The Odyssey: Are We All Watching the Same Film?

A note on cinematic experience, framing, and the audience’s right to know what they are seeing

There has been no shortage of debates and controversies around The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s latest film.

You have probably followed at least some of these discussions online: from the relatively minor controversy over casting choices to the more serious question of whether the film is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey or a personal reworking of an ancient story. Can someone unfamiliar with Homer still receive the film as a complete and self-contained narrative? And if not, how can we expect the audience to know the original story while simultaneously asking them not to question certain inconsistencies or deviations?

You have probably also heard about the grandeur of the film’s imagery and the extraordinary execution of its parts—from cinematography and music to atmosphere and production design—although, at least in my view, not its sound mixing. And you have likely heard the familiar claim that a film like this can help revive cinema, renew interest in reading classical works, and even encourage viewers to revisit earlier related films and adaptations.

I do not intend to add yet another point to those already well-rehearsed arguments. What matters to me here is something else: a communication question that goes beyond the film’s quality or interpretation.

This issue did not begin with The Odyssey, but in this case—precisely because Nolan chose to shoot the entire film with IMAX film cameras—it may have reached one of its clearest expressions. The Odyssey is the first narrative feature shot entirely on IMAX film cameras.

The issue returns us to the relationship between medium and message

There may be many disagreements about the nature of cinema, but one point is difficult to deny: cinema is an audiovisual medium in which the organization of the image plays a foundational role. Dialogue, sound, silence, and music may all be essential elements of storytelling; still, framing, shot scale, camera movement, editing, and what is allowed inside or outside the frame are not merely containers for the story. They are themselves part of the message.

With some simplification, cinema may be compared to a book written not only with words but with images. Just as the choice of individual words in a book—even those some of us may consider repetitive or unnecessary—can shape both the writer’s intention and the reader’s interpretation, what a filmmaker places within the frame affects how we understand the world of the film.

This does not mean that film leaves no room for imagination or interpretation. An image may determine the appearance of a character, landscape, or event far more concretely than verbal description, yet the meaning of that image, its relation to the viewer’s personal experience, and the interpretation drawn from it all remain open.

In Marshall McLuhan’s classic typology, cinema is generally considered a “hot” medium: one that engages a sense with a high density of information and leaves less of the sensory field to be completed by the audience than a “cool” medium would. Even so, the distinction is not absolute, and context always matters.

If we accept that framing is part of cinematic expression, an important question follows: can the final work be delivered in different frames according to venue, display technology, and, in practice, the price paid by the audience, and still be said to be the very same experience?

The question returns us to IMAX

The Odyssey is being shown in several exhibition formats with different aspect ratios. The fullest IMAX frame is 1.43:1 in 70mm IMAX presentation. Other versions may appear in 1.90:1, 2.20:1, 1.85:1, or 2.39:1.

At the start of the release, the 70mm IMAX version was available only in a limited number of venues worldwide. That limitation is not simply a matter of ticket price; many cities—and even entire countries—do not have access to theaters equipped with the proper screen and projection system.

Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, moving from the nearly square 1.43:1 IMAX frame to wider versions usually does not mean losing the left and right sides of the image. More often, it means trimming away portions of the top and bottom. The viewer in a standard theater therefore sees a wider but shorter strip of the original recorded frame.

At this point, an important objection must be acknowledged. Nolan and his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, were fully aware of these multiple formats from the outset. Nolan has explained that when shooting for IMAX, the central action is composed so that it remains present in wider versions as well. Guide lines for different aspect ratios are taken into account during filming so that no narrative information essential to following the story disappears in other versions. From his perspective, the film should work successfully in all formats, and the wider presentations are not random or uncontrolled crops.

This technical answer matters and should be accepted fairly. The version shown in a conventional theater is not necessarily a broken, defective, or unauthorized version of the film. Nolan and his team supervised the transfer into different formats, and each of those frames may be regarded as an approved composition of the same work.

But in my view, this does not entirely resolve the communication question.

The material lost from the top and bottom of the frame may not be essential to plot comprehension, but necessity is not the same thing as narrative information. The amount of sky above a character, the distance between a body and the horizon, a horse resting in one corner of the beach, the height of the waves, or the negative space surrounding a ship may not alter the plot, yet they affect scale, solitude, grandeur, threat, rhythm, and emotion.

Part of the difficulty comes from the overly simple opposition between “essential” and “non-essential.” Elements of a work of art may be unnecessary for understanding what happened while still being important for experiencing how it feels. If that were not so, the difference between the full IMAX frame and wider cropped versions would hardly be marketed so intensely.

IMAX itself presents the 1.43:1 format as an experience that fills more of the viewer’s field of vision and creates greater immersion. Nolan has also described 70mm IMAX as the best possible experience for watching the film, while emphasizing that the digital and other versions were prepared carefully and remain high-quality presentations.

So we are not dealing with a simple contradiction in which either the extra visual detail is irrelevant or the non-IMAX versions are defective. The reality is probably somewhere in between: all versions communicate the story, but they do not all provide the same amount of visual information or the same spatial experience.

I fully understand that cinema is not only art; it is also industry and commerce, and it must obey economic realities. It is perfectly understandable that someone who pays more might watch the film on a larger screen, with brighter projection and better sound, while another viewer sees the same story on a smaller screen with more ordinary equipment.

Yet there is still a meaningful difference between a difference in the quality of reproduction and a difference in the amount of information contained within the frame. Lower resolution does not deliberately remove part of the composition. A change in aspect ratio can.

At the same time, comparing this to cutting entire chapters from a cheaper edition of a book would be too severe, because standard versions of The Odyssey still contain the complete narrative and were prepared under the filmmakers’ supervision. A closer analogy might be a photography book or illustrated edition in which the premium version reproduces the full image, while a general edition trims away part of the top and bottom. The subject remains the same, but the relationship between visual elements and the feeling they produce does not remain identical.

Imagine an image of a shore in which the sky, the sea, a resting horse, and a human figure are arranged in a precise balance. In a wider version, the main action and character may still remain, but there may be less sky, a changed sense of proportion between the figure and the horizon, and a diminished sense of solitude or grandeur. The story remains intelligible, but the visual experience is not exactly the same.

In response, one might say that cinematic experience has never been identical for everyone. Seat location, screen size, projection quality, brightness, sound equipment, and even the behavior of nearby viewers all affect what we receive. That is true. But most of those differences belong to the conditions of reception, whereas a change in aspect ratio is a predesigned alteration in the delivered form of the message itself. One is a difference in circumstances; the other is a difference in the form of the message, even if in practice the two overlap.

The more serious issue, in my view, is the lack of transparency. Many viewers do not know exactly which version they are buying a ticket for. Even the label “IMAX” can refer to venues with different screen sizes, projection systems, and aspect ratios.

Perhaps the first and most practical solution is simple transparency at the point of sale: theaters should clearly state the aspect ratio, projection type, whether the presentation is digital or film, and the approximate screen size. The audience should know what kind of experience they are paying for, rather than discovering the difference only afterwards. The same is true, in a different way, of seat location within an IMAX auditorium. In fact, it may matter more than many people first assume. The experience of viewers who unknowingly choose very close rows in front of a giant IMAX screen is itself evidence of how important that variable can be.

A second possibility would be to preserve the full frame in standard theaters even if the image no longer fills the full width of the screen. On a wide screen, the 1.43:1 image could be shown with blank columns on either side. The image would be smaller and probably less immersive, but the full frame would remain intact. Many exhibitors and filmmakers may understandably prefer a filled screen, yet at least limited screenings—or a clear viewing option—could exist for those who prefer frame preservation over screen coverage.

Another solution would be to release the full-frame version for home viewing or digital platforms—not as a substitute for the sheer scale of IMAX, which cannot truly be reproduced at home, but as a way of allowing viewers to access the complete captured image. In that case, the premium theatrical version would still retain its advantage in scale, immersion, and spectacle, but access to the full frame would no longer remain a purely geographic or economic privilege.

Of course, a filmmaker may argue that the 1.43:1 frame was designed specifically for IMAX architecture, and that showing that frame on a smaller screen would not reproduce the intended experience. That is a valid objection. But it also reveals that we are not really dealing with one original version and several fully equivalent ones; rather, we are dealing with a set of experiences designed for different conditions, one of which is openly positioned as superior, rarer, and more expensive.

I am not sure how seriously this issue is taken within cinema circles. Many may regard it as a natural difference between exhibition formats. Still, from the perspective of communication, the question remains: if the medium is part of the message, how much does a change in the dimensions and boundaries of the medium also change the message?

From the perspective of audience rights, the core issue may not be that everyone must have access to the most expensive technology. That would not be realistic. The more important right is clear knowledge of the available versions, avoidance of ambiguous marketing, and a reasonable path to seeing the full frame of the work.

If we ignore this issue, the pattern may gradually spread to other media as well: not merely offering higher quality to those who pay more, but offering a greater share of the work’s sensory and expressive content. It may still be too early to call that outright discrimination, but it is certainly a layering of the experience of the message—and one worth discussing before it becomes normalized.