playing in theaters here, so I guess a medium sized hit. but until then, thank you to Ethan Tarantella for editing the show, Kayla McCullough for Help with social media, got theme music by AMP and until next time something last a long time. yeah.
Andrew: Hello, Josh. And today I w s I wanna say that you have wise eyes, Athena's eyes today.
thetakeup: I think that's the lack of sleep, but today we are discussing whether or not Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey deserves a place in the take ups canon. And then we'll have one more thing. All right, let's get this talk out of the way. Okay. How
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: did you see Christopher Nolan's Theodyssey?
Andrew: I've only seen it once, not for lack of trying. it is imp
thetakeup: What do you mean? You're allowed to only see at once.
Andrew: it is impossible to see right now in St. Louis, if unless you unless you're want to sit in the front row. Yeah. I saw
thetakeup: I'm not. You know
Andrew: so I saw it once on seventy millimeter non IMAX film.
thetakeup: So same. I saw it once. I saw it during the day. And I guess it's kind of the same here in Paris, but there are like so many. There are four hundred screens in Paris, period. Can you believe that?
Andrew: I believe it.
thetakeup: Yeah. Yeah. I'm having a great time. Anyway. so I also there is an IMAX screen, not a seventy millimeter IMAX.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: So I I don't know. I think it's a conversation that I think is worth having. I'm glad people are having conversations about intended aspect ratios as an aspect ratio truther, as my husband likes to call me.
Andrew: We're we're we're nerds about this stuff. So like seeing seeing people on social media who don't normally engage with aspect ratio geekery go go ham about it is kind of fun actually.
thetakeup: It but it's also very annoying as someone who's like fire something up on streaming and I'm like, nope, that's the wrong aspect ratio. How can you tell? I just know. I just
Andrew: Ha ha ha.
thetakeup: know. And then I'll look it up and I'll be like, yeah, I was right. It's too tight. Anyway, I you know, this feels to have that conversation. I like to kind of modular or choose your own adventure, like the way Christopher Nolan and some other filmmakers, the filmmakers who have the all the power and the money, can can be these days, how their films are getting released these days, and the kind of, you know, a bingo card approach to seeing their films and
Andrew: Well, okay, here's here's what I would say about that. I think with a a f particularly a filmmaker working on this level, with these kind of resources and this reputation for being rigorous, I don't think there's a bad way to see the Odyssey. Like I haven't personally gone to a shoebox theater and watched it in ordinary digital you know, digital projection, but I gotta can't believe it. Christopher Nolan and Hoyt van Hoytema like would just sort of slap dash a bad pan and scan version of the movie that they've labored on. So
thetakeup: No, I mean there's intention in what they're doing, right? Like it's I'm framing for both kinds of screens. You have to do that. That's something
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Stanley Kubrick did. He would frame for VHS with open mat.
Andrew: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
thetakeup: that's something I mean, one battle after another, the same. So I think
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: it's really interesting, but I don't feel like we haven't seen the Odyssey because we've seen it in a two, three, five aspect ratio. I fucking seen it. although I am interested because I like a I I tend to like a really tall picture.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: if I can get really dirty for a second, my favorite aspect ratio is 1.66 to 1. Hmm.
Andrew: Really?
thetakeup: Yeah, that is between your TV and the Academy ratio.
Andrew: Interesting.
thetakeup: Anyway, that's it, folks.
Andrew: That's your is that is that on your is that on your profile, your dating profile? The favorite aspect ratio?
thetakeup: you know what's great about that is there is a theater here in Paris that's doing Claude Chabrol retrospective and he's got
Andrew: I have noticed because I've been seeing your your your your new wave guides have been on your your letterbox.
thetakeup: Well I'm I had already I had an arrow box set that I was going through
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and watching and These are like the OG ones.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: those arrow box sets are the 90 ones with Isabella Bear. But yes, tomorrow I'm gonna go see three, and that's my Monday activity. Although I do go back to work tomorrow. I forgot. We're recording a podcast. Hi, friend. well it's so good to be reunited after these seven days, not twenty years. What'd you think of this?
Andrew: You're just straight up laying it out. What do you think of it?
thetakeup: What'd you think of it?
Andrew: I am maybe a bit cooler on it than the sort of rapturous like this is a very well-received film among both critics and audiences. Just look if you look at the scores online, everybody seems to love it, other than a small contingent of cranky critics and the usual culture war suspects. Everybody seems to like this film. I may be a bit more cooler than some of the rapturous responses I've seen, but I also feel like Nolan is one of those filmmakers who usually does grow on me. And if I see it again, if I see it in IMAX and I revisit it and I continue to think about it, I'm sure I'll come around to maybe regarding it higher. I really enjoyed
thetakeup: The rest
Andrew: it. I really enjoyed it. I really had a good time with it. I just maybe a little bit more mid tier mo nolan for me, right at least right out of the gate. But as we've seen with the prestige, maybe that that opinion can change over time, right?
thetakeup: With you in the prestige also.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
thetakeup: Because I have the kind of opposite reaction with this. I was really bowled over by it.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: i initially with the kind of warts at all approach. And I think there are some some big warts on this one. such a gross metaphor. Why'd I choose that? Like ugh. Anyway, I It's kind of dimming. It's diminishing a little bit.
Andrew: Hmm.
thetakeup: And I think you have you seen that meme of the Donny Darko therapy? It's like was it five stars or was it the grandeur of the cinema
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
thetakeup: of the cinematic experience? And I think some of that is happening with me. Like I saw it at Grand Rex Grand Rex. I don't know how
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I'd say that. which was this like palatial just gold leafed just beautiful place like little tiny lights on the ceiling that look like
Andrew: okay. Lovely.
thetakeup: stars and little fake clo like as the screens huge screen and it's an old opera house. So I was just kind of in awe of the kind of extra textual experience but the film is utterly transfixing to. but
Andrew: My my version of that extratual experience is that I saw it at a at the crappy, you know, suburban suburban Cineplex. Yeah. But
thetakeup: You see it at Ronnie's?
Andrew: it was storming, thunderstorming like crazy when we showed up to see it. And we even lost power briefly. We had like a a power surge while we were watching it. Which which
thetakeup: No. no.
Andrew: resulted in us the movie starting early. Like they lost power and they didn't show like all the previews and shit. So we went right from Lights go down to movies starting right away, which I actually really liked.
thetakeup: Well no, that's actually that's happening everywhere.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: no trailers, no commercials for Odyssey.
Andrew: Well they told us that it was supposed to have commercials and that we actually like lost lost that because of the power surge. I don't know.
thetakeup: Well lucky you. so you got even more extra time. I I just so I'm not that familiar with the Odyssey. I know a little bit of Greek mythology. I don't know where we wanna go with this.
Andrew: Mm-hmm. You didn't
thetakeup: I
Andrew: you didn't have a Greek mythology phase. Didn't we talk about that? Didn't we talk about this at your birthday this year? About
thetakeup: They tried We did, like
Andrew: how like everybody has a Greek mythology phase, but you didn't?
thetakeup: No, I didn't. And you know why? Because I didn't have like a Greek mythology movie that I loved. Like and and we had that conversation too.
Andrew: Hmm. Doesn't doesn't need a movie. It just needs you just need to have one of those illustrated books or whatever for kids. No.
thetakeup: No. Nope. That's how I work. And maybe if I had the Odyssey when I was a kid I would have gone just fucking headfriend.
Andrew: You should have watched more like Pasolini stuff when you were eight, I guess.
thetakeup: y you want me more of me. That's that's insane. but you know I have a like a baseline familiarity with
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the gods mentioned and you know Troy and yada yada yada. I so I don't really i i I don't know having a shallow well of knowledge affects your experience in this. He's of all of his films, this one is the kind of least hand holdy. And I think maybe that's because it's also
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: the least concerned with a kind of like trick, like a magic trick movie. And I and I say that as not necessarily recalling the prestige, but all of his films sort of feeling like a great reveal that's based upon
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: its kind of cleverness. And what he's doing here is so much about time and scope itself, that I don't know that much of that is required. But if you can kind of like set it up for us, what the fuck is the Odyssey?
Andrew: Well, yeah, I I tend to agree. I don't th but on the other hand, I don't think this film requires you to co go in with a deep well of either Greek generalized Greek mythology knowledge or a deep understanding of the Homeric epics and the other associated classical ancient and classical literature that feeds into them and the traditions around them. So I mean the essence of the story is sort I mean, this is one of the sort of Urtex of the Western Canon, right? So the story I think is familiar to most people. Odysseus involved in the Trojan War, as recounted in the Iliad, this is sort of the companion epic to the Iliad, which is really a war or almost sort of a post-war novel. this is sort of the homecoming homecoming novel. I'd say novel because that's how we tend to digest things, but of course these are epic spoken or sung novel. poems, right? Part of an ancient epic poetry tradition that would have been recounted orally by singers whose specific job was to memorize these and even do like improvisation, but over time sort of things become canonized and eventually they become written down. So Odysseus is the king of an island called Ithaca. It's not clear if this has a correspondence to the real Ith Ithaca off the island of Cephalonia. It probably isn't I think it's worth pointing out that even though this film is very grounded compared to other more fantastical retellings of this material, that Nolan definitely is working in what I would call sort of literary air. This is not a specific place and time. This is something in the distant past. And the people who are hung up on the historiosity of it are hung up on its faithfulness to the to the quote unquote real story are Missing the forest for the trees. This is this is something
thetakeup: Missing the the point entirely.
Andrew: else. This isn't even the past. There's a connection to our reality through this thematic through line that we're supposed that we can recognize is as deep into history and deep into myth mythological twilight as we are in this movie. There are these thematic through lines, but we're really just in another place. Like the geography doesn't make sense, and that's the that's part of the point, right? Is the geography doesn't make sense.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: but Odysseus is is trying to get better.
thetakeup: It it feels like a kind of like if a a fable in the way that Lord of the Rings and Middle-earth is a f a fable, like it's it's it's really tangible to us because it's rooted in parts of our reality, but we don't
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: know the time, the place. It's something else, but it is our kind of existence. And
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: By the end of the film, and and I want to point out Ethan Tarantella, his piece I thought was really well reasoned and well written and and a great piece and and that he really to the tick
Andrew: Yeah, not s strong piece strong piece and take up. The takeup dot com
thetakeup: up dot com that he really understood what Nolan was up to in this, which I think we can get into in in you know in a little bit. but it is a a political parable. as he sees it. Is that kind of is that a part of the Iliad or the Odyssey originally? or is he sort of like massaging it to be
Andrew: Well, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Because I do think this is a very modern adapt adaptation for modern
thetakeup: Mm.
Andrew: audiences. And the classicist has already sort of come out of the woodwork and critiqued that. As somebody who's not a classicist by profession or in or hobbyist, that doesn't bother me so much. But what do you mean when you say political?
thetakeup: I'm talking about the very kind of specific, like in time's parable that it is. It's like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: we've come to the point where Zeus, the law of Zeus is completely thrown out the window. There
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: is no like courtesy among men, there is no kind of like time or place that should be before us. There's the it's it's It seems very in the same way that one battle after another was about the now, but like kind of just swimming
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: in it. It seems the same way to me. And
Andrew: I think it's interesting that the thing that came to my mind when I was sort of grappling with that placement of it as a kind of proto apocalyptic story about about a civilization in its in its waning days, the film that reminded me of is the original Mad Max.
thetakeup: Yeah, no, I think this is an interesting hallmark because it's the sick but it's approaching it. Yeah,
Andrew: It's not quite post apocalyptic, it's like n nascent nascent apocalypse, yeah.
thetakeup: yeah. It's like it's it's happened. Like we're watching it. And the there's a kind of build-up and
Andrew: Well to answer let me answer your question.
thetakeup: and rhythm to it too that feels that way. That when we were talking about the very kind of montagey filmmaking that he's lean in leaned into late as of late, there's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: a kind of like power this kind of rush to that kind of realization.
Andrew: Well, some of that is Jennifer Lame's editing and that score.
thetakeup: the score is just it it's it's probably one of the most incredible parts. You know, if anything I'm walking out of their feeling I'm feeling from that.
Andrew: Vibrating in that, especially in that final the climactic sequence, I think I would do the whole theater I could feel vibrating. So but to answer your question, I mean, yes, this is putting a very modern, I'm not a scholar of antiquities or anything, but to me, this strikes me as a very modern interpretation, but not entirely outside like later historians and writer. Herodotus would, you know, would have sort of probably liked this version of it in the sense that he definitely had this idea that the History was divisible into different ages, and that there were ages of fall and decline, and r and then he he
thetakeup: yeah.
Andrew: pinned the fall of Troy as a very important moment in the development of Mediterranean civilization and and one that presaged a bad period that was going to come. Herodotus, I don't know that he would say that it was meditated by the gods or by man or whatever, but it it's not I guess it's not it's a very modern perspective, but it's not completely outside. A sort of ancient framework for how this time was viewed. And there's some historiosity,
thetakeup: I don't seem to
Andrew: there's some historiosity of that this film. The part that really made me kind of like the history geek in me stand up and do the Leo pointing meme was like when they started to talk about the Bronze Age, they didn't use it in these terms, but they talked about the late Brange Age's collapse and the marauding of the sea peoples, which isn't like every history geek in the audience was like, ooh, I know what they're talking about. and that Bringing that historical aspect into it, I think, is another way that it creates this thread that leads back to our present day. Because he's not just saying, while the the tone and mood is definitely proto apocalyptic, ancient twilight of history, it also has that thread connecting it. They're saying things, the characters are saying things that are recognizable to modern historians.
thetakeup: You know, these stories are evergreen. That's the thing. That's Shakespeare's stories are evergreen. They should be instructing us. However, that's the you know, the ultimate folly of man is that we don't pay the fuck attention to the stories we keep telling each other. But I think the
Andrew: No, I mean my my overall impression is that I don't mind the modern adaptational choices to it. There's a lot of people who are nitpicking it to death already, you know, just a couple weeks in, what he left out and didn't leave, how he changed the characterization of Odysseus and blah blah blah. I I don't none of that really bothers me. Does the film does does the film work on its own terms or not? Yeah.
thetakeup: Whether it's whether horny enough whether it's horny enough.
Andrew: kind of.
thetakeup: does does that one get you? Look, okay. I'm He tried to get horny in Oppenheimer and and fell flat on his face. I don't want sex from my Christopher Nolan movies. Like, I don't think that man understands well clearly he does. He has children.
Andrew: I like I liked the bits. It is not a particularly horny film. I do l like the bit I think Damon and Hathaway have some really good chemistry, particularly in those flashback scenes. Yeah.
thetakeup: Sexy. There's there's a lot of sexiness carried from the actors, I think.
Andrew: There's something earthy and believable about seeing Odysseus and Penelope in that bed before he leaves for the war, sort of tangled up in the sheets. I was just thinking like, wait, did they just do it or are they about to do it? I'm not sure. I'm not I'm not sure. It's a don't look now question, right?
thetakeup: Who knows, right? Christopher Nolan, he doesn't know. He's like, I don't know, like roll around, I guess. But but I I like that it goes up to that point because and and part of what you're talking about in bringing it to this kind of hum human level.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And thinking about the representation of all of the more fantastical elements here,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: they're so so much more grounded than they could have been or have been in in I don't know, like y skeletons like Jason and the Argonauts or something like that, you know?
Andrew: Well, there's a there was a nineteen ninety seven television miniseries with Armand DeSante w that where they actually it was a terri one of those terrible hardmark channel miniseries from the nineties. Yeah. Where they actually do literalize all the fantastical elements and make it very make it very
thetakeup: my god. No, I remember this. Yeah.
Andrew: Clash of the Titans, yeah.
thetakeup: And I mean to to kind of in case you haven't seen it and you're listening to this podcast, but the few people who listen who haven't seen it, like I'm just
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: gonna listen to them talk about it, whatever. anyway, the way that he makes his fantastical things practical is think about the way. and I d I don't know that this is canon, but the way the Cyclops is like is like kind of malformed. His the reason that
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: he has a single eye is that the growth just did not have like it's a genetic mal malformation. And well of course also he's like what 30 times
Andrew: Well the cyclops, yeah, there is no canon here. We don't really know what the cyclops sh quote unquote should look like. I like that interpretation. It it is worth pointing out though the cyclopses are there's at least two different races of cyclopses in Greek mythology. The one that Polyphemus represents, but is an
thetakeup: Stop.
Andrew: actu is an actual race, but they tend to be, as they're portrayed here and in the original poem, they tend to be shepherds, right? But yeah, I dunno
thetakeup: Yeah, that makes sense.
Andrew: We only see the one. So in then in the original poem, he actually Polyphemus actually goes and like s tattles on Odysseus and his men to the other Cyclopses. And we don't get that. Here he's presented as more of a unique creature. But I like the presentation. It's very cathanic in the mythological sense of the way that it looks like a Goya paint
thetakeup: And that's Doug Jones, right?
Andrew: the whole sequence looks like a fucking Goya painting when they're in the cave with that firelight. Beautiful.
thetakeup: It's it's Doug Jones, right?
Andrew: No, it's Bill Irwin, the great clown the great
thetakeup: Bill Irwin, Bill
Andrew: theatric I mean he multi talented dude, but I know him as a c a clown. Yeah.
thetakeup: Irwin, my god. Well, you could see how I could get them together. Yeah. Bill Irwin's so great.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: my god. Rachel getting married. The plate.
Andrew: Yeah. I'm a parrot, so I know him as Mr Noodle from the Elmo shorts.
thetakeup: Incredible. What range this man. You know, if this film doesn't make it into the canon,
Andrew: All right. He's great.
thetakeup: Mr. Irwin, you are in the canon. If not just for the plate and the dishwasher. my god. Anyway.
Andrew: But I kind of I kind of dropped my description. So for those, again, for those people who handful of people who may not have seen it, you know, this is the story of Odysseus's travels through the sort of fantastical series of misadventures and trials and tribulations, this sort of travelogue of strange magical islands he visits and to the border very borders of hell itself. But sort of the root the quote unquote real story, we would might call it a B plot in a different kind of movie, but in some ways it really is the A-plot. What's happening on the island of Ithaca while Odysseus is gone. It's
thetakeup: You can
Andrew: the struggle for what's that?
thetakeup: Yeah I yeah, I think of the it as a kind of framing device almost, like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the the the political maneuvering that's happening or or Penelope's.
Andrew: Yeah, the first four books of the Odyssey are typically referred to as the Telemachi, meaning that they are the stories of Telemachus' perspective, not Odysseus's perspective,
thetakeup: Mm.
Andrew: because he's interested in what what's happened to his dad, and he goes out, sails around trying to g get word of him. but yeah, the the drama that's unfolding in the court at Ithaca, where Penelope is waiting, right? And she's got these this legion. I think the in the original poem it's specifically a hundred and eight suitors who come and For 10 years, 20 years now, she they've been feasting and using up the resources of the kingdom. I mean, it's worth pointing out that the the centrality of the palace in Ithaca in this story is not just about, kind of the Game of Thrones thing where we're telling the stories of kings and their maneuverings. The entire like Greek world, they wouldn't even have called themselves Greeks at this time. But the entire Mycenae civilization. was built around palaces, was built around the palaces like the fundamental unit, what we would probably think of as like closer to a manor house in European feudalism later. So the fact that these suitors are here and sucking up all the resources in the palace with their constant feasting and boasting and gameship and using the women of Ithaca and just making general menaces of themselves, there is an element of that that is taken up later in mythological traditions of the idea of the king, the king who is asleep or gone. And while the king is gone or asleep, the kingdom falls into disarray itself. Like the actual island becomes a wasteland, the crops wither on the vine and think bad thing the springs dry up. That's a very potent recurring idea in these mythologies.
thetakeup: But what you end up getting is like a narrative remix, as I understand it, of of the Odyssey in a really interesting way of like little nesting dolls of the stories. And for a filmmaker, yeah. For a filmmaker
Andrew: He's he's picking and choosing. He's picking and choosing, yeah.
thetakeup: who's interested in time, like when when we first saw like a teaser trailer and we knew Christopher Nolan was doing this, we're like, here he is again, talking about time.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: but It's really interesting the way he's sort of remixed and like expanded and condensed and but where he chooses to s to drop in certain elements or certain passages is very
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: interesting in the scope of the the entire film because it is a film, it does have to have forward momentum, but what you're you know, if you're sticking with Tom Holland's character for the first 30 minutes, and then suddenly he we watch like 10 more chapters of
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: Ulysses and you know it just becomes something else. But the way Chris Nolan has done it and and he's use utilizing all his resources, which is essentially the the world of cinema's resources, like everything. This is the man right now. To yeah, IMAX cameras.
Andrew: Onloca on location shooting, you know. Yeah.
thetakeup: in every single shot, which is absolutely insane. You know, the the the the measures that you have to take in order to be able to shoot IMAX because it is a a massive machine that can only hold so much film.
Andrew: he's making I mean he's making concessions. There's kinds of shots that he simply can't do right now, at least under curr
thetakeup: Absolutely.
Andrew: with current technology, using with because he committed to these cameras, the film, like as much as we view it in him as a filmmaker who just sort of operates without constraints, the whole film is constrained by that specific decision to use IMAX cameras.
thetakeup: And for that, this film is all the better. And I feel like a lot of the kind of weightless freedom of something like Inception bears out in really like, that's really cool but meaningless
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: set pieces. Instead, in this, the constraints bring it so like literally weighted, literally grounded that. The the Hades sequence, for instance,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the the the absolute zenith of creativity within limitations, I see
Andrew: Shot in Icel shot in Iceland, I believe. And it kinda and it once you know that you can you can't unsee it.
thetakeup: And w who's the the the kind of king figure that we're following the you know
Andrew: Agamemn Agamemnon?
thetakeup: Agamemnon. played by Benny Safety. Okay, choices. w we got
Andrew: Yeah. It's he it's 'cause the hair because he doesn't have to show his face, he has those beautiful Greek curls.
thetakeup: I mean, essentially you really only get the back of his head a and
Andrew: Okay, let me say something about that. Let me say something about that. Because when I first saw that first poster, and at the time we didn't even know what we were looking at. We just saw this sort of stereotypical Greek helmet with the plume, and then the golden sp vertebrae coming down the back. I was like,
thetakeup: Spinal cord with the vertebrate, yeah.
Andrew: what the fuck is that? That doesn't look like anything historical. That's stupid. I don't like my and my inner history geek was just like, that's dumb looking. And like, why is Odysseus wearing that? Okay, first of all, we find out that's really Agamemnon. In his fucking Darth Vader ass getup that he's he's giving he's wearing. But the imagery of that becomes so important. Like I shouldn't one of these things I should just learn to trust Christopher Nolan at some point. First, I say, you know, we get the contextless meme photo and we laugh at it and snicker at it. But then in the context of the film, that's what Odysseus sees. He doesn't see his king's eyes. He's a follower, he's a lieutenant
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: who is following. Death he's following fucking death and the the memento mori of that, the v golden spinal column right in front of his eyeline as he's following this king into ruin. Great, great shit. I love it.
thetakeup: It yeah, it's really it's really good and it means a lot once you get to that Hades sequence and Agamemnon is is on roller skates or something. I is
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: floating, is is without feet. And that entire sequence I think is one of the most kind of more breathtaking things I've seen out of Hollywood recently because because it it it does feel so grounded and he really and his editor and everyone lets you kind of rest in that and you wonder how will he visualize it and how do you visualize Hades? Fire, right?
Andrew: Technically it's not Hades, it's Erebus.
thetakeup: it's the my god, Andrew. Shut the f my god.
Andrew: Sorry to be myth mythological, actually. Well, it's important.
thetakeup: gate of Hades or whatever. Like what
Andrew: to the details, the tactile aspects of it are what is important. That blood in the pool of like volcanic soil, how gross and grotty everything looks, yeah.
thetakeup: It's incredible. It is incredible. And I mean, it reminded me of it to, you know, where I was talking about David Lynch, but if you watch like behind the scenes of of Twin Peaks the Return, which is like an eight hours thing on the Blu-rays, which
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: is amazing, you just see like David Lynch digging in dirt a lot. And it's like the same kind of like tactile stuff that I mean, there's a lot of digital stuff here. I mean, you can't like you can kind of see with the Cyclops that there's digital, but It's it's it's to make it seamless, and I understand that, but a lot of it is so kind of it the w weighted the weight of the world is it feels
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: so necessary. And I compare it to things that even Hollywood films that I've liked of the past year, something like Superman with its terrible CGI dog, and and and and the kind of like, you know, just Figures flying in the air and fighting each other, and the absolute kind of zeros and ones of that, and how it feels like nothing, where this actually feels like there's something. Film is physical, like, and it is a kind of like scientific reaction that's happening in your
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: head. And once you kind of like make it out of the physical world, it it just feels so much more. It feels like s something, you know, instead of feeling like nothing, which is what a lot of films feel like.
Andrew: I mean that I really like that Erebus I really like the Erebus sequence. I really like the way that they turned Circe's whole deal into kind of a body horror thing was kind of lovely.
thetakeup: my god.
Andrew: Samantha Morton never misses though, right? You know?
thetakeup: Well, this is the thing that last week you wanted to bring up Terence Malik and I was like because
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: a lot of this it it does feel Malikkian in that it is interested in the kind of grains of wheat, as I'll call it, like the natural world. But I think the farther I get away from it, I'm kind of losing those textures and the things that are sticking out to me. Are the more nolany pieces, and that's particularly
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: in the beginning and particularly at the end, and that's when people are talking. And the with the same thing with Malik is like when people are talking, sometimes things and they have the opposite languages. Malik's being poetic, and and interestingly enough, for this, Nolan's being the farthest away from. poetry.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I don't know if it would be better suited to actors who can handle it. I think there are some in here who fare better, particularly Robert Pattinson, who does this like conniving sniveling.
Andrew: do you know what I read to just today? That Pattinson
thetakeup: What, why, but.
Andrew: studied the the the performance he studied for Antoninaeus was James Woods in Casino. I knew you would love that.
thetakeup: my god, I do love that so much. my god.
Andrew: Just an evidently hateable, like he's like, I gotta make this guy as hateable as possible. Which isn't which isn't
thetakeup: The nastiest man, the nastiest man.
Andrew: not every version of of that character has been like that in interpretations, but Pattinson really leaned into, okay, I'm gonna make him really like just cowardly and awful and obnoxious at ever like every time he has the opportunity to open his mouth and redeem himself, he fucking doesn't. So
thetakeup: And I think Anne Hathaway you know, you know how I am. I think she's just
Andrew: She's great in this. She's great in this.
thetakeup: kind of incredible. She he seems to I think one of her best performances is Selena Kyle and Dark Knight Rises. I'm not joking.
Andrew: She's never in all three of her known performances, I think she's very strong. So she must have something she's an
thetakeup: What is
Andrew: interstellar too. She's great at Interstellar.
thetakeup: You know, I'm sorry to make anyone mad. I always forget about Interstellar. And then I look online and there's you guys talking about it. So
Andrew: Okay, so so here's the thing. I'm sure that Anne Hathaway, as a forty-something modern Hollywood actress, has had a little work done. But I am so glad she hasn't Botoxed the shit out of her forehead because her worry
thetakeup: Andrew.
Andrew: lines in this movie are like their own character. I fucking love it.
thetakeup: I I want to have this conversation. Do you know that when that trailer first came out and there were images of Anne Hathaway, the whole like acting isn't as good because people everyone has Botox now? Conversation started because of shots of Anne Hathaway.
Andrew: That's crazy to me because the thing I loved about her is how the the things her face is doing in this in this movie are great.
thetakeup: There's sh like everyone in this feels so unvarnished. Charlize Theron,
Andrew: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Samantha Morton, you know, I'm bringing up all the women, but Matt Damon too. And you know, it Matt Damon's like the structure of his face, he's always gonna look like a little boy, but his skin, like it is aging. I don't know,
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: but also like Matt Damon, like fuck. Popeye's had his spinach. Daddy.
Andrew: I really liked him. I thought he was very strong in this in a way I wasn't necessarily expecting. So who do you feel like are the weak leg wings? Le weak link.
thetakeup: Tom Holland. Tom Holland has a kind of like naivete or innocence to him, but it doesn't kind of turn at any point, and I just don't think you know, it might I was thinking about this, it might be why does he need to have an American accent? There's a choice made there.
Andrew: I guess just consist. Yeah, everybody just makes the consistency. It's not the accent work. I just don't think he's as strong. I think his one scene that I really enjoyed is actually like a reaction scene where he's listening to the King of Sparta Melanaeus, played by John Berthall, tell the
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: story of t tell at least version one of the of the Trojan horse story. And watching Holland's reaction to it, I think is really s he he's he's playing it very well and not as like movie acting movie movie listening. He's playing it as somebody who genuinely is hanging on this guy's words because the guy has possible word about his dad that might give some hint or thread about what Odysseus's fate has been.
thetakeup: Well, and I'm glad that you brought that up. And I wanna get to more performances because this movie's so stacked and there's one
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: performance I really want to talk about, and you know
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: who it is. We've already talked about her. And but when you get to version two of it and the film sort of reveals ultimately what it's been about and why,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: you know, Zinde is Athena is
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: is the way she is, which I did not know. I I don't know if that
Andrew: Technically that's the third glimpse we get, the final clomactic reveals. Because if you count depends on
thetakeup: Of what?
Andrew: whether you count the b the opening sequences where we see the horse and we see the Trojans and Sanan's death and the we see the Trojans riding up to get it.
thetakeup: Sure. I'm talking about the last piece where it's revealed
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: that you know, the kind of ultimate like anti war sentiment
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: or kind of anti godlessness that it ends up in. I I thought I d in a typical like spectacle, that's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: not a scene that you get. Is the whole point is that you would see some grand kind of battle. But this is, you know, what you're seeing is an actual like general who's totally like in a kind of fugue state as he accomplishes his goal and like has
Andrew: Mm-hmm. And it's ten years of pent up hunger and coldness and rage and loneliness and homesickness and frustration
thetakeup: And it
Andrew: from being on that beach, from being outside the walls, just comes pouring out in that sort of orgy of sacking and looting and rape and violence and revenge.
thetakeup: And and ultimately i it's just kind of his reactions like, for what?
Andrew: I wish they'd almost gone a little harder in that harder in that direction.
thetakeup: Yeah, I mean I c I get that. I think there's a lot of concessions made and I thought about the American accent thing too. and in particular, Nolan's h kind of dual edge of wanting to be a populist but also having particular hang-ups. And that is in sound. So in trying to be understood, like an American English accent is is better understood overall across the globe than like a British accent is in English. Does that make sense? And so like he makes a lot of choice. Well,
Andrew: So it's a almost a marketing concession.
thetakeup: I wouldn't even call it marketing. It's like He's Christopher Nolan is making films for the globe, and his kind of like common language, he's wanting it to translate to the maximum amount of people in a I think I want to share my message. I want to tell my story in a in a kind of Odyssey way, right?
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: So I think there's something interesting there that's happening in the kind of accent where in the language and the kind of concessions that he's making in choices of of representation of of violence. I I
Andrew: Yeah, he's absolutely he's absolutely making this palatable again through adaptational choices, making this palatable to a widest audience as possible, while also trying to like thread the needle of can we present these somewhat tricky themes to that same sort of mass market audience? I mean it's worth pointing out that the the the poem itself is not typically understood to be in vernacular. It's meant to be a literary poem in some respects, so it is not the language that the Greeks Of the 12th century or the 8th century or the even the 4th century BCE would have been speaking, it would they would have recognized it as according to my understanding as a literary style. So Nolan specifically choosing to put it in an American-accented modern vernacular, I think is a definite choice. It's a strong adaptational choice. But Nolan has also talked about the influence of Emily Wilson's 2017
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: translation. And her specific decision to keep the meter but modernize the language and avoid avoid using flowery, unnecessary flowery language to hit her like rhyming and meter goals. She wanted to sort of make it as spare and understandable as possible. And I I get, and as much as he's changed things from the original text, I feel like the spirit of that idea is one of the things he's going for, to make it as accessible as possible.
thetakeup: That Emily Wilson translation that we talked we talked about it in her Iliad Yeah
Andrew: Yeah, I mentioned it on the pod a couple of weeks ago, yeah.
thetakeup: I can't find it anywhere here.
Andrew: I mean props to her. She's getting she's getting her book, which was a big hit in two thousand seventeen, but it's now sold out again. Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: Yeah, I remember people talking about it then and then the Iliad and I just can't find it anywhere. it's on
Andrew: So let's talk about some other adaptational choices that that Nolan makes. he leaves out some islands and he changes some other islands around and changes the order of events. Although there is there is a overall pretty close fidelity to the sequ the the islands that he does show, the encounters that he does show, he kind of keeps in the same order. Although it's scrambled by the chronology nonsense that he always does, which is also the case in the poem. I should say the poem is almost entirely told in flashback. People recounting things that have already happened. the voice, there is some sort of third, third party omniscient voice in the poem. But most of the poem is told by people, by characters talking. It's an expositional poem where people say, Here's what happened. Let me tell you the story. No, absolutely not. No.
thetakeup: So that's not his invention. That is in the text.
Andrew: Yeah. Absolutely not. So that that is one way in which the Odyssey is oddly a a pretty spot on book for Christopher Nolan of all people to adapt because it plays with time and narration and voiceover in the same way that he loves doing. So I can initially when I heard he was adapting this, I'm like, is that a really good fit for, you know, for work and director? But the more I started to think about it, and then after having seen it, I get it. Like I understand why he was attracted to it and why it sort of fits in his wheelhouse in a sort of maybe unexpected way. But he makes some choices. he plucks some things from other versions. He's plucked some a few things from the Aliad. He's being he's mainly plu plucking from the Aeneid, which is sort of the Roman, the Roman or Latin reconfiguration, retelling of the post-Trojan War story from a more Trojan sympathetic standpoint, where the Greeks are the enemies. And so, like some elements. Some there's some of that tonally and thematically, but also just some elements like Cinnon is not in the is not in the Odyssey or the Iliad.
thetakeup: It is Sinon again.
Andrew: Elliot Page's character. The the the soldier
thetakeup: Yes.
Andrew: that they sacrifice basically to leave the horse with the Trojans. and I think I'm not sure that it has any basis in literature or mythology, but I think the whole thing or connecting it back to Antoninaeus and the idea of the draft lots that
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: That that Agamemnon sort of puts out the call and all the kings of all the different palaces have to put up a certain number of able-bodied men, right? I think that is Noan's invention, is connecting Sinon's sacrifice
thetakeup: That
Andrew: at the horse to
thetakeup: That is such a script lesson. It is such
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: a script thing to do is to plant the seed and let
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: it grow. And I think it the it really plays out beautifully, especially once it's returned to Robert Pattinson's character.
Andrew: Well, and that's an inception thing too, the token, right? We have there's two tokens in this movie. Antinaeus' token, the lot that he avo he's weasel out of, and then the Athena pin that becomes the way in which Odysseus is recognized. Starts to strain believability. Then twenty years
thetakeup: Trying.
Andrew: of war and travel and he never lost that pin. Okay.
thetakeup: Keeps both of keeps both of the very similar things hangs on to them.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
thetakeup: So okay, Samantha Morton plays Circe.
Andrew: Yeah. Who we always love. Who we always love.
thetakeup: She can just do she can turn a film fucking inside out in one scene. Did you ever
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: see she said about the New York Times reporters and then one
Andrew: Yeah, and she has that one Barner Burner scene.
thetakeup: barn burning scene? And well, it's not even like a barn burner, like, but it's just her.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And I was so I knew she was in this because she's doing a lot of press for it. Two and it's Samantha Morton, and it is just one of the Lois Smith. speaking of Samantha Morton, my
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: favorite one scene performance in any film ever, maybe, I'd have to look at a list, is Lois Smith in Minority. And sh do you remember Lois Smith? Lois Smith is the inventor of precognition. She is the lady in the greenhouse. Okay, you owe
Andrew: Okay, I don't remember I don't remember this name. Okay.
thetakeup: minority report, and therefore Samantha. Yes,
Andrew: I haven't I haven't rewatched it in like twenty years, but yeah.
thetakeup: yes, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. She is like out
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: of an Orson Wells film. but Samantha Morton absolutely fucking nails it here. Like, is she of this earth?
Andrew: Well, I love her like initial I'm just a scared woman alone in my house like from the v from the very first. Yeah.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm. Because you believe that. Like I didn't I don't know what Cersei's going to do. Like I have an idea of who Cersei is, but I don't know how this scene is going to play. I didn't
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: know that that was gonna go that way. So I believed her. I believed her as this kind of innocent, like, because why wouldn't you? Here comes 20 dudes who are like 20 soldiers.
Andrew: Right.
thetakeup: It's so good. It's so good.
Andrew: And the whole like I really liked her sort of rapport with Odysseus. Like it's a very
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: short it's a very short scene compared in the poem he like stays the air a year and bangs her. Like it's it's crazy.
thetakeup: Okay.
Andrew: but like everything is kind of sped up a little bit in Nolan's version. But yeah, like her just like her attitude shifts and the subtleties, like to film like Nolan loves her face, clearly. He loves getting right up in there in and like with all her grimaces and everything. I love it.
thetakeup: She's not a big performer either. it's just that
Andrew: No.
thetakeup: she milks every syllable for meaning
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and it's it but so effortlessly it's it's I think just a beautiful performer.
Andrew: Why is your s why are you keeping your sister as a raven? This works better for us.
thetakeup: So good. Okay.
Andrew: Great simplic drama between the margins there.
thetakeup: So I said that I think you did something when you put the prestige into the canon last week.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: But I have kind of turned around on that. I
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: thought that of the two of us, one of us might vote it in. And I thought that you blocked it from getting in because I would not vote. To have two Christopher Nolan films in. However, I don't think this is the other thing about doing new films. And
Andrew: Yeah, it's hard.
thetakeup: it's hard to kind of immediately say. I don't know that it's hard for me to immediately say that on first watch, this is probably my favorite Christopher Nolan film.
Andrew: Hm, okay.
thetakeup: I'm not. generally a fan. I think this is kind of a a pure film in a way his other films are not. it ha I shouldn't say a pure film. I should say that it has a kind of purity to it that I find I'm more compelled to.
Andrew: Going back to this going back to the source code in the Western canon, as it were. Maybe that kinda purify maybe that purifies purifies
thetakeup: Yes, yeah. Yeah, maybe that is it. Maybe that is it.
Andrew: up all the clutter in his interests, you know?
thetakeup: I think we both have seven I'm looking ahead to what will come the rest of the year and I'm not I will not vote for Chris Nolan's The Odyssey to go in the canon. It was a possibility.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: But if we had recorded last week, I probably would have put it in. I probably would have.
Andrew: I definitely need to re I definitely need to revisit in an IMAX. I'd wanna because now that I know what it's up to, I feel like I can pay closer attention to some of the
thetakeup: Mm.
Andrew: no not be so remove some of the immediacy of it, the immersiveness of it, and just sort of focus more on what it's doing and why, I think. But I
thetakeup: Yes.
Andrew: came I came away very impressed, but it is still right now for me more mid tier Nolan. just because And this doesn't have anything to do with the usual gripes I think that people have about the the usual suspects I've had about this. It has nothing to do with its quote unquote accuracy or is its characterization of Odysseus doesn't match the source material. Whatever. I don't care about that. I care about does the film work on its own terms? And I think it does, but maybe not my favorite execution of this yet. But you know, again, give it 10 years. Maybe maybe I'll come around. Right now. If I had to s put a gun on my head, I'd say that my faves are Prestige, Dunkirk. Really? Oppenheimer? Yeah. I know
thetakeup: Yeah.
Andrew: that's kind of recency bias, but I really like Oppenheimer. No Batman
thetakeup: I hear ya. I hear ya.
Andrew: films feels wrong, but yeah.
thetakeup: okay, so we're gonna for the time being stick with the prestige being the only Chris Nolan film
Andrew: Yes. And I'm happy with that.
thetakeup: in our canon. That's that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, so I'm gonna tease again that
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: maybe it'll all have the opportunity if in the future we do this again. We
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: will be doing an episode soon, in which we will add some of our older episode films. Some of the films
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: we covered on retake Because we are going to be doing a bonus upcoming episode where we are gonna look at the films we covered before the canon and add some more in there. and we might get some input from our old co hosts too. Hmm Hmm But until then we're gonna have to have one more thing. Alright, every episode, we have one more thing for you beyond our film. I think I go first. I might go first. Okay, I'll I'll
Andrew: Sure. Why not?
thetakeup: fucking go first. mine is an Odyssey of sorts.
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: it's called Cinablad. It is I don't know if I'm saying that right. Cinna as in cinema, and blod as in something else. I don't know what that means. but i
Andrew: It sounds German.
thetakeup: it's probably my accent. No one can place my accent when I'm speaking French here. They think I'm Italian. And I'm like, okay.
Andrew: Just roll with that. That's probably better than saying you're America at this point.
thetakeup: Well, no, you know, some people just absolutely love Coca-Cola and John Wayne and you know, it's you know,
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: I hear all kinds of stuff. but there's a wonderful woman, her name is Juliet. she does Cinema based tours in Paris. And I had the great fortune of going to her Agnes Varda tour.
Andrew: Ooh, fine.
thetakeup: so we were around the 14th arrondissement in Montparnasse, and we went to not only a few locations, films like Cleo from Five to Seven, Slightly Pregnant Men, where what, why, why?
Andrew: wait, did you see her how her beautiful house that she had with Jacques
thetakeup: Well
Andrew: Demi?
thetakeup: I mean, if you'd let me just finish, I was gonna say. Yes,
Andrew: Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
thetakeup: yes. Okay. I we went to the pink house. Okay, so I'm going to post all the pictures I took on the internet. But that's your
Andrew: Huh.
thetakeup: reaction is so cute because like that's exactly we were like, wait, my god, we're gonna see the pink houses. So there are children who I met her daughter at
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: because she was a producer on Faces Places.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: that film that she made with JR which was ultimately her final feature. Final
Andrew: Yeah, final one, yeah, I think.
thetakeup: theatrically released feature, I think. anyway, they they painted it like a duller pink, but maybe because they don't want like a bunch of loiterers.
Andrew: Ha ha.
thetakeup: But it's so cool because
Andrew: People want really want you to see their beautiful, like just off the street. Is it th they have that courtyard and everything, like and it's all sort of hidden away from the street.
thetakeup: Well, I have to say like they kept it pink and there's not you know, in that which is Rue de Guerre, it's if you've seen De Guerra Teep, which is the film that Agnes Varda made where I'm waiting on my set to come back from
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: from the war, from shipping, so that I can go through it and really have a good time. That's why I'm watching all this like Paris stuff that you're seeing vlog. Anyway, anyway.
Andrew: I love it.
thetakeup: so Juliet does this beautiful thing where she's got an iPad and she will like as you're standing in front of the thing, show you clips from films and show you like and I was like, wow,
Andrew: that's great.
thetakeup: technology, but also us doing this very like analog thing of just going on a walk together. It was so great. She was so awesome. And it was as a part of Lost in French Lation, which is a group that they do English subtitled films,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: typically French films, which is hard to find here. They're kind of one of the sole groups that show films like that and they do first run things, but it was partnered with them, so we got to do this beautiful tour of the neighborhood. That not only do we see all of this Demi Varda stuff, we also saw the street, the intersection where Jean Jean Paul. Belmondo is shot at the end of Breathless. and I made my husband, of course, stand in the middle of the street and hold his back like he was running away. And
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: so, yeah. So it's really cool. But she does other tours. She's doing like a midnight in Paris tour and and and she does a lot of great works, but you can find her website. Is C-I-N-E-B-L-A-D-E dot com and you can see her schedule there. but I will post my pictures there on
Andrew: That's amazing.
thetakeup: our Instagram, and it was a lot of fun. So if you're in Paris or you're traveling to Paris, do that. But then also, I don't know, watch Agnes Varda is my
Andrew: Never a bad it's never a bad idea to pick a Varda out of a hat and just watch it, yeah.
thetakeup: No. No. but then you can find us at the take dash up dot com and we've got a l quite a few new reviews up there, including Ethan's Odyssey. you had something Evil Dead Burn recently,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Cliff Freelick did trains. I'll have something forthcoming. Yay.
Andrew: Yeah. We're posting content again at the take up. How novel.
thetakeup: And doing podcasts weekly, wow. It's like life is getting back to
Andrew: Yeah. Let's see how long we can maintain this.
thetakeup: To normal. Normal. All right. And what's your what's your thing?
Andrew: I don't really have a ton to talk about this week. It's been a slow week. I'm gonna talk about my awesome new keyboard. I recall that years ago you talked about your addiction to a particular like brand of keyboard, like what you're making you're making faces, what?
thetakeup: No. No. Not it's worse. It was a TikTok account of ASMR of of the ceramic
Andrew: a particular I don't remember it was. It was a particular like switch sound.
thetakeup: keyboards.
Andrew: Yeah. Did you ever actually end up buying one or you just sort of vicariously loved them through the lips?
thetakeup: No, I didn't. I w I I just liked the click, the clack, the clonk. There are there are different sounds and I liked that. So please show me this keyboard.
Andrew: Well, I've never been. So I don't know if I can do this. I don't think I can do this. There we go.
thetakeup: Ooh.
Andrew: So this is I have never been a keyboard guy. The keyboard I when I built my compute my desktop computer during COVID, I just bought a standard full-size clicky-clacky mechanical keyboard from like just one of the standard manufacturers who de who develop components. But recently I started to like want something sp smaller and more specific for this computer I use mainly for gaming. So like I wanted something s smaller, more compact, but also had a maybe a different feel, not a clicky clacky typing keyboard, but more of a gaming keyboard. so I broke down and bought this all metal. it's called a the manufacturer is lemo key L-E-M-O-K-E-Y. This is a seventy-five percent magnetic switch keyboard.
thetakeup: What's that mean?
Andrew: it's just the switch style. So instead of having that really it has a relatively low carriage return, if that makes sense. So it's not really deep clicky clack. It's it's a little subtler.
thetakeup: Yes. Yeah. All right.
Andrew: it's more, it's very smooth. It doesn't have like that sometimes some of the some switches have like a feeling of resistance as you're pushing down.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: A sort of haptic style resistance. This is much more smooth. it's kind of designed for for gaming, but I just really like the look and feel of it. And now that I've used it a little bit for typing and writing too, I actually kind of prefer it to the more the deeper, the deeper, clickier keyboards. It's not like a laptop keyboard, it's not that subtle. there there
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: it has a full set of keycaps and everything, which of course you can change out with if you want to try something different, and you have full control over the like the the lighting on it, key by key, which I really like. it's got a little built-in volume knob, which I love, and it weighs about Ten fucking pounds 'cause it's solid metal.
thetakeup: And what what was the brand again? What was it?
Andrew: It's called Limo Key, L E O K E Y. Anyway, I guess I'm a keyboard guy now because I've I've fallen in love with this and I love it. It doesn't have if you're like an Excel person,
thetakeup: I love it too.
Andrew: you can't use one of these keyboards because it doesn't have like the right hand number pad at all. It just chops that shit straight off. So like if you're a person who sits there and does spreadsheets all day, you couldn't use this keyboard. It's specific, I got it specifically for my use case. So I won't swear this is for everybody, but the durability of like the the metal casing and like the braided cable, like i it's i it's expensive, but I feel like it was worth it because the material seems so solid. It's the kind of thing that's gonna like it's gonna outlive me. It's gonna survive a nuclear blast, I feel like.
thetakeup: I went mobile, I went laptop when
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I knew I was moving.
Andrew: Make sense.
thetakeup: but I appreciate the size of a you know a desktop and so I I would love a custom keyboard, especially one with a creamy clicky clack with seventy five magnetic something. I love toys.
Andrew: Anyway, I guess I'm that guy now. I didn't think of even it's recently as six months ago I didn't think of myself as that guy who was into keyboards, but now I like it. But I'm also like, this is one. I need one. I don't know these I don't understand these people who own like twelve different keyboards.
thetakeup: Well that that's that becomes a special interest. That's a yeah, that's a different story.
Andrew: Yeah. People who collect fountain pens and things. Like I just it's its own it's its own thing.
thetakeup: You leave my husband out of this.
Andrew: I'm not knocking any hobby. I'm just saying like there are collection there are collecting hobbies that I don't quite understand, but that's that's that's just me. That's a me problem.
thetakeup: Yeah, yeah. All right, well that's your keyboard. Where can people find you?
Andrew: You can find me at letterbox a y at seventy-six and at thetaup.com. I almost feel like we could have spent another hour blabbering about Odyssey.
thetakeup: Well, you have a wealth of information about Odyssey that I do not. But we
Andrew: Ha ha.
thetakeup: could we barely touched a lot it's a big fucking movie. And I don't think
Andrew: Yeah. Okay. You know my favorite you my favorite production fact that I one last thing, the favorite production fact that I've learned.
thetakeup: Yes. Yeah.
Andrew: So the you know he goes to the island with like the big towering warriors. And in the in the poem they're like cannibals. They're they're even more like brutish and terrifying. But that's all done in camera with a a five foot woman as the body double for Matt Damon and like a seven foot two dude as the lead general.
thetakeup: That's old school. I mean, that is yes, that is Elijah Wood in the fore and Ian McClellan in the back. Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, that's Lord of the Rings shit right there. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it.
thetakeup: All right. Well, yeah, hit us up with some Odyssey takes at TakeUp STL all over social media. and next episode, we're going
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: to cover something completely different. That is The highest some kind of metric critically acclaimed film of the year. It that is Sophie Romvari's film Blue Heron. Have you seen it yet?
Andrew: I've not seen it yet. It's on I'm I'm saving it for this week. It's on Criterion right now. All I know
thetakeup: Just premiered on the Criterion Channel X.
Andrew: about it is that people have been raving it to the like rafters, so
thetakeup: I am going to give you a trigger warning right now. Upsetting
Andrew: Okay, fair.
thetakeup: stuff. Upsetting family things.
Andrew: Can you can you be more specific without spoiling?
thetakeup: I cannot.
Andrew: Okay. I'm not I'm not generally a person who like who has to know going in if something traumatic happens.
thetakeup: It's it's
Andrew: Like I just I'm okay with merrolling with it. So
thetakeup: There are very similar things happening here as to the film After Sun.
Andrew: Okay, ouch. All right. Preparing myself emotionally for that now.
thetakeup: Auchie, Hurdy, but yeah, okay, but I won't say anything else about that. if you're in the States, you can watch it on Criterion channel. You can probably rent it to it's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: still playing in theaters here, so I guess a medium sized hit. but until then, thank you to Ethan Tarantella for editing the show, Kayla McCullough for Help with social media, got theme music by AMP and until next time something last a long time. yeah.
