Product: The Odyssey [VHS] (1997)
Rating: 5.0
A fairly faithful and entertaining mini-series adaptation of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey"
In my Classical Mythology class my students have an opportunity to write a paper comparing the recent theatrical film "Troy" to not only Homer's "Iliad", but all of the other classical sources regarding the story of the Trojan War. Students find plenty of differences between the ancient stories and the film and the same would be true if they were to look at the recent mini-series version of "Helen of Troy" or any of the old movies that dealt with the Trojan War. Students then have to evaluate the differences and similarities to render a judgment as to whether "Troy" is an appropriate adaptation of Homer and the others. You would think that a similar paper could be written regarding this television mini-series version of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey," but it would not be worthwhile because this is the most faithful adaptation of Homer to date. Yes, to anyone familiar with the original text there are differences. For example, when Odysseus comes home his faithful dog does not drop dead and Penelope does not test him regarding the bed with the headboard made from a tree, but I always thought that last one was a bit much given everything he had just done to prove he was Odysseus come home at last.When it comes to Homer I maintain there are "Odysseus" people and there are "Iliad" people, and I am firmly ensconced in the latter camp. This is not only because I found the character of Achilles and his wrath to be more interesting, but also because what I thought was the best part of "The Odyssey," the ten years of adventures that kept Odysseus lost, were the shortest part of the epic. But the teleplay by Christopher Solimine and director Andrei Konchalovsky ("Tango and Cash") takes care of that concern as the visits by Odysseus (Armand Assante) to the islands of the Cyclops (Reid Asato), Circe (Bernadette Peters), Calypso (Vanessa Williams), and the rest assume a greater part of the narrative. Meanwhile, back at home Odysseus's queen Penelop (Greta Sacchi) has to put up with all of the suitors who want to marry here and take the throne of Ithaca since they believe Odysseus to be dead, and their son Telemachus (Alan Stenson) goes off on a journey to prove his father is still alive.While Jim Henson's creature shop creates the mythical monsters for Odysseus and his men to encounter, what is more important is that Assante's character reeks of hubris. Not only does he stand on the shore thumping his chest and proclaiming he is greater than the gods for having brought down Troy through the stratagem of the Trojan Horse, he continues to thumb his nose at Poseidon even as things get worse and worse. The scene where I decided to round up on my ranking for this mini-series is when Odysseus is floating in he sea being buffeted by waves sent by Poseidon and the arrogance that has doomed him and his crew to ten years of wandering and death are beaten out of him. Odysseus was not a hero to the ancient Greeks, who considered him more of a pirate than anything else (remember, the first thing he does on the way home from Troy is to stop and raid a village). His is wily Odysseus from start to finish, but Assante is given a character arc to play and he follows through with it. His love for his wife and his son are core to his character as well, and while I questioned this particular bit of casting when I first heard of it, Assante does make a convincing Odyssues. There are no problems accepting Scacchi as the personification of faithfulness in Penelope and having Irene Papas show up as Anticlea, the mother of Odysseus was a nice casting decision.For me the most problematic element in the mini-series is the performance of Alan Stenson as Telemachus, although Michael J. Pollard as Aeolus the Bronx god of the winds was a bit much even with the nudge-nudge wink-wink way he is presented. But Telemachus rants and raves too much as the headstrong kid who refuses to believe the father he has grown up without is still alive. I should really not be enjoying it when he gets beaten to a pulp, but notice that before his father tells him the right time has come for him to be agree, this kid is pretty much frothing at the mouth. The recounting of the Trojan War is reductionalistic in the extreme and they gloss over the story of how Agamemnon got the king of Ithaca to go to war when Odysseus was pretending to be insane and plowing a field with salt, but these are legitimate choices given that the focus is on Homer's poem and not the attendant myths.Granted, the story of "The Odyssey" is told here as pure entertainment, which is seen not only when Calypso turns one of Odysseus's soldiers into a talking pig and during the slaying of the suitors when they go flying through the air when hit by arrows and spears, but in the (predominantly) playful way the gods are presented. Poseidon is the exception since he is really, really ticked off at our hero, but Hermes (Freddy Douglas) is certainly mischievous, and gray-eyed Athena is certainly played with a twinkle in the blue-eyes of Isabella Rossellini (who I thought actually could have been in the story a bit more). I also thought that giving Eurymachus (Eric Roberts) more to do as the spokesperson for the suitors was a good move. All things considered, it is amazing how faithful this telling is to Homer given how much fun they have in telling the tale and with such low expectations going in "The Odyssey" certainly exceeds them.