*** THE ODYSSEY *** (Christopher Nolan)

124,722 Views | 1184 Replies | Last: 14 hrs ago by Marauder Blue 6
Cliff.Booth
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I don't think that many believe you when you claim that about the movie industry. You always claim to speak for the whole group (you don't), and I don't believe you. I think the vast majority are strongly left-leaning, and the few that aren't are super-closeted about their views to protect their sanity and livelihood. The few that have enough **** you money and clout to break ranks have been totally ostracized and there's no going back.
Cliff.Booth
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BTW Bisbee, these interactions are why he has the reputation he does. Maybe you've never dared to disagree with one of his takes or criticize a project he's hyping, but if you do, he doesn't just disagree, he immediately goes to calling you dumb, condescending to you, gaslighting you, etc. I've tried many times to politely disagree with him and he resorts to the same behavior regardless.
Urban Ag
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AG
veryfuller said:

Right, he essentially has a super star from every demo in this movie.

Then he should have passed on Leguizamo and found a way to shoehorn Vergara in somewhere

holy giant image pic. I'll try this

Cliff.Booth
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I would like to propose that there WAS a Greek Odysseus available.

TCTTS
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Cliff.Booth said:

I don't think that many believe you when you claim that about the movie industry. You always claim to speak for the whole group (you don't), and I don't believe you. I think the vast majority are strongly left-leaning, and the few that aren't are super-closeted about their views to protect their sanity and livelihood. The few that have enough **** you money and clout to break ranks have been totally ostracized and there's no going back.


So far in this thread, twice you've mocked my career status, despite having no idea what I do or who I work with in this industry, and now, when I claim the simple, indisputable fact that there are conservatives in Hollywood, yet again you call me a liar. All while continuing to act like you're Mr. Innocent Good Guy and I'm Mr. Deranged Bad Guy.

First of all, I'm not "speaking for the whole group" when I make the factual claim that there are conservatives in Hollywood. I don't even know what that means in whatever context you're intending. Rather, it is a widely known (within the industry) fact that a number of the big-money executives vote conservative, as do numerous directors, as do all kinds of "below the line" types. Hollywood isn't just celebrities. They make up a tiny fraction compared to the thousands of normal folks who work in this industry, doing an incredibly wide range of jobs, all from different parts of the country and vastly different walks of life.

Never mind someone like David Ellison, whose father is one of Trump's biggest donors, whose money David used to buy Paramount and Warner Bros, and in the process rebranded CBS News, will no doubt rebrand CNN as well, etc. Hell, the Ellison situation in and of itself is proof enough.

Otherwise, this isn't something I'm making up, or *can* make up.

You can literally do research yourself and find all kinds of instances of credible insider-types discussing conservatives in Hollywood, and I'm not talking about Jon Voight or James Woods or whoever. Never mind the fact that I personally know multiple people in this industry who vote conservative. That's just… the truth. Why would I lie about that? How could I lie about that, when the information is available? I'm somehow making up something that's otherwise verifiable so that I can kind of sort of score make-believe points in an internet message board dispute that I can never win? What? Do you understand how conspiracy-minded that sounds? From wherever you live, in what world do you think you have such authoritative knowledge of a place you've clearly never spent any extended time in (I can make that assumption confidently, because if you did spend any meaningful time in this industry at all, it would be damn near impossible to be as stubborn in your views of this place as you are).

But by all means keep mocking me. Keep calling me a liar if it makes you feel better, and helps keep your precious little worldview intact.
veryfuller
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AG
When I say apolitical, what I mean is not that his movies are devoid of politics, nothing is. It's that the movie is neutral on those things and not forcing a point of view. It's letting the characters approach those things, and then leaving it to the audience to chew on rather than spoon feeding or forcing a perspective.

Also, if he has any soap box that he gets on, it's the cinematic experience and making things for large audiences in theaters. So if you can assume any motivation for him, it's that he is doing whatever it takes to achieve that. He isn't trying to pick some political fight or make some political point with any of his movies.
agdoc2001
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veryfuller said:

When I say apolitical, what I mean is not that his movies are devoid of politics, nothing is.

This seems to be the modern sentiment, but I'd have to disagree. I think many works of art/entertainment are created apolitically. Certainly, the audience may overlay their own political biases in their personal interpretation of the work, but that doesn't make it fundamentally political.
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veryfuller
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We are saying the same thing!

And people are arguing with me on both ends.

Can you "read" his movies politically, yes. The Dark Knight feels very Bush era coded. That doesn't mean it was made with that intention (I would argue that it wasn't). It was just a complex story that had relationship to real world ideas. Same with The Dark Knight Rises.

He is making movies from the point of view of entertainment, often intellectual and visceral, in an era when the masses are seeing things through a political lens. Everyone wants to either be confirmed in their politics or find how they are being manipulated to go against their politics, so they either rage or love a thing based on their political reading. I just don't think thats the way to enjoy movies. And although there are many filmmakers who are trying to SAY something with their films, thats not Nolan. But that doesn't mean he isn't willing to dive into complexity and make you feel/think things that may be opposed to your normal worldview.
CharleyKerfeld
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tk for tu juan
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Many water molecules died to bring us that AI information
agdoc2001
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AG
Got it. I misunderstood your sentiment and I agree completely with your latest post.
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YouBet
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veryfuller said:

We are saying the same thing!

And people are arguing with me on both ends.

Can you "read" his movies politically, yes. The Dark Knight feels very Bush era coded. That doesn't mean it was made with that intention (I would argue that it wasn't). It was just a complex story that had relationship to real world ideas. Same with The Dark Knight Rises.

He is making movies from the point of view of entertainment, often intellectual and visceral, in an era when the masses are seeing things through a political lens. Everyone wants to either be confirmed in their politics or find how they are being manipulated to go against their politics, so they either rage or love a thing based on their political reading. I just don't think thats the way to enjoy movies. And although there are many filmmakers who are trying to SAY something with their films, thats not Nolan. But that doesn't mean he isn't willing to dive into complexity and make you feel/think things that may be opposed to your normal worldview.


What does this mean? Have seen this stated multiple times now.

Also, yall are making me want to dig up The Sound of Freedom thread. I have no idea what that is but now I want to know.
Urban Ag
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tk for tu juan said:

Many water molecules died to bring us that AI information

You laugh but the LCRA is going to ruin my lawn again just so some dorks on TA can keep count of an online slap fest.
Urban Ag
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Patriot Act, Operation Carnivore, domestic spying, etc.
Fenrir
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They are arguing that the cellphone thing Batman builds is the movie equivalent of the Patriot Act and therefore it's conservative coded. But they're also ignoring that Batman relinquishes control of it and then has it destroyed.

The argument that his Batman movies are conservative coded comes from a surface level viewing of the movies and completely disregards all the various points in the movies where characters question whether or not these decisions and choices are the right ones. At best the intent is that these movies would make people think about positives and negatives of decisions, but they are certainly not conservative supporting. This argument tends to come from incredibly liberal circlejerks like reddit.
YouBet
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Ah, thanks. Guess I've forgotten the particulars of the film. Been a while.

Also, doesn't Batman right now have a fairly omnipotent AI satellite in space that can break into and see pretty much anything happening on Earth? He seems to have gone full Bush Code in the comics last time I read one. Been a while on that too though.
AGC
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veryfuller said:

Wouldn't it be interesting if her race was addressed in the movie and it added to the storytelling in an interesting way….almost as if Nolan knows how to tell a story…as he has more than proven over the last 26 years. Or maybe the part plays to her strengths as an actress (when she is good she is really good) and he cast her for that reason. You know…to make the movie better…

But I could be wrong. The man, who already has an Oscar, could be so obsessed with winning another that he has compromised the movie he has been wanting to make for 30 years (when he got carte blanc to make whatever he wanted however he wanted) and decided to bow to DEI like he never has before. That makes more sense….

I think it's fine to hate the casting. I think it's silly to layer your own politics onto someone who has proven time and time again to be apolitical in his filmmaking.


Yeah, it'd be special storytelling indeed to say Leda, an aetolian Greek princess married to a spartan king, gave birth to a daughter by Zeus that was black and the spartan didn't leave it to die of exposure, as would be expected since it obviously wasn't his child. I guess we should ignore how antiquity deals with this in Greek art too, knowing there were shrines devoted to her.

It's pretty indefensible by any standard of storytelling.
Cinco Ranch Aggie
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Fenrir said:

They are arguing that the cellphone thing Batman builds is the movie equivalent of the Patriot Act and therefore it's conservative coded. But they're also ignoring that Batman relinquishes control of it and then has it destroyed.

The argument that his Batman movies are conservative coded comes from a surface level viewing of the movies and completely disregards all the various points in the movies where characters question whether or not these decisions and choices are the right ones. At best the intent is that these movies would make people think about positives and negatives of decisions, but they are certainly not conservative supporting. This argument tends to come from incredibly liberal circlejerks like reddit.

Another example - in The Dark Knight Rises, the people around Catwoman are shown pulling the rich people from their homes and taking what they want. Hardly conservative.
veryfuller
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To clarify, I'm not arguing FOR that reading. I just understand the surface level of it. It is addressing many real world ideas that were happening at that time such as terrorism and surveillance. It it explores those things with the characters in a way that is much more nuanced than good v bad, which is one of the reasons it still holds up as a great movie.
Squadron7
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Another angle on casting. It seems like a lot of big names in this thing. It kind of smacks of older Hollywood to have so many.

I think too many can get distracting. It can get a bit boring and be, ironically...A Bridge Too Far.

Case in point from my own personal view: Saving Private Ryan. Sure, you can't get a name bigger than Tom Hanks, but after that is was a bunch of unknowns (or at least familiar true character actors). Then....boom....Holy Crap! That's Sam Malone! It clunked.

To my eye, the lack of sTaR PoWeR really helped in Band of Brothers. Somehow, unfamiliar guys being played by also unfamiliar guys seemed like it helped the actual storytelling.
veryfuller
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Yeah but that is shown with terror, not like, support. The good guys in the movie are literally the police coming back to take over the city from the anarchists. Again, not saying it SHOULD be read as conservative, there is much more nuance in that film as well, but as a top line, I can understand why people say it reads conservative. To me its just an interesting examination of the multiple competing ideas in a big city and how they can really boil over when push comes to shove, especially when corruption is exposed.
Fenrir
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veryfuller said:

Yeah but that is shown with terror, not like, support. The good guys in the movie are literally the police coming back to take over the city from the anarchists. Again, not saying it SHOULD be read as conservative, there is much more nuance in that film as well, but as a top line, I can understand why people say it reads conservative. To me its just an interesting examination of the multiple competing ideas in a big city and how they can really boil over when push comes to shove, especially when corruption is exposed.

I think it's interesting that it's considered conservative for rule of law to try to be re-established after a breakdown of society into complete anarchy. I think that says a lot about the people that consider showing that happening in a film is read as conservative. Again, my experience is that most of these arguments come from liberal echo chambers that view anything right of Bernie Sanders to be a Nazi.
veryfuller
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Right, but again thats dealing with the surface and not the themes. Its also putting ones particular political bent on top of the movie. I don't think thats a good way to enjoy movies, but I am probably in the minority on that.
Fenrir
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What theme is it that makes the Dark Knight movies "conservative"? I'm pretty confident that any attempt to argue that says more about the person with the viewpoint than the movie itself.

Btw, if you read the book The Nolan Variations he speaks specifically to this argument about the Dark Knight movies and finds it nonsensical.
Marauder Blue 6
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Sorry to interrupt the circle jerk. Does anyone have a particular translation that they recommend if I want to read The Odyssey before the movie comes out?
veryfuller
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Im not arguing against you man.

I don't think the movies are conservative, I just understand that people viewing it through their political lenses see it that way.

I'm the one saying Nolan is apolitical in his filmmaking and getting raked over the coals for that....
Fenrir
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Fair enough. I do agree that Nolan typically seems to avoid specific viewpoints that usually will be viewed as political and instead tries to focus more on more base level emotions and fears for the themes of his movies.
agdoc2001
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In response to Maruder:

Fitzgerald's version is the one I read in high school initially. It's more readable than some other translations, but occasionally uses colloquial expressions which feel a bit out of place.

If you are looking for a more scholarly and accurate translation, read Lattimore.

If you prefer a *******ization of the work by a feminist activist, by all means, read WIlson.
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FightinTexasAg15
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Marauder Blue 6 said:

Sorry to interrupt the circle jerk. Does anyone have a particular translation that they recommend if I want to read The Odyssey before the movie comes out?


The Emily Wilson translation is probably the easiest to read due to the simplicity of her writing, but she does inject her own spin into the writing which irks some.

I enjoyed Richmond Lattimore's translation most though. It's more faithful, but not too daunting.

You may also consider an audio book version. There's one narrated by Ian McKellen that I enjoyed.

There's also one by Stephen Fry, which isn't a direct translation of the book, but a re-imagining of the story and its highly entertaining. It's part of a larger series, but you can listen to it on its own.
Marauder Blue 6
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Thank you
 
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