ADRIAN MA, HOST:
"The Odyssey" is one of the most famous stories in Western literature, and this epic tale has gotten an epic treatment for the big screen courtesy of writer director Christopher Nolan.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ODYSSEY")
MATT DAMON: (As Odysseus) No one could stand between me and home - not even the gods.
MA: Oh, my heart is, like, pounding right now. With "The Odyssey" in theaters this weekend, we thought, let's use this week's Cineplexity segment to have our own epic conversation about epic films. So joining us are ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers, who produces our Cineplexity segment. Marc, what's up?
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Hey, Adrian. What's up?
MA: And Glen Weldon, who hosts Pop Culture Happy Hour. Thanks for being here, Glen.
GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Of course. Thanks, Adrian.
MA: And why don't you start us off with what might be an obvious question, but I think a necessary one, which is, what do you think makes a movie an epic?
WELDON: Well, I think you need two things. You need sweep, and you need spectacle. Sweep means everything has got to be scaled up. It's a big story that probably unfolds over several years or even decades. It's not a narrow slice, is the point. It's the whole pie. It's also got to provide spectacle, which are those visual set pieces, those big visual moments that are so unforgettable that they break through into the wider culture and take on a life outside the movie, like the chariot race in Ben-Hur.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEN-HUR")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) This is the day, Judah. It's between us now.
CHARLTON HESTON: (As Judah Ben-Hur) Yes. This is the day.
WELDON: The parting of the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS")
HENRY WILCOXON: (As Pentaur) He opens the waters before them, and he bars our way with fire. Let us go from this place. Man cannot fight against a god.
RIVERS: "Ride Of The Valkyries" in "Apocalypse Now," that sequence.
WELDON: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAGNER'S "RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES")
MA: Simple rule of thumb, sweep and spectacle. Would you agree with that, Marc?
RIVERS: Yeah. I think that pretty much says it all. I think it's not just about the big scope, but I think a lot of the great epics that I cherish are the ones with big ideas. You know, it's almost like the filmmaker has so many ideas that he has to paint a canvas large enough to contain them, right? And this is why, for me, superhero films, while they sometimes have the length of an epic, are not epics, right? The biggest idea driving, say, a Marvel movie is how much money it's going to make.
MA: OK.
RIVERS: You know, an epic will use its runtime to immerse you in the story of the human condition, while a Marvel movie uses its runtime for all its life-size action figures to play in the same playground.
MA: Can you give an example of - what's an epic movie that was not just big on spectacle, but big on ideas?
WELDON: I'd put "Lawrence Of Arabia" up there.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LAWRENCE OF ARABIA")
PETER O'TOOLE: (As T.E. Lawrence) No prisoners. No prisoners.
WELDON: "The Godfather Parts 1 and 2", not 3.
JOHN CAZALE: (As Fredo Corleone) I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over.
AL PACINO: (As Michael Corleone) That's the way Pop wanted it.
CAZALE: (As Fredo Corleone) It ain't the way I wanted it.
WELDON: More recently, I think, "Lord Of The Rings."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING")
IAN MCKELLEN: (As Gandalf) You shall not pass.
WELDON: Certainly, Nolan's "Odyssey" joins the Pantheon. It is old-school Hollywood with a big budget. It's got sweep and spectacle for days.
RIVERS: Yeah. And, like, it's handcrafted. You know, it feels like people made it with their hands. And while I do think that he can struggle with letting his performers and scenes kind of breathe - like, he's kind of rushing to get the production done on schedule - he makes you feel the physical sensation of his scenes. I felt like Poseidon's storms were rocking us in the theater. You know, I felt like I was on the ship with Odysseus, you know?
MA: Are there times where an epic just doesn't work? And...
RIVERS: Yes.
MA: Do you have any...
RIVERS: .
MA: What's an example?
WELDON: All right. I think what kills a potential epic is the evil twin of this ambition we've been talking about, this risk-taking. It's hubris. A film that gets high in its own supply sinks into a kind of bloated, ponderous quality. The classic example of this is the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton film "Cleopatra."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CLEOPATRA")
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: (As Cleopatra) You will therefore assume the position of a suppliant before this throne. You will kneel.
WELDON: But I would also say "Heaven's Gate."
RIVERS: Yeah. Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" from 1980 is considered kind of the peak example of this. After the financial and critical success of "The Deer Hunter" from 1978, it was kind of given a blank check for this film, this kind of epic Western that takes place in 19th century Wyoming.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HEAVEN'S GATE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You go in there and tell them they're completely surrounded and they must surrender immediately.
RIVERS: The budget ballooned over five times its budget. It was well behind schedule at the start of its filming. When they finally released it, it was just eviscerated by critics. And a lot of people look at it as kind of ending a chapter in American movies of - where directors were kind of leading the charge.
MA: So are you saying that, like, "Heaven's Gate" stands as an example as, like, a studio got so badly burned that other studios were like...
RIVERS: Never again.
MA: We're not going there.
RIVERS: Yeah, like, we will never again let a director get this much free rein.
MA: I mean, I'm getting the sense from what you're saying that epics are a movie that you kind of - you arguably see less of over time. So it makes me wonder, like, what are some of the epics in your mind that have withstood the test of time?
RIVERS: Two that I recently revisited because I've been thinking about America's 250th birthday, Spike Lee's 1992 film "Malcolm X," and Terrence Malick's 2005 film "The New World." 'Cause they're both about the promise and the failures of the American Project.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MALCOLM X")
DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Malcolm X) If the so called Negro in America was truly an American citizen, we wouldn't have a racial problem. If the Emancipation Proclamation was authentic, we wouldn't have a race problem.
RIVERS: "Malcolm X," to me, is a rare screen biography to give you the full arc of a person's life and, like, really pull that off well, you know, showing the many transformations of Malcolm X throughout his life, played by Denzel Washington, one of the all-time film performances.
WASHINGTON: All right, I ain't Malcolm Little. I ain't Red. I damn sure ain't Satan.
ALBERT HALL: (As Baines) That's right. So who are you?
RIVERS: And then "The New World," Terrence Malick's take on the settling of Jamestown, the meeting of John Smith and Pocahontas. You know, it's kind of - it's American mythmaking, right?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE NEW WORLD")
COLIN FARRELL: (As John Smith) I thought it was a dream, what we knew in the forest. It's the only truth.
RIVERS: And it's epic the way "Malcolm X" is epic, but it's also epic the way a Walt Whitman poem is epic, where you're kind of - Malick makes you aware of a sort of metaphysical connection among humans and the natural elements of the world. The voiceovers from the characters, they're kind of, like, prayers carried by the wind.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE NEW WORLD")
Q'ORIANKA KILCHER: (As Pocahontas) Come, spirit. Help us sing the story of our land.
RIVERS: Really romantic and also very tragic film, and it's this kind of poem for the screen.
WELDON: Yeah. And another aspect of this is - one reason we're not seeing as many epics anymore is because of the risk involved.
RIVERS: Yeah.
WELDON: I mean, the size of the production is the limiting reagent in this equation. You cannot have an indie epic. You can't make an epic on a shoestring. Only Hollywood can throw the kind of resources that are necessary. And making these films is a logistical nightmare. You have to have several crews working simultaneously in various places around the world. You need...
RIVERS: You got to be a a general.
WELDON: Definitely, you need the infrastructure of studio filmmaking because you need systems firmly in place because every department needs to be working in lockstep because all of that production has to go through a single person, the director. There is a bottleneck. Every shot you see, every take, every set, every piece of set dressing, every music cue, every costume, every prop has to get signed off on by this director, and what many people don't realize is how much of filmmaking is just meetings.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: Endless series of meetings that take place before, during and after the cameras are rolling.
MA: I mean, with Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," I shudder to think how many meetings that would have taken because...
WELDON: Yeah, right?
MA: It's reported that, you know, this movie had a $250 million budget. It shot in locations all around the world and used thousands of extras. So in a way, it does seem like it's trying to buck this trend away from this kind of filmmaking, and some pundits even say that maybe this is a sort of last gasp of this sort of grand gesture, big swing type of filmmaking. Do you agree with that?
RIVERS: You know, as Glen said, epics are about risk, and we're living in very risk-averse times, I feel, especially in the movies. You know, even Nolan, who's probably today Hollywood's most financially bankable filmmaker. He said he could only get to do this after the success of "Oppenheimer" - right? - which won seven Oscars, including best picture. It was the highest-grossing biopic at the time. The Michael Jackson biopic took that over this year. So it just goes to show you that even he had to kind of reach this, like, new stratosphere to get the funds and the resources to pull this off. So I think it can be done, but there are fewer and fewer studios. The industry is facing so much destabilization that it's not worth the risk for someone not Nolan to try to pull up an epic in Hollywood, or within the Hollywood system.
WELDON: Yeah. And to your point, Adrian, this film is an example of what we stand to lose. It is a film made to get butts in seats and, given its three-hour runtime, to keep those butts in those seats. It serves to remind you what movies can do. Like, sure, we can tell intimate stories, but films can also transport you. In this case, they can open up the entire ancient world to you. They can take, you know, the metaphorical truths that gods and monsters represent and bring them to life. And if there is anything at all that's going to get folks to realize that watching something on your phone or sitting on a couch simply doesn't have the power to move you like the big screen can, it's a movie like "The Odyssey." These films are engineered to overwhelm you, and you cannot get overwhelmed on an iPhone.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: That's true.
MA: We've been talking with ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers and Pop Culture Happy Hour host Glen Weldon. Thanks, guys.
WELDON: Thank you.
RIVERS: My pleasure.
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