Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey draws from the literature of antiquity, but there's an art history reference in the film that's relatively more recent. And deeply gory.
In a major moment from Homer's epic poem, Odysseus (Matt Damon) is heading home from the Trojan War with his men when they stop by an island for food and supplies. It's here they find themselves trapped in the sheep-filled cave of the mighty Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), a towering cyclops who casually changes up his daily diet of homemade artisanal cheese for a bloody feast of weary Ionian soldiers.
The Odyssey's production design of Polyphemus is terrifying and weird: a colossal, awkward, human-like form with twisted facial features including a solitary, rotated eye. Snatching up Odysseus' crewmates like popcorn, the cyclops stands for a moment crunching on a newly headless man, his bleeding body limp in the creature's hand.
It's this moment that art history nerds (hi) might connect with a familiarly gory scene, of a wild god feasting upon a torso: Francisco Goya's early 1820s masterpiece, Saturn Devouring His Son.
Nolan has confirmed the cyclops was inspired by the 19th-century Spanish artist's famous work, which depicts a violent moment from ancient Greek myth. As detailed in Barry B. Powell's Classical Myth, Zeus' dad Cronus (called Saturn by the Romans), was the leader of the Titans, powerful beings who sired the Olympian gods. Cronus' mum Gaia (Terra) and dad Ouranos (Uranus) had a prophecy that he would be overthrown by one of his divine children — Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, Hera, or Hades. So, what did Cronus do? He ate them.
In fact, Cronus threw back his kids whole, which is important later in the story (Zeus, who was born in secret, managed to get his dad to vomit up his siblings and they indeed rose up against the Titans). But in Goya's painting, Saturn/Cronus has not eaten his brood whole. With those wild eyes open, he's ripped the head and arms off one of his children and is snacking away on the torso like a baby with a teething rusk. It's pure madness.
And this is exactly how Nolan has Polyphemus feast on the Greek soldiers in The Odyssey. Like a child. A wild child of gods. Which, incidentally, is what Polyphemus is — the son of sea god Poseidon and oceanid or sea nymph Thoosa.
It's no wonder Nolan had Goya's gruesome visual on his mood board. Back to the original ancient text, Homer's description of the cyclops' feast (translated by Emily Wilson) is just as grisly, as he writes, "Leaping up high, he reached his hands towards my men, seized two, and knocked them hard against the ground like puppies, and the floor was wet with brains. He ripped them limb by limb to make his meal, then ate them like a lion on the mountains, devouring flesh, entrails, and marrow bones, and leaving nothing."
Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens also did a horrifically figurative version of Saturn Devouring His Son earlier in the 17th century, a moment of infanticide and child cannibalism which can't really be unseen.
So, when you're watching The Odyssey, think of Goya's bloodthirsty, paranoid Saturn and one of the most gory snackscapades in art history.
