The Odyssey, famously, was a hands-on affair for all involved in the making of the epic Christopher Nolan movie, but no one was put through the wringer more than Odysseus star Matt Damon. Now, director Guillermo del Toro has revealed that Damon was willing to go above and beyond for his director to capture the perfect shot in-camera.
Answering a question about the use of AI in moviemaking from a fan during a Reddit AMA to promote the re-release of Pan’s Labyrinth, del Toro pointed to a conversation he had with Christopher Nolan about The Odyssey to illustrate what’s lost when films aren’t ‘handmade’.
“When [Nolan] showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean, and I asked him – because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model – and I asked him, ‘How did you do it?’ He said, ‘We put him in a storm in the ocean.'”
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On the one hand, it’s not surprising that it’s really Matt Damon bobbing about in the middle of a stormy ocean , Nolan isn’t typically one to use elements like digital doubles in his filmmaking. Even the massive fall of Troy was shot without a single green screen. But on the other hand, putting your lead actor in the middle of a stormy ocean seems quite dangerous! And certainly not how it’s usually done, so del Toro’s question is understandable.
In the same breath, del Toro also identifies something key about the use of AI and even CGI in movies that is lost versus practical: “And you’re gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally,” del Toro notes. “You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, ’94, Jim Cameron and I… were looking at Terminator 2. And he was showing me the scene where Robert Patrick is in the back of the car, and he breaks the window with his arm. And he said, ‘You see those flares?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘We put them there because the audience thinks an image is real if you put an accident in it.’ That’s true. And I agree. The accident is vital. And the best accidents are things you don’t court. They just occur from the interaction with reality.”
Nolan’s handcrafted approach in making The Odyssey is a key factor in its extraordinary critical and box office success. The R-rated adaptation of Homer’s epic poem has just sailed past $1.6 billion at the box office, and is on track to become Universal’s highest-grossing movie ever, surpassing Jurassic World. Damon’s co-star Himesh Patel hopes that Nolan’s limited use of CGI will change how Hollywood movies are made going forward.
The Odyssey is (still) in theaters. For more, check out our 5* The Odyssey review, and our detailed guide to all The Odyssey changes from the book.