Christopher Nolan’s Endless Odyssey

When I was a child, my parents were judicious about what they would allow me to watch. Cartoons were tightly limited, but Turner Classic Movies was largely free game. It was there I fell in love with the Hollywood epic. Lawrence of Arabia—the scale, the music, the journey, the near Biblical proportion of the story—had me hooked. My appreciation for Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey began at his commitment to producing an epic in an age of thirty-second entertainment. It is an excellent film to experience. The wind and the waves, the tragedy and loyalty, the music and cinematography and suspense made three hours at the IMAX almost feel too short. And Odysseus fits Nolan’s preoccupation with tortured heroes—from Batman to Oppenheimer—men whose genius enables them to combat existential threats yet also threatens to wreak great harm.