Myth America

Why Bernadine Mellis wants to turn The Odyssey into a movie.

by Mickey Jou

screening

To quote our grandparents: Before the advent of DVDs and video games, people told stories for entertainment. Ever hear this one? A Greek hero outwits a Cyclops, some lovely sirens and an angry sea god to return home after 20 years of wandering. Sure, you're more likely to read The Odyssey for class than hear it spun orally as an epic tale. But Bernadine Mellis has another idea: Why not make a movie out of it?

The Odyssey film and book collaboration is the fourth project for Pocket Myths, the collective that previously asked local writers and artists to retell the tales of Persephone and Orpheus. The Odyssey project expands into multimedia by assigning each of the 24 books in Homer's epic to different filmmakers. The idea, says Mellis, is to present the story from as many different angles as possible. "[This project] is about collaboration, the power of multiple voices," says the Philadelphia-based filmmaker and project curator. "[We live] in a world that places value on ownership, authorship, genius. [The project] takes the text in a different direction [by] re-imagining something that belongs to everybody.

"Each [filmmaker] picks up the thread of the story from the last chapter," adds Mellis of the process. "Some [filmmakers] are really into following Odysseus' story, some are more into the visual experience of film."

The final film comes off like a mythological Whitman's Sampler, and no wonder — the contributors themselves come from a diverse range of backgrounds, from amateur and veteran filmmakers to world-renowned photographer Zoe Strauss. The finished product includes stop-motion puppet animation (some feature elaborately painted wooden dowels, others whimsical toilet paper rolls with shoes) and abstract montages of found footage and landscape shots; in one chapter, actress Kara Hearn plays nine different characters in a single scene. While many of the filmmakers hail from the LGBT community, Mellis says that the transgender themes peppering some of the segments is not the focus — the overall point is to tell a good story.

The screening event plans to be as varied as the film itself. Instead of showing all 120 minutes of the film, Mellis and Andrea Lawlor (editor for the complementary book project) will combine some of the shorts with live readings. "One [of the readers] is going to make Lotus and feed it to the audience," says Mellis, referring to the staple food in the land of loafers Odysseus finds in one of his many adventures. "By the end, it's truly an epic experience."

(editorial@citypaper.net)

The Odyssey: An Epic Night of Film and Readings, Sun., May 13, 6:30 p.m., free, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., 215-573-3234, www.pocketmyths.com.