Watching The Odyssey in 15/70 IMAX was immense, but the small screen might be as good

Right now, the Internet is drowning in articles about the Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – some loved it, others haven’t seen it, and a few have criticised it. Allow me to add another opinion to the heap.

I very much enjoyed watching The Odyssey, having bought my ticket for Waterloo BFI IMAX when the tickets went on sale (waiting in an online queue for about 50 minutes to do so). I went into the film avoiding the hype (which is always out of proportion), looking to enjoy the film.

And while I was sightly conflicted once the lights turned back on (a little more insight into Odysseus’ men, and a sight of people outside of kings, queens, soldiers and schemers would have rounded the world out some more). But it is an intense, surprisingly soulful, absorbing, and relentless film that exists on a huge canvas. Go see it on as big a screen as you can.

The stories of people going on their own odysseys, travelling thousands of miles to see the film on 15/70mm film, have added to the whirlwind of noise surrounding the film.

But with a 4K Blu-ray release certain to come out before Christmas, it had me wondering whether seeing it at home – while not the original intention of experiencing the film – might be just as good.

A visceral experience in the cinema

I do like an IMAX viewing, and The Odyssey being the first feature film shot in full 15/70mm is all the reason I need to head to the cinema. Living in London, we’re fortunate that we have two screens capable of 15/70mm projection. With only 41 locations that can do this on the entire planet, that’s a sign of how rare this experience is.

A case can be made about elitism given the sparsity of 15/70mm IMAX venues. This goes back at least 15 years with the appearance of the ‘lie-MAX’ screenings that claimed to offer the IMAX colour and sound in proportional sizes. I’ve never liked these smaller screens. It goes against the point of IMAX in my opinion.

I’d recommend the IMAX Laser screen at the Cineworld Leicester Square, as that might possibly offer the best picture quality of any type of IMAX venue, having talked to the former CTO of IMAX way back when.

But the actual experience of sitting in the auditorium and seeing the full screen, led to a few thoughts during the film and afterwards. I’d thought Row F and slap bang in the middle would be enough, but I think I miscalculated.

There have always been prime seats in IMAX – only the unfortunate who were too slow to buy a ticket or decided ‘the hell with it’ and lumbered in the A, B, C rows. I remember seeing Interstellar with a work colleague and while the experience of the film was great, craning your neck from row D is not ideal.

And even in row F, I found the verticality of the IMAX screen close to intimidating at times. It’s utterly huge, and seeing Odysseus’s face loom over you is a spectacle in itself. There’s a physical side to watching the film you’ll never get watching at home, even if my neck felt a little bit like an F1 driver’s whizzing around a track for 90 minutes. The next time I see The Odyssey, my tickets are up higher.

At home though, this will be neutered, and it got me thinking about how, while the home experience will be a downgrade on the cinema, I’d get to enjoy the film in my own way. I won’t be craning my neck, the film won’t be slightly out of focus at times (which I can’t yet tell if that’s the film itself or the projector focus), and I’ll have the best seat in the house. I’m all for the cinema, but let’s not forget that home cinema and physical media at its best, is a great thing.

The version of The Odyssey that will hit home entertainment will be different from the cinema release as it won’t be a 1:1 translation. IMAX film is effectively a square (Nolan uses the taller 1.43:1 ratio rather than the wider 1.90:1 ratio) – TVs are 16 x 9 rectangular. The maths have never fitted.

A truer translation of the IMAX film would have black borders left and right (pillarboxing) in the way Zack Snyder’s Justice League does. But Nolan carries his centre crop approach to home video with the film filling out the screen, so the 4K Blu-ray and other home video versions (streaming versions of Nolan films are often 2.39:1) will be a compromise in terms of cropping the top, bottom and sides.

In a way, that makes the IMAX 15/70mm exclusive to cinema, despite the humorous memes of people watching the film’s trailer on their iPod Classic with the line “As Nolan intended”. You’ll never really see the 15/70mm film outside of an IMAX screen. Ever.

Bringing the epic home

But it’s not as if Nolan doesn’t take considerable care with his 4K Blu-rays. There are versions of the film, despite not being the version of the film, and they are crafted to reflect the intent and the way you want to see the film at home. And this is where my laboured point comes into view.

Nolan is an advocate of physical media, and as he said at the inaugural DEG Vanguard Award in 2023: “…with 4K UHD, you’re going to be able to produce a home video version of your film with a format that will actually show off to the best effect all of the effort and money put into the technical presentation of the theatrical. So, a lot of my interest in visual spectacle, in the technical aspects of filmmaking over my last few films, is definitely driven and enhanced by the idea that at the end of the day the people at home will be able to experience a very high-quality version of the film.”

And with regards to translating theatrical film to the home: “…what we would do is just project the material and then project the video and really try to match it as closely as possible and the added bandwidth the HDR, bit depth and color and so forth it really puts us in a position where we can get closer and closer to a theatrical print in the home. It’s really exciting that all that work — an increasing amount of work — carries through to the home presentation.”

This continues with the film’s soundtrack, which in the same talk Nolan has said with the 4K Blu-ray releases that they “decided to put the full theatrical sound mixes of the film” because of the quality of people’s home cinema systems.

Given I review a fair amount of home cinema systems each year, I’m not sure I’d totally agree with that assertion. Many still opt for either basic or compact (and therefore compromised) sound systems, and Nolan’s sound mixes remain challenging. You could a good sound system to get the best from his films, not helped by many soundbars and TV brands ditching support for his favour DTS audio format.

There were moments during The Odyssey where I couldn’t pick up dialogue (a common criticism of Nolan films and not entirely false). The volume levels do get thunderously loud, the relentlessness of the third act is aided by the sound mix and Ludwig Göransson almost 80s-synth like score – it’s the loudest film I’ve seen in the cinema since a critics screening of Nolan’s Dunkirk at the BFI IMAX, which in a past life I described as a “concussive, forceful experience”.

At home, I can have the volume at more palatable (but still high) levels and not feel like my head is being pounded by the full-range IMAX speakers, though The Odyssey is the type of film that’d make people shell out for a new system.

Nolan’s version of The Odyssey is visceral and exhausting, both visually and aurally, in the way he intended it to be. I’m of the firm belief that whether you like the film or not, you won’t see anything like it from any other film this year.

It’s very familiar if you’ve seen Nolan’s filmography – the nesting narratives, repeated imagery, and huge scale go with assured performances across the board (even in small parts).

So go see it in the cinema, as many people are currently doing – I’ll be seeing it in IMAX 15/70mm again soon – and once I’ve had my fill, I’ll be turning towards the 4K Blu-ray release, as while that won’t be the version seen in the cinemas, it’ll take the theatrical experience and translate it for home cinema as a ‘new’ version of the film in its own way.

And I’m looking forward to having a copy of The Odyssey in the best possible version outside of the cinema, one that’ll hopefully echo and endure like the original poem.