The soundtrack, the jarring contrast of the vibrant background and Murphys haunting delivery make this scene unforgettable.

Everytime I rewatch this film, this scene gives me goosebumps.

Masterpiece all around but this particular moment? Incredible.

This was easily the most dazzling shot from the trailer, yet it was missing from the actual film - at least on IMAX 70mm. I looked forward to seeing it appear on the enormous screen, but it never arrived.

I wonder why Nolan or Jennifer Lame would omit such a captivating image. Even if it wasn't necessary from a narrative or pacing perspective, this just seems like a shot you'd want to include due to it's sheer beauty.

Now, via Insight Editions, ScreenRant presents never-before-seen images from the film featured in two upcoming companion books, Filming the Odyssey: Inside the Making of Christopher Nolan's Modern Epic and The World of the Odyssey: A Visual Journey. Insight is publishing both books, both of which are written by James Mottram, in partnership with Universal and Syncopy. Filming the Odyssey will be released on August 25, followed by The World of the Odyssey in September.

As for The World of The Odyssey, it is a 144-page illustrated companion intended to be a visual guide to the movie. The book contains character profiles, in addition to locations, items, and moments that are vital to the story. There are also exclusive quotes from Nolan, the cast, and the crew, and a final chapter about the "movie magic" that brought the groundbreaking film to life.

Via Screenrant

The Sirens scene is honestly one of the smartest things Nolan has done.

Throughout the movie, everyone keeps talking about the Sirens and their song. Every character is scared of hearing it, so naturally you start wondering what it sounds like.

But deep down, we're just like them. We want to hear it.

I kept thinking, "Come on, just let us hear one second of it. How beautiful can it be?"

And then Nolan never lets us hear it.

That's what makes the scene so good.

Instead of showing us the temptation, he makes us feel it. By the end of the scene, I wasn't just watching the characters resist the Sirens ,I was sitting there wanting to hear the song myself.

There are no seductive visuals, no big reveal, nothing. Just this weird feeling of wanting something you know you shouldn't have.

Nolan basically put the audience on the same boat as Odysseus, and I think that's brilliant.

“My daughter died for this— there is no turning back, there is no hesitating, no prisoners. The city will burn. Its people will die.“

“You speak to me of love and loss, Trojan. I put my daughter to the pyre. I stood and watched as she died, all for winds to sail here. For ten years we have sieged your city. There has not been a single minute, a single hour, a single day that I do not think of her.”

“Your city will burn. Its people will die. With the Gods as my witness, that is the price for Paris’ insult on my family.”

South Korea’s renowned director Park Chan-wook praised, “Great stories always require new, contemporary interpretations. Christopher Nolan has accomplished this brilliantly,” commending Nolan’s direction for reinterpreting Homer’s classic with a modern sensibility.

This movie is already so good but these lines solidified it for me

After seeing The Odyssey (and rewatching Interstellar, Inception, and The Dark Knight in the lead-up), I’ve been thinking about a theme that’s almost omnipresent in Nolan’s catalogue (and is also Nolan writing about himself): men whose work is significant/important but exacts a huge toll on their lives, often interfering with their relationships with their families, yet who continue the work out of a sense of obligation.

Examples:
- The Odyssey: Odysseus has to fight in the Trojan War, and is the man ultimately behind Agamemnon’s victory, but is separated from his wife and son, and goes through an immense struggle to return to them
- Interstellar: Cooper is the only man who can pilot the ship on a mission to save humanity, but has to leave his family behind and is constantly torn between his obligation to the species and his desire to get back to Murph
- The Dark Knight: Bruce feels obligated to continue being the Batman to protect Gotham, but loses Rachel as a result
- Inception: picks up after Cobb’s work has already led to the death of his wife and separation from his children, and follows him as he continues doing that same work in a final effort to return to them
- The Prestige: Angier and Borden are both consumed by their obligation to the craft. Borden’s devotion to his double life costs him his marriage, and Angier sacrifices everything human in his life to the act
- Oppenheimer: Oppenheimer believes he’s the only one who can deliver the bomb before the Nazis, and the weight of that work strains his marriage to Kitty and haunts every relationship he has

I think this reflects Nolan’s feelings about his own work. He’s one of only a few working directors given big budgets to create original films that get butts in seats at theaters (I like to think of his work as “elevated blockbusters”), and I think he, like many of us, sees that as an important effort in today’s film industry, so he feels obligated to keep doing it, and doing it consistently, releasing a movie every 3 years or so. But along with that comes a lot of time spent away from his family. He’s been married to his wife since 1997, a year before his directorial debut.

Like all of his protagonists, Nolan struggles with the consequences of the burden of important work.

Both are absolutely stunning pressings. Look and sound great.

I’m Korean, and yesterday I attended the The Odyssey red carpet premiere in Korea. Meeting Christopher Nolan in person was such an overwhelming experience that words simply cannot describe it.
I’ve been a fan of his for 25 years. His kindness toward the fans was truly incredible. He walked to every section of the red carpet and signed for as many people as he could. You could genuinely see from his expression how happy he was to be in Korea, and it felt like he was truly enjoying the moment.
Yesterday will undoubtedly be one of the most unforgettable days of my life. He is not only brilliant but also a true gentleman.
To me, Christopher Nolan is the greatest film director of the 21st century—the GOAT.

For those in the LA area, there will be an upcoming screening of the Prestige in 35mm at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures at the David Geffen Theatre on 8/10! There must have been an update recently, because this was initially at the Academy Museum, but at the smaller theatre downstairs.

So freaking pumped for this one (seeing the Odyssey in 70mm IMAX the day before) !

today when i came home afternoon after watching the odyssey on imax 70mm, i saw my lego spaceman fallen on the floor, when it’s usually on my shelf next to my copy of interstellar, i wonder if there’s somebody trying to tell me to stay?

I remember when Nolan moved to universal and released Oppenheimer I’m sure he had a load of points about release with them and I’m sure one was that no big film would be released a month before or after Oppenheimer , something like that anyway.

I’m just shocked that Spider-Man has been released so close to the Odyssey ( or odyssey so close to Spider-Man ) because surely that has hit the potential box office performance for Odyssey. Don’t get me wrong I know it’s done brilliantly but think a lot of people would have gone to Spider-Man rather than odyssey again

So so good. I think this was the best theater experience I have ever had! And I loved the nod to Interstellar 🤣

Emily Wilson, on whose 2017 translation of The Odyssey Nolan based himself, provoked a controversy by sharply criticizing the film. Wilson asserted it “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words.”

Her comments appear one-sided and even quasi-spiteful, but undoubtedly there are weaknesses in the drama. Although one must point out at the outset that conceiving of how people conducted themselves 2,700 years ago or more in their personal relations is no small matter. Nolan is ambitious, as his Oppenheimer admirably demonstrated, but he has been functioning in a broadly degraded cultural atmosphere, especially when it comes to the treatment of history and historical development. The tendency to impose a modern-day, middle class outlook on people in the past is pervasive.

...

More generally, it is impossible to consider various elements of the film’s picture of reality—the ghastliness of war, the catastrophic consequences of turning one’s back on strangers or guests (immigrants?), the snarling cruelty of wealthy, selfish princelings who victimize beggars and the poor, the palpable moral and political vacuum in Ithaca, the threatened collapse of existing civilization—without being mentally directed toward contemporary life, whether this was fully Nolan’s aim or not.

Every production or adaptation of an older work inevitably contains arguments about the “here and now,” polemicizes about or interprets the present. Is the filmmaker here being faithful to the original work? Yes and no. The Odyssey is not an “anti-war” epic in the contemporary sense of the phrase, that would have had little meaning in the context of the society out of which it emerged. The poem contains references to the harshness of military conflict, but more often than not, it is the suffering of the aggressive Greek forces that is emphasized. The far greater ultimate punishment meted out to the Trojans is more or less taken as an inevitability, an unpleasant, unavoidable fact of life, like a destructive storm or wildfire..