I loved The English Patient and I enjoyed The Talented Mr. Ripley, so I figured it'd be a safe bet I'd enjoy Anthony Minghella's latest movie, Cold Mountain.
It was pretty good, pretty much what most critics said about it.
A little hard to care or swallow what happens at times in the movie,
but overall, a decent flick.
I noticed some parallels to Homer's Odyssey,
and a couple interesting features I just wanted to note here. I
haven't read the Charles Frazier novel on which the movie was
based. And I should probably watch the movie once more to make
sure I didn't miss anything major, but here are a few notes.
Parallels to The Odyssey:
Preacher Veasey: I think this guy may be a parallel to the
cyclops that Odysseus encounters, eventually blinds with a hot stake,
and escapes by hanging from the underside of his sheep. Veaesey
is gross and nasty in character, and he has really bad
constipation. Could his anus be the "one eye" of the
cyclops? Nice thought, no, but it would give a reason for his
scatalogical focus (pun intended). Even more telling is the big
two-handed saw
that Veasey discovers and brings along for no obvious reason. Nice
visual pun on "saw" if Veasey is sort of the cyclops. Anyway, Veasey
turns out to help Inman at one point, so he's not simply an enemy like
Odysseus' cyclops.
Inman's name: When the cyclops asks Odysseus his name, Odysseus
tells him it is "no man." "No man" and "Inman" sound similar and
both have the word 'man' with a prefix indicating negation ('in' can
mean "not" as in 'invincible'). Interestingly, there is also a
real town of Inman, South Carolina (I think parts of Cold Mountain take place in North Carolina).
The
old woman who kills the goat and takes care of Inman for a while
(Maddy?): parallel to the witch/goddess Circe in the Odyssey.
Sara (Natalie Portman): Sara seems to be a parallel to Calypso
because she's young, beautiful, lonely and wants Inman to fill the role
of husband, as Calypso desired of Odysseus.
The sluts at Junior's place: parallel to the Sirens in the Odyssey.
Teague and the Home Guard: continuning with the parallels in the
Odyssey, Ada would have to be Penelope, Odysseus' wife, and Teague and
his gang would be the suitors who try to win Penelope and take over her
estate while the hero is away.
Some parallels glaring in their absence: Telemachus
(Odysseus's son, who comes searching for him on a journey of his own),
Athena (goddess who helps Odysseus out a lot), Nausicaa (young daughter
of the king of the boat people who finally return Odysseus home, who
falls in love with Odysseus), the Laestrogonians and Lotus
Eaters. But maybe re-watching the movie would reveal more
interesting parallels and allusions.
Notes:
Turkey shoot: at the beginning of the guesome opening battle
scene (when the Confederates attack the jam of Northerners in the
crater), one of the main combatants turns toward the camera and reaches
out to hand a gun to another character in the mayhem and says gleefully
"It's a turkey shoot!" Near the last scene of the movie, Ada is
shooting a turkey at the edge of a cliff off the side of the road where
3 turkeys are standing. Interesting recurrence of "turkey shoot"
(even though it's not said and the second time it's literal instead of
figurative).
Carrying a crusty old book: In Minghella's other big romance, The English Patient, the protagonist carries a beaten up old copy of Herodotus' Histories around with him, through thick and thin. In Cold Mountain,
Inman carries around a beat up old copy of some other book by some
naturalist or travel writer. Interesting parallel across movies.
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