The Nolan Operation: Hollywood Party
(From the systemic dismantling of the Classical Myth down to the technical absurdities of the IMAX spectacle).
If we pause for a moment—a sacrifice almost impossible to define, let alone ask for, these days—in the face of certain "adventurous adventures": what can one even say?...continue...
Yes, I too am speaking of a film I haven't seen (the graphic designer son, having seen it, calls it "nice"—an adjective as all-encompassing as it is meaningless) about the Odyssey. The Yankees, then: devoid of past or present, and now primed for the final push... that is, prow turned upward... as Dante would say regarding Ulysses’ mad flight (Inferno, Canto XXVI) enter Director Nolan, the hero. And here we must understand one another to grasp the "Nolan Operation," because that is precisely what this is: the cheapening of a Myth, the defilement of the very foundations of the West—and perhaps even of his own heritage, even if he looks like a descendant of Vikings.
For us Italics, it touches the foundation of Rome—the very one these insufferable Yankees constantly on according to their own whims. Yet those butchers (Legions) maintained the known world for millennia. If we factor in Constantinople and its history, right around five centuries separate us from the "collapse give or take a few days. Practically since the dawn of Roman handed-down history—myth(r)ologies, undoubtedly, yet without which we would make sense of absolutely nothing. And Yankee have only two and half Century of "history"!
Nothing? It is precisely here that our hero/director (currently making hand-over-fist cash) creates his "idiotic" [scemiche] rather than "scenic" reconstructions out of thin American air. He couldn't care less about adherence to the Odyssey, naturally. Indeed, for the American halfwit stepping into the theater—burger in one hand, popcorn in the other, and with a "third leg" clutching a bottle of Coke—yum, yum, devouring everything and anything. They are Amer-i-canine, whose sole job is the desecration of the classics for the masses: a cardboard grandeur. Hollywood docet.
But let us suppose we are writing nonsense (!?) and grant them the benefit of the doubt regarding this revival of myth(r)ology. Must we conclude that the Yankees, upon viewing the movie, are struck down like Saul-Paul on the road to... Manhattan? Not a chance in hell.
P.S.
Nolan Director then looms large, and what is a Yankee/Viking to do? Shoot with an Arri 35 mm, perhaps in anamorphic? Hell no. He invents nothing; instead, he uses that junk named IMAX. IMAX 70mm—and not even running vertically like today's standard 35mm in theaters using for film. We send satellites to the planets of the Truman Show and then... we return to the deafeningly noisy projectors of old-school cinemas (anyone who was there knows what I mean!).
No, Nolan uses 70mm running... horizontally. Pull up a chair, buddy, come eat with me! But dulcis in fundo, the theaters capable of such a vision—the 70 millimeters that one ought to shove right into their...ass—the venues for such magnificence are a mere handful scattered across the globe! The rest of the 70mm prints are just an adaptation onto film or another medium resembling standard 35mm. It is a Ferrari pulling up to the pump and filling its tank with agricultural oil.
In a world where... the 70mm container HAS BECOME the content... what else is left to say?
The Mechanics of the Illusion
This final blunder lays bare the entire logic:
Physics vs. Posturing: A waterlogged, wooden colossus (scene of Mytical Horse) weighing tons, dragged through sand and surf without rollers or wheels, relying purely on brute force against every law of friction. All to satisfy the director's desire for "raw, tactile texture."
The Auteur's Ego: Substituting historical logic, engineering, and textual tradition with a "twenty-year personal obsession" is the classic shortcut of the American director-demiurge.
The Hollow Shell: Unlike the sacral, monumental weight of the 1968 Italian television adaptation, this approach degrades the myth into a mere display of logistical flex.
Moving a heavy prop on set becomes the scene itself. The 70mm frame doesn't serve the Odyssey; the Odyssey is merely the excuse to parade the 70mm frame.
