Odissea Serie Tv
Barton Ostby
The Odyssey (Italian: Odissea) is an eight-episode European TV miniseries broadcast on RAI (Italian state TV) in 1968 and based on Homer's Odyssey. An Italian, Yugoslavian, German and French (Radiodiffusion-Tlvision Franaise) coproduction, it was directed by Franco Rossi,[1] assisted by Piero Schivazappa and Mario Bava; the cast includes Bekim Fehmiu as Odysseus and Irene Papas as Penelope, Samson Burke as the Cyclops, as well as Barbara Bach as Nausicaa, and Grard Herter. Several critics consider the series to be a masterful representation of the ancient world.[2]
Athena, happy that King Ulysses is close to returning to his native island Ithaca, located to the west of Greece, under the guise of King Mentes, arrives in Ithaca to make sure that Ulysses' return is pleasant, but it is not so: although welcomed with respect by the twenty year old Prince Telemachus, Mentes discovers that the palace of the king of Ithaca is besieged by numerous arrogant nobles of the region, the suitors, who anxiously wait for Queen Penelope to decide to take a new husband between them, supposing that Ulysses died since twenty years have passed since his departure for Troy, looting without reserve the cellar and the pantry of the palace. Penelope tries to take time by declaring to the processors that she must weave a canvas in honor of her father-in-law Laertes, but with this pretext every night she undoes it and starts it again the next morning.
Telemachus, at the suggestion of Mentes (who disappears as he came), announces a town meeting to be able to know who is on his side to be able to chase away the suitors and who is willing to follow him on the land to ask for information about Ulysses to King Nestor, the oldest commander who participated in the war. The suitors also arrive at the assembly, claiming to be right in the king's long absence and the fact that Penelope is spending too much time weaving the web. To these answers, the people of Ithaca are silent and dare not oppose, yet the soothsayer Egizio, noting a hawk perched on the battlements of the palace, sees the success of Telemachus' journey, but is derided by the suitors. The next morning, Telemachus is joined by his father's friend and adviser Mentor (again Athena in disguise) who gives him a boat and sailors to get to Pylos, by Nestor. Before leaving, Telemachus asks the nurse Eurycleia not to say anything to Penelope. During the night, Melantho, a young female servant of the palace who is a lover of Eurymachus, one of the suitors, betrays Penelope by revealing to the suitors what Penelope does to her canvas at night. Discovered, Penelope is forced to finish the shroud without apology.
The next day, the suitors noticed the absence of Telemachus and discovered, threatening a boat seller, that he really started to look for news about his father. Concerned that his research is successful, Antinous, chief of staff, suggests an ambush by Telemachus. Arriving in Pylos in the middle of a sacrificial ceremony at Poseidon, Telemachus joins the king after the ceremony. Nestor tells Telemachus of the evening before he returns from Troy: there were those who, like Ulysses, wanted to punish the allies of the Trojans and those like Menelaus who wanted to go home; after several discussions, the Achaean fleet separated and Nestor no longer knew about Ulysses, so he advised Telemachus to go to Sparta, to Menelaus, with his son Pisistratus, who would guide him. Medon, the wine bearer, on hearing the suitors, runs to warn Penelope who, after a moment of anger at Eurycleia for not having told her anything, prays for the safety of her son.
At night, Penelope receives in a dream Athena's visit, under the guise of her sister Iftime, who assures her that the gods watch over her son and also about Ulysses. Finally the figure of Ulysses is presented: a lonely man at the head of a miserable raft at the mercy of the waves that move him away from his final destination.
At the beginning of the second episode there is a discussion between Zeus and Athena in which the two agree that Poseidon has tortured Ulysses enough and that it is time for his suffering to end. Ulysses is shipwrecked on an island and, having found a refuge, wanders into a grove of trees and asleep on a bed of fallen leaves. The island in which Ulysses arrived is Scheria, governed by the Phaeacians, and Athena arrives in a dream to the young princess Nausicaa, in the guise of a distant friend and enters the dreams of the girl, telling her that she should prepare herself for her now near marriage and go with the maids to the mouth of the river to do the laundry. The next day Nausicaa goes to the mouth and after doing the laundry, the princess starts to play with the maids, when she sees in the bushes a dirty man, naked and caked with salt and leaves with which he slept on. All the girls run away except for Nausicaa, who is staring in astonishment at the desperate man. Ulysses also remains somewhat captivated by the beauty of the girl and compares her to a goddess, then begging her to take him with her to the palace to clean up the debris of the waters.
As ordered by the goddess and also by her heart, Nausicaa has him washed and dressed by the maids, but she asks that, out of discretion, he did not follow her to the palace, or the young people would believe she had chosen him as a husband. Accepting the wishes of the girl, Ulysses goes alone to the city, while an internal voice (Athena) suggests to him how to behave in front of the sovereigns: Alcinous and Arete. The nobles and monarchs of the palace, suspicious of all the foreigners who come to their land, fill him with questions, only to apologize for their abrupt and gruff interrogation, after they recognize in the hero a good man with nothing to hide. In reality, in order not to cause a stir, Ulysses pretends to be a shipwrecked traveler in search of protection. Alcinous tells that long ago his people, ruled by his grandfather, resided in the Land of the Cyclops, monstrous and violent beings, who continually threatened their lives; so they decided to move with the help of the gods to a new island, paying the price of being isolated and unknown to any traveler, except Ulysses.
Hosted in the palace, Ulysses knows that the Phaeacians are peaceful and that they know how to build boats that never sink and never get lost, but have stopped building them worried by a prophecy: Poseidon, their protector, would have punished the Phaeacians by destroying the crew of the ship that will accompany an enemy on board. Ulysses, meanwhile, spends a lot of time with Nausicaa, telling her that until a few weeks ago he had been a prisoner in Ogygia for seven years, an islet in which the beautiful nymph Calypso is exiled, to whom Ulysses mentally resisted, until ordered by the gods, she didn't allow him to go on a raft.
A few days later, Odysseus is invited to see the games that will decree a husband for Nausicaa. The champion asks the guest to participate in the sword contests, but Ulysses refuses, in order not to be recognised, at least until the athletes question his strength, making Ulysses so angry that not only he beats all the participants, but also risks to kill one. Ulysses asks Alcinous for forgiveness, but he demands to know his name rather than to hear his apologies.
For the victory of the athletes, the blind aedes Demodocus tells everybody the history of the last thing he saw before losing his sight: the fall of Troy. Ten years had passed since the beginning of the war, but neither of the two factions gave up, until one day, on the shores of Ilium, the Trojans found the achaean camp deserted and a gigantic wooden horse on the beach. While Priam and many other citizens interpreted it as an offer of the Achaeans to Poseidon to secure a safe journey, the priest Laocon understands that it is a trap, or an offer asking that the god destroy the city. The priest is so sure of what he said that he thrust a spear in the belly, almost piercing Ulysses and the others hidden inside. On the verge of burning it, Priam stops Laocon and orders for the horse to be brought inside the city to repent the offense made to the god. Ulysses' plan works: with the horse inside the walls, the Acheans come out of the sculpture, warn the hidden companions and Troy is conquered. The tragedy is unstoppable and on that same night, after having feasted and celebrated, the Trojans are wiped out by the Greeks; this is the destiny also of Priam, of Deiphobus, the new husband of Helen, and of Astianax, the baby son of Hector and Andromache, who is forcefully taken from his cradle and thrown out of the walls by Neoptolemus, the cruel son of Achilles. Remembering these atrocities, Ulysses starts to cry softly, shaken by violent shivers, and Demodocus, after realising it, recognize him under the shock of all people.
Meanwhile, Telemachus and Pisistratus arrive in Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen have just returned from their journey, unlike Ulysses. The sovereigns welcome Telemachus who, contrary to his expectations, finds himself in front of two sad spouses, severely tested by the fatigue of the war and the fate of the survivors. Agamemnon, says the king, was killed by his wife Clytemnestra, and many met the same death in their homes. The ruler says that the last time he heard about Ulysses, he heard from Proteus, who also told him how to go home. In order to calm the spirits, Elena drugs the wine of her husband and of the guests to relieve their pain and tells of the time she saw Ulysses before Troy was conquered: after being beaten to death by his friend Diomedes to appear as a beggar, he had entered the city presenting himself as a Phrygian soldier attacked by his drunken comrades. The priestess Cassandra, famous for her misfortune to predict future events but without ever being believed, immediately believes him and confides in him that she knows that her city is destined to lose, if the Palladium of Athena were to be stolen from the temple. After Cassandra goes away, Helen arrives, who has become the widow of Paris, who immediately recognizes Ulysses, although battered and bleeding, cursing his coming. Ulysses, furious, threaten her of playing the double-cross and unnecessarily wasting time in that palace, since the entire army of Greece is fighting for her; he finally leaves her, warning her against her husband Menelaus.
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