Legendary Television Four-Hour Series A Brilliant Telling Of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’
How do you create a work of literature that will endure for more than 2 millennia? If you are Homer, a blind Greek minstrel who could not even write down his words, here’s what you do:
You spin out your words so eloquently and memorably that others memorize them and pass them along to future generations. “Wine-dark sea,” that’s a good start. Everybody will remember that.
As the cornerstone of your classic, you create Odysseus, a hero so brave and shrewd he can surmount every obstacle. You give him a wife, Penelope, beautiful and steadfast. Then you send him off on a voyage that begins with the Trojan War and extends for two decades through terrifying meetings with monsters, the tempting beds of sorceresses, and passage through harrowing perils at sea.
The result is “The Odyssey,” an epic poem brilliantly brought to the little screen in a two-part, four-hour, $40 million miniseries beginning at 9 tonight on NBC, and concluding Monday at the same time. Armand Assante stands tall as Odysseus, and Greta Scacchi is ever-faithful as Penelope.
Although Homer couldn’t see, he sure knew people. As with Shakespeare and Cervantes, two of the few authors as renowned as he, the personalities of his characters are instantly recognizable to contemporary viewers. We meet these kinds of people often in both workplaces and play places. Their outer garments vary from generation to generation, but their psychological cores are the same.
Even the behavior of the Greek gods in “The Odyssey” is often as flawed and fallible as that of impure humans. Look over Circe (Bernadette Peters) tonight and Calypso (Vanessa Williams) Monday night and you may feel like paraphrasing Rodgers and Hart: “That’s why the goddess is a vamp.”
Watch the arrogant Poseidon, god of the wine-dark sea, muscle over Odysseus and you’ll be glad he isn’t a boss in your office. Watch the shrewd and sympathetic Athena (Isabella Rossellini), goddess of wisdom, shepherd Odysseus along and you’ll wish you had her as your favorite aunt.
Although Odysseus eventually spent five years in Circe’s bed and two years in Calypso’s boudoir, tonight’s opening scenes would have you believe that he never really wanted to leave his palace in Ithaca, where he is king. Kings Agamemnon and Menelaus (Yorgo Voyagis and Nicholas Clay) persuade him to embark with them to the Trojan War on the very day that his son, Telemachus (Alan Stenson), is born.
Essentially, Odysseus won the Trojan War because he conceived the idea of building the Trojan Horse, impressively on view tonight as a very tall and convincing-looking prop. The introduction of the horse is accompanied by the first of the many vivid special effects that characterize this mini-series throughout its run.
King Priam (Alan Smithie) is mulling over whether to take the horse inside his city when his soothsayer, Laocoon (Heathcote Williams), tells him to beware of Greek gifts. These words are the last from Laocoon, who is encircled by a sea serpent who has him for lunch. The gyrations of the serpent are a marvel to behold, and the crunching of Laocoon’s bones in his grip are a sound effect so strong it may make you grimace.
After Priam takes the horse inside, and Greeks disgorge from its belly at night and sack the city, Odysseus makes the mistake that leads to his 10-year voyage home. Standing on the seashore, he boasts, “You see, you gods of sea and sky? I conquered Troy. I did not need you.”
From out of the deep, Poseidon rumbles in reply, “Why do you defy me? It was my serpent who silenced Laocoon. Man is nothing without the gods. You will suffer for this offense.”
In one of the numerous voice-overs in this show, Odysseus tells us that Poseidon soon took his revenge by blanketing Odysseus’ ship in fog, causing him to lose sight of the rest of the Greek fleet and sail alone thereafter.
At the first of seven landfalls Odysseus makes on his way home, he and his crew are far from happy campers. They get trapped in the cave of Polyphemus, a Cyclops who has only one eye, smack dab in the middle of his forehead, and is so big he uses a Greek sword as a toothpick.
Like the sea serpent and all the other special effects in this show, Cyclops is the creation of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. The late Jim Henson created the Muppets and his son, Brian, is ably carrying on the family tradition.
Cyclops is tough enough, but he’s practically the boy next door compared to Scylla, a sea monster who comes snarling up out of the briny Monday night. Maybe it was the memory of horrors like that that made Odysseus linger so long whenever he found safe haven with the lissome likes of Circe and Calypso.
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TV PREVIEW “The Odyssey” airs tonight and Monday at 9 p.m., on Spokane’s KHQ-TV, Channel 6.