A time of apparent magic. The Odyssey's opening text is just five words long, yet instantly evocative – conjuring up images of the type of mythmaking and unexplainable acts we would witness for the next three hours as Odysseus made his long journey home to Ithaca.
Now, director Christopher Nolan has revealed what influenced the decision to place text at the beginning of his movie, as he also did with Oppenheimer.
"One of my earliest movie experiences – a very profound one – was seeing George Lucas' first Star Wars," Nolan said during a conversation with fellow director Park Chan-wook (via Cine21).
"He began that film with a title: 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.' That immediately told me how to watch the film."
That training of the audience is something Nolan was keen to mirror in The Odyssey. He stated, "It put me in the right frame of mind to receive the imagery. In [The Odyssey], I was chasing that kind of experience where you want to create a world where the audience loses themselves and takes it on its own terms. I was looking for that as an example as a way of giving a phrase that would help the audience understand the terms of the story."
Delving deeper into the meaning behind the 'apparent' magic, Nolan pointed out it not only worked as a primer for the audience, but also as a way to avoid getting into the weeds of whether magic actually existed in the world of The Odyssey or not.
Nolan explained, "The word 'apparent' in particular, to me, was about acknowledging [that] if we tell the story realistically, we have to explain why there's magic. I was very interested in the idea of a person living in the Bronze Age, there's magic all around you that you cannot explain. There are fanciful explanations for the things you're experiencing… I wanted to put that in people's heads as they start to watch the film."
The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, and Tom Holland, is now officially Nolan's highest-grossing movie, eclipsing The Dark Knight Rises' $1.085 billion.
For more, join us as we break down The Odyssey ending. And, in an act of apparent hubris, we rank the best Christopher Nolan movies – including The Odyssey.
