Entertainment
23 Years Before Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ This Oscar-Winning Film Already Modernized the Ancient Epic
The run-up to Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey has many of us looking back at previous attempts to bring the Greek epic to the big screen — and most often, the film that comes to mind is 2000’s Oscar-nominated O Brother, Where Art Thou?. But a few years before the Coen Brothers first brought Homer to the U.S., author Charles Frazier took a similar idea for his 1997 novel, Cold Mountain. That historical tale mashed up The Odyssey with Civil War America — and director Anthony Minghella would adapt it into an Oscar-winning feature film for Miramax in 2003.
‘Cold Mountain’ Is a Civil War-Era Take on ‘The Odyssey’
If you haven’t seen Cold Mountain, know that it’s not for the faint of heart: This violent, frightening, and explicit “hard R” take on the American Civil War — and those affected by the conflict off the battlefield — can admittedly be a bit much. But for those interested in how the film transplanted the story of Odysseus into the mid-19th century, the Academy Award-winning picture tells its story through the lens of Confederate soldier W.P. Inman (Jude Law). The parallels are striking here in Minghella’s film, as well as Frazier’s novel, though this is certainly not a 1:1 adaptation.
Like Homer’s epic protagonist, Inman deserts the war after surviving the famed and bloody Battle of the Crater to return home to his true love, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman), after a prolonged absence. Along Inman’s journey, he is met with just about every form of temptation and resistance, though he remains focused on his goal.
Certain classical elements of Homer’s Odyssey are woven into and re-imagined in Cold Mountain. Odysseus’ temptation by the sirens, whose song lures the young men to their deaths, is echoed in the sequence in which Inman and the disgraced Reverend Solomon Veasey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are swept up in the apparent kindness of a stranger and his family, only for the women in the family to make explicit sexual advances toward the men. Veasey succumbs to the temptations instantly, while Inman remains faithful to his love — but his strength doesn’t matter when the Confederate Home Guard, an almost Posieden-like force in the narrative that doubles as the “single-eyed” Cyclops, arrive and carry both men away. Similarly, much like Odysseus, Inman encounters a wise old blind man, a Circe figure in the form of a young widow (played by Natalie Portman), and an elderly hermit who embodies both Athena’s aid and Eurycleia’s recognition of Odysseus based on a scar.
The parallels don’t just run with Inman, however. Just as Penelope is forced to fight off suitors and would-be occupiers in Ithaca, Ada struggles to keep her home of Black Cove in Cold Mountain, North Carolina, from the local Home Guard and other potential threats who would seize control. It’s only with the aid of Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger, who would win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work), who takes on the role of Eumaeus (only for Ada rather than Inman), that she makes it through the harsh winter and the lonely time away from her beloved.
Although Inspired by Homer, ‘Cold Mountain’ Forges Its Own Path
Cold Mountain is a brutal, explicit, and uncompromising tale that has long been labeled an “American Odyssey,” but it ends quite differently than Homer’s original epic. For one thing, while Ada does get an almost divine sense of how she and Inman will be reunited in the form of dreams and omens, there are no supernatural beings, no petitions to the gods, and no overly mythological moments. Likewise, rather than returning to his wife and son, Inman returns to Ada just in time to conceive a child with her, only for the Home Guard to get the better of the deserter and kill him afterward. Thus, the film ends with a flash-forward to the next Easter, where it’s revealed that the pair had a daughter, Grace Inman.
With enough parallels to the text to intrigue fans and a plethora of differences to keep one guessing, Cold Mountain is a film take that pulls no punches. Though this uncompromising picture may not be for everyone, if you’re interested in an Americanized Odyssey that focuses on drama rather than O Brother, Where Art Thou?’s comedy, look no further.
Cold Mountain is available for streaming on Pluto TV.
Cold Mountain
- Release Date
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December 24, 2003
- Runtime
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153 minutes
- Director
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Anthony Minghella
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