Christopher Nolan will release 'The Odyssey' in 2026. However, this is not the first adaptation of Homer’s story. Ralph Fiennes produced another adaptation last year titled 'The Return', which tells how Odysseus finds his son, as well as how he returns to Ithaca and faces danger in order to rescue his wife from being held captive.
The film was very well received by both film critics and fans alike and it is available on Paramount+.
Fiennes, in a conversation with an entertainment-focused new agency, spoke on the subject of his forthcoming project, 'The Choral', which is being directed by Nicholas Hytner. In response to a question regarding the current rise of Odysseus in popular culture, he stated that he had "no idea".
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He said that the "myth of Odysseus is something that, for me, is part of the zeitgeist for all time."
"The return home, the claiming of your… Myths are with us all the time. If we make a film about it, we say ‘it’s in the zeitgeist,’ because it’s got a filmic focus on it," he said.
Personal love for 'The Odyssey'
Fiennes talks about how the story resonates so well and strongly with him by saying, "The Odyssey was a love of mine since I was a boy and the chance to be in it or play Odysseus was exciting. Everyone recognises that feeling of home, away, absence, loss, reclaiming what is yours, what is your homeland and the corruption of others coming in and taking and abusing, and then the man's journey, and the trials of life. I don’t know. I don't want to do the essay on The Odyssey."
Nicholas Hytner stated that filmmakers always return to great stories because they never go out of style. The excitement generated by the deeds of the heroic warrior will always be in demand.
"That's why classics become classics," Hytner exclaimed.
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"I read a very beautiful thing someone wrote recently about why people go back to the Iliad. Just very simply: We all die. All the people we love will die. No amount of crying out to the heavens will bring them or any of us back. This unfathomable fact none of us can really get our heads around, as much as we all know it is profoundly true, you go back to the Iliad, and there it is, the original great expression of that huge truth. As soon as something that makes that journey is profound enough to become a classic, it's true all the time."
What is cultural zeitgeist?
Zeitgeist translates to the 'spirit of times'. This refers to how trends, moods, attitudes and social climates are viewed at any one moment in history. Within zeitgeist will be the values, norms, thoughts and ideas associated with society at that time.
Rather than attempting to project into the future, zeitgeist looks back to provide information about the types of characteristics and influences that are typical of any epoch.
