Filmmakers have been putting Polyphemus on screen since 1905, when Georges Méliès gave the one-eyed giant his first appearance in the silent short The Island of Calypso. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is the newest attempt, and a July feature in the film magazine Little White Lies argues it is one of the few that avoids the uncanny valley.
Debbie Felton, professor of classics, was among the experts the magazine consulted. Nolan's Cyclops is a sixty-foot figure with the eye turned sideways and a malformed nose twisting around it — a design Felton suggests may echo cyclopia, a congenital condition that also affects the nose. Because the face follows the logic of a real anatomical abnormality, she argues, it is more convincing than earlier attempts.
"It's why Nolan's sideways-nosed, sideways-eyed Cyclops seems more organic and real than many others."
— Debbie Felton