Olympus

The community of the gods lives on Olympus, high in the sky - a space where time is unchanging. That the gods belong by definition to a plane beyond that which mortals can touch or see is a given. If the gods decide to interact with men, disguised as beggars or nursemaids, or to move unseen among the battlefields of Troy, they do so only as visitors, and always return to their Olympian home. Of course, that the physical mass of Mount Olympus can be seen from afar (it is even visible from Thessaloniki on a clear day) is another Homeric contradiction, for the folds of Olympus correspond to Heaven.

In Jason and the Argonauts, Olympus is envisaged as a vast and essentially tangible citadel with a monumental propylaea decorated with ‘‘classical’’ friezes and flanked by immense white marble statues of Zeus and Athena, opening up onto a gleaming white marble colonnaded hallway and a multi-leveled room constructed from giant blocks of veined marble. Ornate bronze lamps, chairs, footstools, cushions, and tables give the impression of a lavishly furnished neoclassical stately home set amidst the clouds. This Olympus is very much a palace for the gods. Harryhausen explains his design decisions:

Olympus... had to look impressive and inspiring, but not cost too much, so we used a long-shot of [a] temple-like palace set where the gods are seen entertaining themselves, then combined that with a mat{;e painting... We painted the set pure white with gold embellishments...As a final touch we later added in the lab an edge of mist around the frame. (Harryhausen and Dalton 2003:155)

The notion that this palace is otherworldly is strengthened not only by the misty edges of the screen frame but also by the camera panning upwards from the earth to the sky (usually passing through the clouds) as the story cuts from earth to heaven.

The same technique of aerial photography and cloud effects is utilized in The Clash of the Titans, but here the realization of Olympus is more ephemeral. The establishing shot shows a mountain-top city of classical domes, colonnades, and pediments set against a background of an ethereal city inspired in one part by John Martin’s epic painting Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still and in another part by Michael Gandy’s early nineteenth-century oil painting Jupiter Pluvius, and created in model form in one of the sound studios at Pinewood (Harryhausen and Dalton 2005:18, 21). Working with the production designer, Frank White, Harryhausen recalls how ‘‘We created an Olympus that combined the look of paradise and a realistic dwelling for supreme beings, a reflection of the ancient Greek image of the home of the gods’’ (Harryhausen and Dalton 2003:265).

Externally, Olympus appears to be a physically definable space, but on entering its halls all sense of logical scale and perspective evaporates. Zeus’ throne room or council chamber is a vast, echoing, misty environment of immense proportions. Harryhausen explains that ‘‘We went for outsized columns (of which we could only see the bases), suggesting massive structures that could only be guessed at’’ (Harryhausen and Dalton 2003:265). The set-dressings are radically modified and kept to a minimum when compared to the ostentations of Olympus in Jason and the Argonauts. Here only huge circular mosaics ornament the floor; there is no redundant furniture and no superfluous decor, just vast, empty, vaporous spaces. The only necessary piece of set-dressing is Zeus’ throne, raised on a lofty platform and decorated with golden lions and coiled snakes.

However, in keeping with the Homeric conception of Olympus being divided into specific areas, such as the bedchamber where Aphrodite and Ares are discovered in flagrante by Hephaestus and subsequently watched by the other gods, this cinematic heavenly mansion has many rooms too. Hephaestus, for example, is shown hard at work in his hot and dirty forge, adjacent to Zeus’ throne room. Most importantly the same throne room has a semi-circular antechamber, decorated with archaic winged sphinxes, whose walls are pocked with hundreds of small niches containing terracotta statuettes of all the mortal inhabitants of the earth.