Attached below is a collage of excerpts from one of the classical movie adaptions of the Odyssey, Mario Camerini's Ulisse (Italy, 1954) with Kirk Douglas as Odysseus, Silvia Mangano as Penelope/ Circe, Anthony Quinn as evil suitor Antinoos, and Franco Interlenghi as Telemachus. The title Ulisse, by the way, echoes the Latin name of Odysseus, Ulixes.
The Phaeacian princess Nausikaa was played by Rosanna Podesta (the same who a year later played the title role in Helen of Troy, the movie that made her famous), but she is not featured in these excerpts.
The Cyclops episode in this film is remarkably effective, even if the Cyclops' one-eyed make-up (by then well-kown special effects artist Eugen Schüfftan) may seem crude in the view of today's computer-assisted special effects. Yet the Cyclops appears appropriately gigantic and crude compared to Odysseus and his crew.
The film preserves much of the Homeric plot, although the story has clearly been shortened, and there are also a series of other interesting changes. The Cyclops episode, for example, is noticeably less gory than Homer's original. We don't actually get to observe the Cyclops eating his Greek victim, unlike in Homer. In fact, we also don't see him actually smash his victims against the walls of his cave. No brains are splattered, nor does the sleeping Cyclops throw up bits of human flesh. Similarly, when the Greeks pierce the eye of the sleeping giant with a seething hot sharpened stake, we are not treated to a view of the sizzling eye, as in Homer, but instead see the frightened Greeks from a frontal perspective as they quickly retreat from their screaming victim. Strangely, the perspective from which we see them would be that of the Cyclops if he still had his eye sight.
A notorious goof in this episode has to do with the wine Odysseus uses to make Polyphemus drunk. After the first wine skin is empty, Odysseus shows Polyphemus that one can press wine out of grapes. As requested, Odysseus and his men produce more wine by crushing grapes, the juice of which Odysseus gives immediately to the Cyclops without letting it ferment. So the Cyclops gets stinking drunk from no more than grape juice.
One of the many interesting plot changes that reflects the different tastes of the 1950s comes later in the Circe episode (not part of the selection). When Odysseus encounters the witch, she has the appearance of his wife, Penelope (both roles are played by Silvia Mangano), and that's why he sleeps with her and finds it hard to leave her again. So in 1954 Italy, the notorious skirt-chaser Odysseus has suddenly become someone who commits adultery only because he succumbs to the illusion of sleeping with his wife.
Similarly designed to excuse the more questionable sides of the Homeric Odysseus seems to be the last episode on the selection where the beggar Odysseus drops his disguise and starts shooting the arrogant suitors with his reclaimed bow. In Homer, Odysseus is clever enough to have Telemachus remove all weapons from the dining room before the bow contest begins, so that he can later shoot his 108 enemies when they are unarmed. In the 1954 movie, the suitors fight back with spears and swords, so Odysseus' merciless butchery of them looks more justifiable, like actual self-defense.
No comments:
Post a Comment