A film of several
different large-scale effects in the epic manner, governed by the disposition
of the roles.
The Greek stylization
of Nausicaa and her island city are one (carried over
into the gowns worn by Penelope and Circe), the bright élan of Ulysses against
Polyphemus, the wanderer’s anguish at the Sirens’ song (with
Penelope’s voice), and the great Circe sequence.
Ulysses’
bath in her green pool is pure Fellini (tracking right on two veiled attendants
well before Satyricon). A storm
wrecks the ship that has departed without him, Circe offers immortality and
raises the great dead as well as the dead crew to rebuke Ulysses’
self-sufficiency, his mother appears unbidden to urge
him home.
This is the great
theme, worked out by the Italian screenwriters and brought to witty points in
English (Ben Hecht and Irwin Shaw are credited), that to live and die as a man
is better than to be a god.
The gods neither
speak nor appear, only a statue of Poseidon at Troy and an image of Athena in
Ulysses’ home on Ithaca, and there are no interior monologues.
Kirk Douglas
gives as fine a performance as any of his others, part Van Gogh and part
Spartacus with a dash of Ned Land in 20000
Leagues Under the Sea.
Anthony Quinn
balances the structure as first among the suitors.
Silvana Mangano,
a great hieratic presence, plays both Penelope and Circe.