"Tell me about a complicated man..." Okay then.
The Jermyn Street Theatre and London Review of Books' online reading of Emily Wilson's superb translation of The Odyssey is tomorrow. (Today? Friday anyway.) Kicking off at nine in the morning, seventy-one actors - including me at around four in the afternoon - will have the impossible job of following Janet Suzman, but if twelve hours is too long an Odyssey for you don't worry, I've looked out some shorter ones. You can watch Hallmark's three-hour mini-series starring Armand "Rico Dredd" Assante, for example, HERE.
Michael J. Pollard plays a Wind God, and ten minutes in Heathcote Williams is attacked by a giant eel so it's an odd watch, I won't lie, while Armand Assante... I mean I love him, but he's about as complicated as a tap. You haven't come to a film of The Odyssey for the complications though, so if you can't spare three hours why not instead check out THIS? Recommended by David Cairns (again), the almost completely unknown 1954 Italian adaptation stars Kirk Douglas and comes in at just under a hundred minutes.
Still too long? That's alright, I haven't seen it yet either. Don't go anywhere. Last one: Shot on the original camera of the Brothers Lumières to celebrate a hundred years of cinema, Greek auteur Theodoros Angelopoulos' 1995 adaptation of Homer's Odyssey runs to just fifty-seven seconds...
For the record, Ulysses 31 clocks in at 650 minutes total, so only slightly shorter than your epic, but with (I am guessing?) more robots.
ReplyDeleteThey're running about forty minutes ahead though. It's close.
ReplyDelete