Hello everyone, this is Dwayne Monroe, co-host, alongside Samantha Youssef and Dennis Claxton, of the Film Conversations podcast. In today's episode, we continue our exploration and, dissection of the 2026 released, film version of 'The Odyssey' story. In the previous episode, Samantha applied her knowledge of, and experience with the film industry as it operates at large scale (with budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions) to a political economy centered analysis of this film, placing it in the broader context of the film industry overall.

Today, we will carry on with this analysis and add artistic and aesthetic considerations. A key question: how to think about the art of film, to the extent it exists, within the full context of the industry?

Links

Warburg Institute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_Institute

Ernst Cassirer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Cassirer

The Greek Way

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129494.The_Greek_Way

Mithra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra

On Joseph Campbell

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/12/31/the-heros-journey-is-nonsense/

Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services

In today's show, co-host Samantha Youssef, who has nearly twenty years of experience working as an animator and creative director for Disney Animation, continues her analysis of the motivations behind the current round of job cuts placing it within a broader historical and structural context.

She also provides us with a marvelous deep dive into how the studio functions, the work of animators and the role of precarity in the life of animators.

This is the second of two conversations on this topic.

As before, we had a lot of territory to cover and didn't get to everything so, please see the references for more information.

References

Samantha's website: https://www.samantha-youssef.com/

The Walt Disney Co. begins laying off 1,000 employees:

https://apnews.com/article/disney-layoffs-8434044668b03755c8a8c7a4b51f57bd

Disney Layoffs Hit Marvel Studios Hard

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalkowitz/2026/04/14/disney-layoffs-hit-marvel-studios-hard/

Samantha's Compiled List of Industry Layoffs

https://acmpstor.blob.core.windows.net/acmpblob1/some_layoffs.zip

How to Read Donald Duck

https://orbooks.com/catalog/how-to-read-donald-duck/

Disney's Nine Old Men

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney's_Nine_Old_Men

Mary Blair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Blair

Glen Keene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Keane

In today's show, we discuss the most recently released film version of Homer's Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan.

I said, 'discuss' instead of review because our aim is not to offer yet another opinion on the film from a standard, film criticism perspective, fixated on effects, budget, actors and the director as a singular genius.

Our aim is to talk about the political economy of the film and how it fits in, and is an example of the full reality of film making under capitalism and yes, imperialism.

What is capitalism? It's the system we live under that places profit above all else, including our survival on this planet. What is imperialism? It's the means through which capitalist states extract resources, people and much else besides from peoples who are unable to defend themselves against aggression.

What does this have to do with film generally and 'The Odyssey' specifically? That is what we'll discuss from various angles and perspectives.

Contrary to marketing, it's not Christopher Nolan's Odyssey but a product produced by a system.

We'll part the curtain to see this system's gears in motion. Let's call this, a materialist approach to film.

References

All but War Is Simulation: The Military-Entertainment Complex

Tim Lenoir

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236793826_All_but_War_Is_Simulation_The_Military-Entertainment_Complex

Military–entertainment complex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment_complex

Odyssey to Africa's last colony

https://africasacountry.com/2026/07/odyssey-to-africas-last-colony

Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Robert McKee

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48654.Story

VFX Artist Debunks The Odyssey

https://youtu.be/8yRFeout9dk?si=rIjTLmeFGgvM3lrs

Website of the production company, DNEG

https://www.dneg.com/our-work/the-odyssey

'Behind the Scenes' film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRq0cKo6ciI

The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA

https://www.wsj.com/tech/steve-jobs-apple-next-cia-161b65f9

Language and Myth by Ernst Cassier

https://archive.org/details/languagemyth00cass

Phaedrus (dialogue)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(dialogue)

Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?

https://monthlyreview.org/9781685901349/

Ulysses (1954 film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(1954_film)