This summer’s runaway hit is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the heroic tale of Odysseus, a mythological Greek king who spends 10 years fighting in a war and another 10 trying to get back home. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or perhaps, like Odysseus himself, have just returned from a very long trip with no access to the internet, you’ve probably heard all kinds of hot takes about the casting of Travis Scott in a pivotal role.
Wait, Travis Scott is in The Odyssey? The rapper from Houston who burst onto the scene in 2019 with “Sicko Mode” and used to date Kylie Jenner? That Travis Scott? Yes, that is indeed the Travis Scott I am talking about, and he is fantastic in this movie. And thank goodness, because he bookends the entire epic. He’s the first person you hear in the film, he later has a major callback scene and he sings on (and co-wrote) the end-credits song.
I saw the movie on opening day, and I was blown away by his performance. Read on to learn why Nolan cast the rapper and why Scott’s role and portrayal are critical to this modern retelling of The Odyssey.
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What role does Travis Scott play in The Odyssey?
Scott plays the bard Phemius, and his opening monologue sets the stage for the entire movie. He stands on a table in the royal palace, surrounded by more than 100 unruly suitors who are vying for the hand of Penelope, the queen of Ithaca and Odysseus’s wife. As we see the crowd, we hear Scott’s bard pound a wooden staff on the table and cry out:
“A face, a fleet, a war, a man, a thought, a trick—a trick to break the walls of Troy and burn it screaming to the ground!” Between every short phrase, we hear the rhythmic drumming of the staff on the table as the camera moves past the chaotic scene and out over the gorgeous Greek landscape.
The trick he is talking about is the famous Trojan Horse, which Odysseus and his men use to, well, (spoiler alert) do exactly as Phemius says. Later, near the film’s end, we hear Phemius and his staff again, bringing us back to the original poetry that began Odysseus’s journey.
What’s so significant about how Travis Scott delivers his lines?
It has to do with the meter of the original poem. Meters establish the rhythm of a poem and—this is critical—help audiences remember them. This was especially true back before the majority of people could read and write, but even today, we respond to the repetitive, lyrical nature of the sound.
This sparked a lot of conversation about its connection to the original Greek epic. Was Scott pounding the table in the same tempo, dactylic hexameter, as Homer’s 3,000-year-old masterpiece? Reviewers at the Guardian and Variety say yes. Others aren’t so sure, or say no. Emily Wilson, whose 2017 The Odyssey translation Nolan says was an inspiration, used a different meter, one that you’ll recall from high school English: iambic pentameter.
So it’s not clear Nolan was going for a specific rhythm, but what is 100% verifiable is that he saw Scott’s role as the ancient storyteller critical to the audience’s understanding of the film. The cadence and delivery were clear callbacks to the original poem, even if it’s not exactly the same tempo.
Why did Homer use this technique?
It makes perfect sense if you remember (or are learning for the first time) that Homer’s epic wasn’t written down for hundreds of years. Instead, traveling poets spoke, sang and performed the words now attributed to the blind bard—with a heavy emphasis on performed.
The poets of ancient Greece were like modern deejays in a way, taking requests and enthralling sometimes rowdy crowds (like the 100 suitors in Penelope’s palace) with tales of heroism and faraway battles. So they were already using cadence and rhythm to enrapture ancient audiences. Homer (if he existed—more on that coming up) just put it all together.
Why did Christopher Nolan insist on casting a rapper in this role?
“I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry,” Nolan told Time. And who are today’s spoken-word geniuses, able to transfix crowds with modern tales of heroism, identity and struggle? Rappers.
“I wanted somebody on screen who would be reciting words and holding attention in the room in a very credible way, that we can relate to in today’s world,” Nolan told Variety. “So that we would understand the drama and the emotion that comes from storytelling through poetry.”
Scholars to this day debate whether there was a single “Homer” who wrote The Odyssey. But no one disputes the role the spoken word played in ancient Greece, or the beauty of the rhythmic drumbeat that accompanies Odysseus’s epic battles and philosophical musings on life and death. Scott fills that role here well.
Sources:
Texas Monthly: “Why Is Travis Scott in ‘The Odyssey’? A Texas Monthly Investigation”
Variety: “Travis Scott’s Hollywood Odyssey: The Rapper on Acting for Christopher Nolan, His New Paramount Deal and Never Winning a Grammy”
Guardian: “The Odyssey: jaw-dropping action, dark magic and dolphin cameos”
Pitchfork: “James Blake and Travis Scott Duet on The Odyssey End Credits Song ‘When I’m Home’”
Time: “Christopher Nolan on Helen, Athena, and His New Ending for The Odyssey”
Esquire: “How One Woman Conquered The Odyssey”
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The post Here’s Why Travis Scott Speaks the Way He Does in The Odyssey (Hint: It’s for a Very Specific Literary Reason!) appeared first on Reader’s Digest.
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