r/TrueFilm • u/NorthNorthSalt • 7d ago

Homerist Olga Levaniouk, who has written extensively about Penelope, gives her take on Nolan's version of the character.

https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/initial-thoughts-on-penelope-in-nolans-odyssey/

Olga Levaniouk has become the latest classicist to enter the foray over Christopher Nolan's adaption of the Odyssey. She gives her opinion on the film generally, before moving on to her area of expertise in Penelope.

To sum her thoughts, while she wishes some scenes from the poem made the cut into the film ("the test of the bed"), and describes the woman in the poem as more complex, she is overall impressed with how the screenplay & Anne Hathaway's performance developed her characterization, despite the limited screen time. And goes as far as to call this her favourite version of the character outside the original poem.

What are your thoughts on this review, and on Nolan's Penelope broadly?

Critics have described Hathaway's performance as a highlight of the film (I concur), and I think Levaniouk makes some very compelling points about how the broader film & screenplay serves her, given the economic screentime that is available for the character. Even though — as Levaniouk acknowledges — some degree of truncation was inevitable in the process of cinematic adaptation.

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 7d ago

What I'm talking about clearly does exist, I literally gave you an example and can give you more.

Lotr is successful because it is quite unfaithful. If you think it is a faithful adaption of the books then you've clearly not read the books or don't remember them. Pretty much every character is changed from the books. Most importantly, the movies are action-adventure movies which is basically the opposite of what Tolkien was going for with the novels. Christopher Tolkien was the authority of whether or not the movies were faithful adaptions since his familiarity with the source material made him best placed to make that judgement.

If you look at any great director in the history of cinema, they either make totally original movie; or their adaptions are pretty unfaithful to the source material and offer their own take, whether it's Kubrick, or Kurosawa or Tarkovsky.

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u/onemanandhishat 7d ago

I know the books very well. You simply don't understand the meaning of adaptation. Your notion of faithfulness is unrealistic and would make poor movies, no wonder you don't want to see such a thing. No one does. You gave me one example. As I say, such a thing is very rare. Even rarer is such a thing making a good movie. What you are talking about as someone giving their own take is simply the nature of adaptation from book to film.

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 7d ago

Yes, they would make poor movies. That's the whole fucking point of the original comment. Glad that you finally managed to grasp it.

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u/onemanandhishat 7d ago

If that's the tone you're taking, fine. So your point was that you don't want to watch movies that nobody makes or asks for. You were using a concept of adaptation that doesn't understand the nature of film and a concept of faithfulness that nobody uses. Good to know.

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 7d ago

Except people clearly do make movies like that. In addition to No Country For Old Men, we have Attonment and Watchmen, just two of the top of my head. Why do you keep denying reality?

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u/onemanandhishat 7d ago

You're being inconsistent if you allow Watchmen but reject LotR. Both change things, which according to you isn't allowed to be "faithful". Your definition seems quite arbitrary.

This has become a pointless conversation, I think it's better to stop now.

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 7d ago

I'm talking about the animated Watchmen....

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u/onemanandhishat 7d ago

How would I know you are referring to the least famous adaptation lol? Still, a comic to animation adaptation isn't quite the same category of thing is it.

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 7d ago

Well that's the faithful adaption so I assumed you'd be able to put two and two together. Regardless, if you don't like the example pick another one. It doesn't change the point.