Writer/director Christopher Nolan usually gets what he wants, but the Academy Award-winning filmmaker recently faced a technological limitation even he couldn’t overcome. Although the filmmaker shot “The Odyssey” entirely with IMAX cameras, the physical constraints of the company’s film-projection system forced him to keep his mythological epic under three hours.
Speaking with Letterboxd, Nolan recalled how his longtime IMAX mentor David Keighley—to whom he dedicated the film and who completed his work on “The Odyssey” before his death—personally demonstrated why the format’s film prints could not run any longer.
“He actually dragged me into the booth at some audience film to show me the final limitation of this three-hour limit on the film prints,” Nolan explained. “Over the years, I’d challenged him to enlarge the platters or come up with a clip system to hold the film end when it got a bit bigger than the platter.”
However, Nolan said one particular component would require “an entire rebuild of the projection system” to accommodate anything longer. “So I finally said to him, ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll stay under three hours.’”
That still leaves Nolan with the considerable task of condensing Homer’s sprawling narrative, which unfolds across approximately 20 years. The director said he shot a great deal of material he was pleased with, but the challenge was determining how to make the enormous story comprehensible and involving for an audience.
That required editor Jennifer Lame to be merciless, even with sequences that had been especially difficult to capture. “If it doesn’t serve the story, it has to go,” Nolan explained. “It’s not about the camera you use. It’s not about the format you shoot on. It’s really about what story you’re telling.”
Nolan also teased the scale of the ensemble surrounding Matt Damon as Odysseus, revealing that some of the actors playing members of his crew appear for only “one or two lines,” which is astounding when you think about all the huge names in the cast like: Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, Elliot Page, John Leguizamo, Mia Goth and Himesh Patel (and perhaps will shame those bad-faith rightwingers making a huge deal about tiny appearances in the film). Their performances nevertheless help convey the physical and spiritual weariness of the voyage and the story’s vast passage of time.
Elsewhere, Letterboxd informed Nolan that “Interstellar” is both the platform’s most-watched and most-favorited movie. Nolan said he was thrilled that the film continues to reach new generations and expressed hope that “The Odyssey” will similarly maintain a long life after its initial theatrical run.
“The Odyssey” opens in theaters and IMAX on July 17. Watch Nolan’s full Letterboxd interview below.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2007. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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