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Movie Review: Ulysses (1954) and The Odyssey (1997) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-26

SPOILER ALERT!

Another movie based on The Odyssey is due to come out next year. Perhaps this would be a good time to reflect on just what it is we want from such a movie, guided by the movie versions that already exist. I saw Ulysses when it first came out in 1954. At the time, some people complained about the way the English was dubbed in, but that is what I prefer. Recently, I saw it again on TCM, and it was subtitled, which I suppose is what others prefer. Either way, the movie is fun to watch. The Odyssey, a television miniseries made in 1997, was only fair, although it does have the advantage of being originally in English. References to this version will be followed by the letters “TV” in parentheses in order to distinguish it from the epic poem by Homer.

Less Is More

Do we want a faithful rendering of Homer’s epic poem? Merciful Minerva! May the gods forbid! Back in the eighth century B.C., there was very little to entertain people. Sitting around a campfire in the dark, while it was too early to go to sleep, they were bored. And so it was that a poet that could recite The Iliad or The Odyssey was much appreciated in those days. Let him go on at great length about minor matters. That was better than having him finish it up and having to go back to staring into that campfire.

In Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, he has a chapter entitled “Mozart on the Run,” the point being that musicians today play the music of Mozart at a faster tempo than when it was first played in the eighteenth century. And that makes sense, for once the composition was over, people had little else to do but go home and be bored. So, they were happy if the music was dragged out a bit longer. But now that we have other ways of amusing ourselves, a shorter performance of Mozart’s music is to be preferred.

And a shorter version of The Odyssey is just what we need as well. In fact, one of the problems with the television miniseries The Odyssey (TV) is that its pace is too slow. Its total length is just over three hours, which would allow more of the story related in the poem to be told, if we thought that was important, but that is no longer a given. Ulysses, on the other hand, is just over and ninety minutes, during which time things move along at a brisk pace.

In the poem, we find out that Odysseus has been kept on an island with Calypso, a nymph that has promised him immortality if he stays with her, but he longs to return to Ithaca. Even though the poem says he was there for seven years, that does not mean a lot of the movie must be devoted to it. This was just Homer’s way of keeping his hero from getting back home for a long time. Ulysses wisely ignores the whole business with Calypso, who is merged with Circe, leaving it to her to promise him immortality. The Odyssey (TV), unfortunately, has us sit through a long, boring period on Calypso’s Island.

The First Draft Dodger

At the end of Ulysses, the title character, now reunited with his wife Penelope, refers to their wasted youth on account of a savage war. This reminds us of how he never wanted to have anything to do with the Trojan War in the first place. From a source other than The Iliad or The Odyssey, the Fabulae of Hyginus to be exact, there is a story of how Odysseus was obligated to take part in the war against Troy when Helen, the wife of Menelaus, fled there with Paris. Not wanting any part of that, Odysseus feigned madness when Agamemnon and Menelaus came for him, but Palamedes saw through this fakery, and Odysseus was forced to leave his wife and home.

We do see Agamemnon and Menelaus arrive in Ithaca to fetch Odysseus in The Odyssey (TV), and it would have been easy enough to include this story at that point, but it was left out. Those of us that managed to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War take exception to this omission, and we hope it will be included in the upcoming version next year.

Penelope’s Motivation

One of the things that puzzles us today is why Penelope allows the suitors to park their butts in her house, feasting and drinking, while demanding that she marry one of them on the assumption that her husband is dead. An attempt is made in The Odyssey (TV) to apologize for Penelope. First, before he leaves, Odysseus tells her that if he has not returned from the war by the time their newly born son Telemachus has started growing a beard, she must remarry. Moreover, the mother of Odysseus puts pressure on Penelope to marry again. It was apparently thought necessary to explain Penelope’s behavior in this way, but it feels contrived. In Ulysses, we see how the suitors have forced themselves on a woman who is alone, except for her son and a few servants, and that is sufficient explanation.

Although we get to see for ourselves how Penelope is determined to remain faithful to Odysseus, he does not know what awaits him when he gets back to Ithaca. In Ulysses, Circe allows him to speak to some of the souls in Hades. Agamemnon tells of how his wife, Clytemnestra, with the aid of her lover, murdered him when he returned home, suggesting the same fate might befall Odysseus. But then, Agamemnon might have expected his wife to be a little put out with him after he murdered their daughter Iphigenia. This encounter between Odysseus and the shade of Agamemnon is not featured in The Odyssey (TV).

In Ulysses, even when Odysseus, upon his return to Ithaca, has greeted his son Telemachus, he still is not sure if Penelope can be trusted. We don’t see such doubt on his part in The Odyssey (TV). Actually, his only question should be why she has not remarried. He told her before he left that she should get herself a new husband by the time their son had grown a beard, and Telemachus is now twenty years old.

Classical Allusions

Many of the adventures of Odysseus are regularly alluded to in subsequent literature as well as in ordinary conversation. As a result, we should expect to see these events in a movie based on this epic poem. Both movies disappoint, though in different ways. Ulysses fails to depict a scene in which Odysseus must steer his ship through the Strait of Messina, bordered on one side by Scylla, a flesh-eating monster, and on the other side by Charybdis, a giant whirlpool.

We do see this in The Odyssey (TV), but it fails to depict the scene in which the ship must pass by the sirens, whose singing lures sailors to crash their ships onto the rocks. In the poem, Odysseus has his men fill their ears with wax, while at the same time tying him to the mast so he can hear their songs, which is depicted in Ulysses.

Hopefully, the upcoming movie based on The Odyssey will include both.

My Name Is Nobody

When Odysseus and his men are trapped by Polyphemus, a Cyclops, he tells the one-eyed giant that his name is Nobody. After a stake is jammed into the eye of Polyphemus, he screams that Nobody has blinded him. The other Cyclopes on the island figured there was nothing to do about it since nobody blinded him. Unfortunately, this trick is not depicted in Ulysses, although it is in The Odyssey (TV).

This is all the more perplexing when we get to the scene where Odysseus washes up on a shore and is discovered by Nausicaa, who is a Phaeacian. In the poem, he is naked, but both movies have understandably covered his privates. In the poem, Odysseus merely conceals his identity for a while, not being sure of the how well he might be received by the people on this island. Finally, when moved to tears by a poet’s recounting of the fall of Troy, he admits, “I am Odysseus,” just as he taunted Polyphemus after having escaped and boarded his ship, declaring there too that he was Odysseus. In other words, in both cases, he begins as a nobody until finally asserting himself as one of the great heroes of the Trojan War.

Ulysses actually improves on this. Not only is he (almost) naked, but he has lost his memory as well. He is as much of a nobody as one can be. In The Odyssey (TV), the king of the Phaeacians figures out who Odysseus is so quickly that the point of his being a nobody again is minimized.

Of course, Odysseus becomes a nobody once more when he arrives in Ithaca, pretending to be a beggar, until, having strung the bow and shot the arrow through the axes, he declares himself to be Odysseus.

This theme of his being a nobody until he once again becomes Odysseus recapitulates his long absence after the war until he returns to Ithaca and claims his rightful place as king.

Needless to say, the upcoming version should, at the very least, have Odysseus tell the Cyclops that his name is Nobody.

The Greek Gods

We naturally expect Odysseus and others to believe in the gods of ancient Greece, but do we actually want the gods themselves in a movie? There are no gods depicted in Ulysses. In The Odyssey (TV), however, Athena, Poseidon, and Hermes are shown to exist. As a result, the story in Ulysses, despite the presence of some supernatural elements, can be experienced more or less realistically. The story in The Odyssey (TV), on the other hand, is just a fantasy.

Furthermore, when Odysseus is talking to Athena in The Odyssey (TV), he asks her why she hasn’t done more to help him, and she explains that, as a goddess, she has much to do and can’t always be at his beck and call. This is not exactly equivalent to the ancient problem of evil that has bedeviled monotheistic religions since The Book of Job and the dilemma of Epicurus, but it does force us to try to make sense out of the behavior of the Olympians, which is a distraction.

The Death of Argos

When Odysseus returns to Ithaca, he disguises himself as a beggar, but he is recognized by his old, neglected dog Argos:

As soon as he saw Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Ulysses saw the dog on the other side of the yard, he dashed a tear from his eyes….

Argos dies soon after.

So brutal are the stories from ancient times that we think of those people as of another race. But this affection between a man and his dog makes us realize that they too were capable of tender feelings.

This scene is depicted in Ulysses to good effect. It was left out of The Odyssey (TV).

The Wooden Horse

There is one point on which both versions agree, and that is on the story about the wooden horse. In fact, they are also in agreement with every other movie I have seen about the Trojan War, such as Helen of Troy (1956) and Troy (2004). In particular, Greeks hide themselves in the wooden horse, the Trojans bring the horse through the gates of the walled city, and that night the Greeks slip out, open the gates, letting the rest of their army in, and Troy is sacked.

In The Aeneid, a Latin poem written by Virgil, a slightly different story is told. When the Greeks pretended to give up and sail away, they left behind Simon. When the Trojans find him, he explains that the horse was built to honor Minerva. They purposely made the horse too big to bring within the gates, for if the Trojans were to take the horse into their city, they would get the benefit and be able to destroy the Greeks. Undeterred, the Trojans tear down part of the wall and bring the horse in.

This is absurd enough when we read it, but to see that in a movie would be all the more so. Why do men need to be hiding in the horse if part of the wall has been torn down? All the Greeks needed to do was sail back that night, sneak up to the city, and pour right in through the breach. According to Robert Graves, in his The Greek Myths, there is another source in which it is related that the Trojans repaired the breach once the horse was brought inside. Nice try, but we don’t want to see that in a movie either.

Clearly, there was an earlier story, in which there were no men hiding inside the horse. It was made large enough to force the Trojans to tear down part of the wall, and that night the Greeks got into the city that way. That’s the kind of plan I would prefer. The only person at risk is Simon. If the Trojans burn the horse instead, nothing has been lost.

Later, someone came up with the idea of Greeks hiding inside the horse. That version was much more exciting and insidious. All the poets needed to do was drop the original story. But it just wouldn’t go away, and that is why it shows up in The Aeneid and elsewhere.

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