Nolan’s Odyssey (3) — the collapse of civilization and the shape of history

Performing the archive — a study in theatre/archaeology In July I posted a response to Nolan’s Odyssey [Link] — an old story, I argued, but not the one that was being talked about. The movie faithfully restages not Homer but a nineteenth-century grand narrative of civilization and its fall. A month of reviews and a…

Becoming stone

Figuration. Statue. Flint pebble rolled by the Storebaelt, Nyborg, Fyn. Titan Kronos, fearful of the prophecy that his children would overthrow him, ate them whole upon their birth. Until Rhea, his partner, gave Kronos a stone that he mistook for the infant god Zeus. Having returned from Mount Ida where he grew to maturity, Zeus…