What makes the Trojan Horse sequence in ‘The Odyssey’ so incredible

(CNN) — When the New York premiere of Christopher Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey” was held on July 14, looming over the red carpet in Manhattan was an almost-40-foot statue of a horse. A few other giant equines have been touring the country (and the UK) to promote the film, which is also using an image of the iconic wooden Trojan horse in some of its posters. And while the original ancient Greek poem doesn’t actually cover the events of the famous mythological bait-and-switch in real detail, it’s still clearly a potent symbol for Nolan’s new movie — and fans who’ve already seen it understand why.

In a visceral and thrilling sequence, Nolan takes audiences inside the Trojan horse for an extended, gritty scene that lays out the cramped, horrifying conditions for those hiding inside, underscoring their maniacal, animalistic hunger to prevail in battle.

The minutes-long scene is without parallel in the many previous pop culture depictions of the mythological moment. Max Nelson, an associate professor of Greek and Roman studies who has taught courses about the ancient world’s on-screen depictions at Canada’s University of Windsor, said he couldn’t recall another work entrapping audiences with the Greeks inside the horse in such a dark manner. “The harsh conditions for the Greeks waiting for days inside the Trojan horse have not been shown on screen before,” Nelson said.

What feels particularly fresh in Nolan’s film is that he flips the perspective with which audiences have mostly become familiar. “Usually, the episode is presented from the point of view of the Trojans, who must decide what to do with it,” Nelson said.

The scene has evidently been in Nolan’s head for some time. The British director was briefly attached to direct 2004’s “Troy,” starring Brad Pitt, before that film was given to Wolfgang Petersen. “It’s been at the back of my mind for a very long time,” he told Empire magazine last year. “Certain images, particularly: How I wanted to handle the Trojan horse, things like that.” Nolan also told the Independent this month that he had spent a lot of time thinking about how to portray the Trojan horse and make it feel “credible” to audiences. “I’ve had an image of that horse sinking into the sand in my head for 20 years,” he said.

Indeed, this new Matt Damon-led film opens with a short scene involving the Trojans discovering the horse statue, ostensibly abandoned in the waves on the seashore, just as Nolan imagined it. (The director told Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” that he believed the horse needed to appear dumped next to the sea to seem “credible” to audiences that the Trojans wouldn’t see it as a ruse.) The one Greek who remains, Sinon (Elliot Page), explains to the Trojan soldiers that the horse is a parting gift to the gods from his army, who seem to have given up on their years-long siege of the city.

Then, just as we think we might follow the booby-trapped present through the gates of Troy, Nolan cuts away. We don’t return to the horse until roughly 45 minutes later when Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) recounts to Telemachus (Tom Holland) what it was like to hide within the statue with the latter’s father, Odysseus (Damon), and other soldiers.

The telling we then see on screen is horrifying, to say the least. Men are shown drowning within the horse during the first two tides that come and go, as others struggle to breathe through straws amid the rising waters. Menelaus describes how the men, stacked on top of each other amid stiflingly hot conditions, also had to urinate and defecate on one another.

When they’re finally discovered by the Trojans, the Greeks must take care not to make a sound as they hear Sinon being slain, then also hold their tongues while a soldier tests the horse by stabbing it repeatedly with a sword, striking one of them. The statue is dragged via ropes by grunting Trojans before being lurched upright against a sacred temple, once again jostling those inside.

Set to a score of drumbeats that gradually grow faster and louder, we finally watch as the Greeks sneak out via a rope in the middle of the night, slay the few Trojan soldiers on duty and struggle to finally open the city’s massive gates amid a growing contingent of enemies.

In a movie full of many quiet moments, it’s one of the most chaotic, exhilarating and unforgettable sequences.

Past versions of the Trojan horse looked very different

In text, the events involving the Trojan horse are covered most extensively in Virgil’s “Aeneid.” In previous on-screen iterations, including 1956’s “Helen of Troy” and 1961’s “La guerra di Troia” (“The Trojan Horse”), the horse is often shown being brought in on wheels, already in an upright position. These old films contain no shots from within the horse, and the ensuing combat they depict can feel somewhat G-rated to modern audiences. “As was common at the time, the combat is portrayed rather theatrically, with no blood and gore,” said Nelson.

Two television miniseries that portray the ancient Greek myth, 1997’s “The Odyssey” and 2003’s “Helen of Troy,” both feature flashes of the soldiers hiding within the horse, which is once again positioned on wheels, but neither shows any real suffering occurring inside. If anything, the horse appears to be a rather roomy, comfortable place within which to wait to lay siege.

According to Kim Shelton, a professor of Ancient Greek and Roman studies at the University of California, Berkeley, there have been many depictions of the Trojan horse myth, dating back to early Roman wall paintings from the 7th century BCE to medieval manuscripts. “Since it is an object of myth and imagination there has never been a definitive version,” Shelton said. (However, she noted it has often been depicted on wheels since ancient times.)

Still, Shelton prefers the version shown in 2004’s “Troy” because its ramshackle design of blistered wood and ropes resembles something that might have been assembled from abandoned ships — the only material that would have been on hand. (The 2004 movie also shows the horse being transported into Troy on a series of rolling logs, rather than wheels attached to it.) And while “Troy” didn’t show any scenes from within the statue — and while Pitt’s character, Achilles, is among those hiding inside, despite dying before the siege in the original poem — Shelton feels the shots we do get of soldiers’ eyes lurking within conveyed “the perilous feel of being piled inside and trying not to be discovered.”

Compared to the 2004 version, Nolan’s horse appears much sleeker and more refined in its design and construction. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hellish or claustrophobic for those inside — including the cast and crew.

Damon told GamesRadar+ that when he asked Nolan the day before they filmed the scene how he intended to do so, the director said they would effectively have to improvise. “It was a real lesson,” said Damon. “He goes, ‘We’re just going to cram in there and figure it out.’”

The star recalled climbing inside the structure with the other actors, Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, before doing just that. “That feeling of claustrophobia, that was all just developing organically,” Damon told the outlet. “If we had planned it out, I don’t think it would have had that same energy.”

John Leguizamo, who plays the loyal and blind Eumaeus, told the Hollywood Reporter how astonished he was to learn that Nolan and van Hoytema had climbed inside the horse with the 20 or so actors and an IMAX camera. “I couldn’t believe that. I was like, Wow, this man is a leader,” he said of Nolan. “This man is not going to ask anything of you that he doesn’t attempt himself.”

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