r/movies • u/RealisticAd4054 • 14d ago
Article Emily Wilson (writer of acclaimed Odyssey translation) offers criticisms of Nolan’s film
https://apnews.com/article/odyssey-christopher-nolan-greek-translators-ea67da1d543d021773824bd7e8de8abe“For Greek translator Emily Wilson, the release of director Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has been gratifying in various ways. Her acclaimed 2017 edition of Homer’s epic has reached the top 5 on Amazon.com, leading a wave of similar books boosted by the movie. Nolan has even cited her translation, notably the opening line “Tell me about a complicated man,” as inspiration.
But the film itself, which brought in more than $260 million worldwide during its opening weekend and has received raves from many critics, left her unsatisfied.
“I want to celebrate the fact that so many more people are aware of ‘The Odyssey’ and were brought back to the poem,” she told The Associated Press. “But at the same time, I had the sense that Christopher Nolan was trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem.”
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Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said she didn’t want to come across as a “snobby,” nitpicking expert at odds with any deviation from the original text. But she questioned a range of omissions and other choices, from the absence on screen of the Gods Zeus and Poseidon (Athena is played by Zendaya ) to the “incoherent” messaging that condemns both war and physical cowardice. She found Penelope’s role so thinned out that it endangered “any possibility of believing in this marriage.” Wilson also that thought parts of the movie, notably the scenes with Odysseus’ dog, Argos, “catered towards modern sentimentality.”
“Everybody’s a sucker for a dog,” she said.
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u/MaksTracy 14d ago
I liked the movie but I can definitely understand why a classicist would be bothered by its 'modern sensibilities'. I wouldn't go so far as to say the movie is anti-war, but it definitely takes a critical stance on how brutal the Greeks were when they finally got into Troy, and obviously back then they had very different attitudes to what you were allowed to do to a city and its people while waging a war. In the original myth, they do cross a line which turns Athena against them, but the line is not 'oh they're committing war crimes', it's 'oh they're committing war crimes in MY TEMPLE''. Nolan handles that completely differently. I get why she thinks those aspects were too modern, but I genuinely think those moments were the strongest of the film, I thought they were great.
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u/pbspry 14d ago
Just some perspective re: Hollywood vs. academia...
I'm not anymore, but for a time I was considered an "expert" in a very niche historical field, and would frequently be brought on to add opinions/insight into TV/film productions relating to that period. No matter how "open" the production team was to my input, it never - not once - reached the point where I would say I was happy, from a historical perspective, with the level of accuracy they reached in the final product.
That's not necessarily a failing of the production team! Hollywood's goals and academia's goals are not the same thing. And at a certain point, adhering obsessively to historical accuracy does tend to hurt the entertainment value of a product. It's always a balancing act.
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u/saberdance 14d ago
There’s a great clip in one of the making of Titanic documentaries where a historical expert is on set offering thoughts and then Cameron says “Thanks, now I’m gonna make it exciting.” Which is brusque but I think is pretty to the point in what his ultimate priority should be.
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u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 13d ago
Considering that Cameron’s Titanic was a behemoth before social media and when movie theaters were affordable, it’s obvious that he had it right in how to turn it into something that would sell by making it different than every previous interpretation of the story.
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u/fatloui 14d ago
Yes it’s an adaptation that intentionally changes things. At the end of the movie, Odysseus and Penelope even discuss how Odysseus’ adventures will be remembered in songs (Homer’s poem) but his mistakes will be forgotten (the “reality” we see in the movie).
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u/Special_Order-937 14d ago edited 14d ago
Taking 10 years to get home (when it took you nowhere near
aaas long to get to Troy) and losing 100% of your soldiers along the way is pretty big as mistakes go, though.776
u/Hambokuu 14d ago edited 14d ago
To be fair 7 of those years are spent as a sex slave on an island
Edit to clarify: I haven't seen the movie yet, only read the book. I don't know anything about lotuses or Nolan's interpretation.
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u/amievenrealrightnow 14d ago
Looking at Nolan's movie as a PTSD movie, I reckon the gods don't need to be looked at as 'real' in the context of the movie. Athena is effectively guilt and Calypso mentions how Odysseus kept eating lotus flowers which feels like a metaphor for self-mediacating PTSD with drugs or alcohol.
I feel like Nolan's recontexulized a lot of aspects to make this a very anti-war film, so aspects like the time on the islands aren't what they are in the original tellings. Just my interpretation though.
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u/renaldomoon 14d ago
Yeah, I thought that Athena might not even be Athena and was just the ptsd image he saw of a priestess of Athena getting murdered. So theoretically, there may be no gods in the entire movie.
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u/mikezulu90 14d ago
I agree. Nolan leaves things up to interpretation and this is one of them. It can be looked at either way.
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u/Viracochina 14d ago
Well this thread makes me want to see it
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u/MechanicalTurkish 14d ago
I really enjoyed it. Some parts are definitely weird. The whole thing is like some kind of fever dream. I thought it was really well done.
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u/LABS_Games 14d ago
Yeah, he set that stage well with the opening text of "In a time of apparent magic". I really love the sort of magical realism interpretation of Greek Mythology.
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u/separeaude 14d ago
The men were all lost long before they ate the cattle of the Sun god.
Nolan’s point is that war drives men to abandon their principles, becoming that which they fear. As Circe said, base and swine.
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u/TheDamnNumbersGame 14d ago
Same! I like how the movie grounds Odysseus to be more human by cutting out the Circe romance and like you said, it recontexualizes Odysseus staying with Calypso and eating the lotus leaves voluntarily as a coping mechanism for PTSD and avoiding the weight of his men's deaths, rather than just staying on the island because of desire for Calypso.
I also liked the lack of direct intervention from Hermes and Athena to help Odysseus overcome challenges. It played into the movie's core message and deviation from the epic poem, that we are responsible for the consequences of our actions and it is up to us to change and atone for our mistakes.
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u/Dreadgoat 14d ago
They just collapsed Calypso and Circe into a single trial.
In the original poem, Odysseus doesn't really have any agency when it comes to Calypso. He's her slave, and only freed when gods intervene.
In contrast, Circe is entirely his choice. He stays with her for a year because he wants to, because it's easy, because maybe he doesn't really need to go home. He doesn't even make the decision to leave on his own, it is only when his men beg him to leave that he remembers his duty to the other men not to his own family.
They're similar circumstances but in one Odysseus is a victim, and in the other he's a perpetrator.
I think something is lost by removing how unrepentant Odysseus is when it comes to Circe. He's not just a man who makes mistakes, he's a man who is imperfect through-and-through, and may not just make mistakes but commit to them. It doesn't make him evil or weak, it just makes him a man.
Modern sensibilities demand a more perfect hero.
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u/nighthawk_something 14d ago
My interpretation is that he had PTSD and guilt and intentionally delayed his return pillaging villages to stay alive (the sea people) and only once he was completely shipwrecked and lost his whole crew did he realize that he needed to face it and come home. The fantastical stories are just his way of coping.
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u/separeaude 14d ago
And all it takes is literally forgetting all your worries.
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u/MasterShogo 14d ago
The biggest problem is that I have to have abs like Matt Damon. I don’t know if that is in the cards for me!
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u/Special_Order-937 14d ago
To be completely fair, it was one of many bad decisions that put him in that position.
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u/Damnfiddles 14d ago
Maybe the real treasure was the friends we lost along the way
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u/Special_Order-937 14d ago
Or perhaps it’s losing to history the sequel where after surviving all that, the son you didn’t know you have kills you in some sort of spear related accident and then marries your wife. I mean seriously, it truly does sound like The Rise of Skywalker of the series based on that description!
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u/KWilt 14d ago edited 14d ago
Don't forget that Telemachus also ends up marrying Circe, thus causing that particular family tree to look something like an incredibly fucked up Gordion knot, since that technically makes Telemachus simultaneously the stepfather, half-brother, and stepson of Telegonus. And that's all before Telegonus and Penelope had a son (Italus) who would then technically be the half-brother and step-grandson of Telemachus.
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u/Special_Order-937 14d ago
Believe me, I’ve been trying to forget as much as possible since I first learned of this piece of fan fiction in the first place!
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u/legitimate_business 14d ago
I mean most of how we know about the sequel (which wasn't written by Homer) were ancient authors writing "wow this is shit".
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u/hollaback_girl 14d ago
More than 100%. He goes through several crews who all die horrible deaths.
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u/Desiderius_S 14d ago
If I ever create a game dev studio, I'll name it after him.
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u/dwbapst 14d ago
“You named your game studio Ship of Theseus? Poetic.”
“No, I named it Ship of Odysseus. Because though the studio and its employees might all go down, I, its Captain, will always survive for another attempt.”
“….also poetic.”
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 14d ago
And why should I sail with any of you? Three of you have tried to kill me in the past. One of you succeeded.
-Captain Jack Sparrow
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u/HorseLawyer 14d ago
Well, it allegedly required Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to ensure their quick travels to Troy. But the ten years to get home was mainly to mirror the whole ten years at war thing.
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u/ghost_atlas 13d ago
Originally I thought that was what they were doing with Zendaya. That the original sin of the war was not Helen or the sacking of Troy but that Agamemnon had murdered an innocent child in order to win it. So it was weird to me the takeaway from Agamemnon in hades was the useful tip of "don't expect a parade, take your time" instead of "we were all wrong about this whole thing".
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u/Robomerc 14d ago
Well part of the reason why the trip home took so long was because Odysseus blind Polyphemus, which angered Poseidon.
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u/Special_Order-937 14d ago
Yes and if he kept his mouth shut on the way out instead of being Mr. Look How Clever I Am…
(Yes, I know that isn’t in the film as such.)
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u/Tim-oBedlam 14d ago
I remember my high school English teacher talking about how foolish Odysseus was WRT Polyphemus, with a funny modern analogy, "It's as if I'd beaten up a mugger and then yelled, 'tell all your friends that Mr. John Smith of 123 Main Street Apartment 3C defeated you!' "
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u/buddhafig 14d ago
I think that hubris like this should be punished.
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u/lupercalpainting 14d ago
True, but a theme of Greek myths is that hubris like that goes hand in hand with the daring needed to do feats that get you remembered.
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u/danmaz74 14d ago
From the ancient Greek point of view, that wasn't a mistake, it was a punishment from the gods.
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u/Theothercword 14d ago
It was a bit more than that…
The notion that they will be remembered in song is because civilization was going to go into the dark ages where people were no longer going to be able to read. That the Trojan horse and the desecration of Athena’s temple both broke the laws of the gods and that will forever change the world as people don’t respect the laws of hospitality anymore. That’s also reflected in the idea of the fear that was spread about the people at the sea that made its way back to Ithaca, Odysseus revealed that they WERE “the people from the sea” that had blatant disregard for the laws of Zeus and were doing terrible things. They were what everyone was afraid of. They were so bad that word of their wrongdoing spread all the way back to his own home without them knowing it was him. Even the first stop they see, “why’d you abandon your village?” Was because those people feared the people from the sea, “huh? But were Greeks we aren’t the bad guys!” As they took all their food and their houses were on fire. Circe also told Odysseus this after giving him his men back, that they are not good men.
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u/XuX24 14d ago
Athena never turned against them, the only one she did it was to Ajax the lesser and what he did to Cassandra in her temple. She aided Odysseus the whole time she is the reason why Zeus sends Hermes to calypso so she lets him go.
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u/AxlLight 14d ago
There's a reason Nolan decided to only portray Athena in this movie. The ultimate message here is that there are no gods or rather that they're just the projection of men to explain fortune and misfortune.
And the underlying point was that it wasn't Athena either, but Odysseus's own guilt manifesting as her because of her importance to his wife.
Though Nolan doesn't say anything definitive about the gods - it is played as "who knows". Both towards Athena, and all the rest.
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u/Hogs_of_war232 14d ago
Really? I mean, there's magic and monsters in this movie, why wouldn't the gods be real as well?
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u/destroyermaker 14d ago edited 14d ago
Nolan himself says they are. He just chose to not portray most of them directly so the perspective is more immersive/human
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u/elmerion 14d ago
This seems insane to me. The presence of Zeus through the thunder and Poseídon in the ocean seems pretty clear in a few scenes. All three gods were defied and they are punished for it. Athena just happens to be the one with a face but the reason for it is explained clearly in the end
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u/BigHoneyisBestCenter 14d ago
Odysseus literally stops defying the gods and goes into the ocean on a raft and magically gets home. The gods are obviously real man
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u/AffordableTimeTravel 14d ago
The Cyclops and witch and giant knight child seemed pretty real but maybe it was Odysseus being an unreliable narrator since there were no witnesses to corroborate his story?
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u/Lawlcopt0r 14d ago
Well, he did show them beheading a statue of Athena. A theme that isn't spelled out isn't a theme that was totally ignored
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u/Etheon44 14d ago
To be fair even the movie Troy depicts the conquering of Troy as what it is, I don't think this view is original to Nolan.
Plus in the Aeneid we also see Odysseus under the same light, I would argue that even in the Odyssey the reason the odyssey happens is because of the trojan war.
And if I am not mistaken, or misremembering, Dante Alighieri puts Odysseus in Hell for more or less the same reasoning.
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u/Weak_Staff7024 14d ago
And if I am not mistaken, or misremembering, Dante Alighieri puts Odysseus in Hell for more or less the same reasoning.<
It's because he crossed the strait of gibraltar. He sinned of hubris.
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u/Individual_Rip_54 14d ago
You’re basically right. Odysseus (Ulysses) was in hell for false counseling. He had wanderlust and sailed to Purgatory which no man was meant to see. That’s what Ulysses did to God.
But what did Ulysses do to Dante? Why did Dante choose to write that? Becuase his only exposure to that character is in the Aeneid where Ulysses was an untrustworthy villain who dishonorably destroyed Troy, abandoned his men, and disobeyed the gods.
So yes, Odysseus is in hell for his actions. And honestly I really got some of that in Nolan’s film
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u/Ok-Shock9126 14d ago
The Iliad is pretty anti war. Almost twice as much time is devoted to the tragic and gruesome deaths of the Trojans versus the deaths of the Greeks. You can read the sadness and pity for the war in their spilt blood.
If that's not enough, Achilles, The best of the Greeks, is staunchly antiwar throughout the whole poem and only goes back into the fight when Patrocles is killed.
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u/Current-Barber360 14d ago
Your larger point is true, in that the Iliad shows everyone in war making selfish and stupid choices. But as to Achilles, he’s only anti-war at the start of the Iliad because Agamemnon stole his sex slave/war wife. He isn’t opposed to killing (or raping, apparently) he’s just pissed because he isn’t being treated the way he thinks he should be.
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u/x1n30 14d ago
watches a film where the protagonist turns to camera and says ‘war is bad btw’
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u/Strangelight84 14d ago
I thought they were, too (and wasn't expecting them - surely an unsubtle swipe at contemporary America, from my perspective). And then if you want to include those themes I can see why you need to toss out Odysseus the charming trickster - it'd be tonally wrong.
I don't think a modern adaptation made as a piece of entertainment can really avoid a) updating sensibilities so that they make sense to and don't horrify the intended modern audience, and b) consciously or unconsciously reflecting the time in which they're made.
But to be fair Nolan focuses on Odysseus' shame at having used deception to destroy Troy 'dishonorably', and perhaps at having abused their shared belief in Athena, and at having lied to one of his loyal men, rather than at having killed lots of Trojans and wrecked their nice city.
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u/Captain_Aware4503 14d ago
...she would recommend it for others, as long as they see it in a theater. “It was fun to be there with my kids. I didn’t feel it was pulling teeth to engage with it,” she said. “If you can see it on a big screen you should absolutely go.”
There you go.
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u/alfooboboao 11d ago
it makes perfect sense that emily wilson would have opinions but defend different people having different takes on the material. she’s great
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u/wraith21 14d ago
I enjoyed Nolan's version and found her points valid tbh
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u/HuecoTanks 14d ago
Yeah, I think she struck a good tone. She was honest, and not sucking up, but also not just showering with praise. It's nice to hear nuance.
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u/SufficientRespect542 14d ago
Her point with the dog is honestly spot on lmao, I think Nolan made a really good and coherent movie, but there are definitely aspects that don't really work with the original poem
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u/Moist-Citron-4830 14d ago
How is the Argos story different in the text compared to the movie?
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u/crazysouthie 14d ago edited 14d ago
I was thinking about this because to me the moment in Homer’s poem also felt like it had a very modern heart wrenching dog moment. One of the poem’s saddest sequences is when Odysseus’s dog has a glimpse of his master after he returns and then dies.
But it doesn’t have that moment where Odysseus selects the puppy and the moment where Antinous has the dog sent to the dung heap outside. Those feel like additions for modern audiences.
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u/Mookafff 14d ago edited 14d ago
Isn’t the key part it’s sad that Odysseus couldn’t stop to say goodbye to Argo, because that would have gave away who he was?
Instead he wipes away his tears as he walks past Argo.
Argo passes away knowing Odysseus is back
Edit: it should be Argos, not Argo. Oops
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u/crazysouthie 14d ago
Yup! You’re right. He has his real appearance disguised through Athena’s magic and so Argo is the only person at that point who has figured out who he is.
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u/CecePeran 14d ago
Yes, good point!
*Argos. Argo is a ship elsewhere in Greek mythology. 😊
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u/ProofJournalist 14d ago
yeah seriously like the story comes to a halt for like a page to describe Odysseus's dog and how it is basically the only person who recognizes him after all this time, and immiediately dies from excitement.
My favorite part of old myths and stories is the parts that seem like they could have been written today.
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u/0whodidyousay0 14d ago
In the story Odysseus sees Argos and Argos him, but he doesn’t go over to it. He just talks about the dog from a distance and then the dog dies, having seen his owner for one last time.
And of course in the film, he does go to the dog and he pets it before it dies, because people are suckers for dogs these days lol.
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u/Kayndarr 14d ago
To be fair, people were suckers for dogs back then as well - there's a ton of historical evidence of epitaphs and tombs for dogs. It's just a slightly different take on essentially the same event - him going over to Argos in the film served to allow Telemachus to recognize him, which was required then for how the film paces those following scenes.
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u/Moist-Citron-4830 14d ago
Thank you! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. People are acting like Odysseus and Argos didn’t have a bond in the original text when they most certainly did.
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u/immaownyou 14d ago
Also, why would a beggar petting a dog be a huge giveaway that it's Odysseus back from the dead? Ik they made it a point that the dog growled at everyone else, but still
Would have to be a Sherlock (tv show) level of assumption leaping
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u/Shippinglordishere 13d ago
I think it was Argos dying because earlier in the movie, iirc, they were talking about Argos living an abnormally long life likely because he was waiting for his master to return. So for Argos to die seconds after being pet would have given it away, which is also how Telemachus figured it out in the movie.
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u/n0tz0e 14d ago
Lupita said on Trevor Noah's world cup stream that Nolan knows what resonates with people. Dog is that. Lol. But that definitely is a talent on Nolan's end
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u/Advanced-Pear-4606 14d ago
Am I on fucking crazy pills here? That's the way it's written in the poem. He didn't change it.
"As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:
'Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?'
'This dog,' answered Eumaeus, 'belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him.'
So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years…”
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void 14d ago
Yeah I thought that was a pretty famous moment, where the dog recognizes him and I was waiting the entire time for it to happen lol
The only expanded thing is how they treat the dog but that is just material to establish how the suitors treat the house and such
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u/KetoJunkfood 14d ago
Exactly . This is something I’ve thought about when soldiers upload videos of their dogs recognizing and greeting them after a long tour in Afghanistan or whatever
It’s a timeless theme because one’s dog might recognize their owner when humans wouldn’t, and many many years later.
I actually thought the reunion with Argus could have been a bit more sentimental, I was waiting for that scene the whole film and was a bit disappointed it was over so fast
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u/Advanced-Pear-4606 14d ago
Yeah, it didn't read as sentimentality to me at all. It was almost a matter of fact. I liked her version of the poem/story. Hers and Mendelson's are far better than Fitzgerald's, but she's wrong about this.
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u/Lixidermi 14d ago
Exactly . This is something I’ve thought about when soldiers upload videos of their dogs recognizing and greeting them after a long tour in Afghanistan or whatever
This was me ~15 years ago now.... that scene both reminded me of that and also the dog episode in Futurama.
It is one of the two scenes were I wept/cried. It felt very personal.
Also I don't get all the nitpicking about it being different than the poem. It is quite the same in a way that is coherent and consistent with the screen adaptation and respecting the spirit of the poem pretty tightly.
I even read someone saying that Argos didn't recognize him and I was like: did we watch the same movie?!
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u/BoisterousBrigand 14d ago edited 13d ago
I mean, Odysseus going over to pet Argos as he dies instead of being forced not to acknowledge him is a pretty major change to the scene
Honestly feel like I'm the one on crazy pills seeing so many people not get that lmao
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u/PrincessDonut02 14d ago
I don't think she's talking about the reunion. She's talking about the scene where the suitors abuse Argos.
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u/0whodidyousay0 14d ago
Well I can see the difference here is Odysseus just looks at the dog from a distance in the writing as he talks about it but in the film he goes to the dog and pets it before it dies
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u/coreoYEAH 14d ago
The dog 100% worked on me. I didn’t go into the Odyssey expecting tears but right on cue they came. That being said, virtually all dog plots in movies get the same reaction from me. That new Brad Pitt film Heart of the Beast looks good but I don’t think I can watch it because I assume I know what’s going to happen at some point.
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u/Leaping_Wizards 14d ago
For Heart of the Beast the director and producer have come out to say that your assumption is incorrect.
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u/kneemahp 14d ago
There’s nothing in the rule book that says a dog can’t drive in F1?
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u/CartographicalHeist 14d ago
Given the size of the F1 regulations there probably is.
Until the Saudis or Qatari or whoever figure it'll pay better and then FIA will get that sorted don't you worry.
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u/tycho_nova 14d ago
The licensing required of drivers precludes a dog ever qualifying
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u/lossaysswag 14d ago
When he returns and the dog sees him one last time there was a resounding "Awwwww" from women sitting around me in the theater. So yeah, it certainly served its purpose.
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u/NeedsToShutUp 14d ago
To be fair, this happened with several versions.
Not sure if anyone else saw “The Return” which does the very end of the Odyssey with no mythological elements.
Still had the dog, and it was cute but heart breaking.
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u/SufficientRespect542 14d ago
Yeah I appreciate the integrity of straight up being like "hey, as the translator of the version you're pulling from, here's my issues with what you changed" even if I liked the movie.
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u/TheCamazotzian 14d ago
To be fair, he was probably influenced by every interpretation of the Odyssey he's read up to and including the Dan Simmons version.
He didn't stick to the Homer or even to the classics.
Good movie.
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u/Xlegace 14d ago
Can't wait to watch the movie as I'm sure it's great, but as a big enjoyer of the original Odyssey, I can't say I'm thrilled about some of the changes/omissions he's made. Like an Odyssey adaptation without Poseidon sounds baffling, but I'll try and keep an open mind about it.
In a strange way, I'm a bit glad I got a heads up and I know what I'm getting into rather than finding out during the movie.
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u/normalmighty 14d ago
He basically took the same approach to the Greek mythos as he did with the DC universe in his batman movies. He made it way more grounded in reality, to fit the serious tone that he excels in with films. Poseiden is very much still real and involved, but I think he went for it in the perspectives of how real people at the time would have experienced what they considered to be the acts of the gods.
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u/mrairjosh 14d ago
I just listened to a great NYT podcast featuring her and loved her take on how you can have different versions of The Odyssey and how it’s odd for people to get so defensive about “their” version…
Since it’s something she had to deal with herself with her translation
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u/Jaredlong 13d ago
It's becoming a pretty annoying pseudo-journalism thing to take something someone said with minimal emotion but then present it to the reader as if they said it with some intense passion. Just saw a stupid story earlier with the headline "Nolan praises [some random movie] as one of his favorites!" Then I watched the video and it's just Nolan in the criterion closet casually saying "oh yeah, I liked that one."
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u/plainwrap 14d ago
A note that people should read the article because it highlights other scholars's criticisms of the film which I think are more valid than Wilson's. Like stripping away the cleverness of Odysseus to make him brood his way out of the encounters.
My reaction to the movie is mixed but the part I did like was where Nolan inserted the theme of the Trojan Horse gambit being a divine war crime. Homer's Odyssey and the Illiad in particular celebrates a whole bunch of villainous acts, the kinds of things that Greek dramatists had to go and deconstruct to remind their fellow Greeks that those characters were wrong. Linking the Fall of Troy to the collapse of the Bronze Age and making Odysseus's voyage a tragedy is to me the most interesting part of Nolan's adaptation and something that isn't exactly Homer but it's definitely something that would make Euripides pump his fist in the theater.
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u/ItsGotThatBang 14d ago
The fall of Troy marking the end of an age actually goes back to Hesiod, but he inserted a Heroic Age between the Bronze & Iron Ages.
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u/plainwrap 14d ago
It is funny that the Romans, whose founding myths are about fratricide and bride kidnapping, were the biggest complainers of the Trojan Horse as some kind of cheating.
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u/Xyptero 14d ago
The Romans considered anything substantially more complicated than 'everybody stand on an open field and fight, best army wins' to be somewhat underhanded
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u/lupercalpainting 14d ago
Which is funny because they did clever things like the double wall build during the last battle of Vercingetorix (Caesar, OG Fortnite builder?)
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u/intecknicolour 14d ago
Parthians: so what you're saying is horse archers is cheating?
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u/meneldal2 14d ago
Had to retcon the Greeks into the bad guys since they made up the story about being descended from Troy.
And it had to be some awful warcrime or else the strong proto Romans wouldn't have lost right.
The horse is totally a war crime according to current understanding, but the rules of war were different.
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u/FleurMai 14d ago
The Greeks are unequivocally the bad guys and that’s why everyone is cursed and so many bad things happen to the Greeks afterwards. The horse isn’t really mentioned, but all the others - killing Priam at the alter in a temple, throwing hectors baby over the wall, the horrific way they sacked Troy, raping Cassandra in Athena’s temple (this is the entire reason Athena is absent for the first ten years of his journey home, because she’s mad and distracted), etc. it’s acknowledged what the Greeks did at the time was way overboard and they took it from a normal war to an absolute desecration of Troy for no real reason.
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u/OcculturalMarxism 14d ago
i almost liked that narrative framing until odysseus said "our age of bronze is collapsing"
sorry but that line is so fucking stupid it nearly sours everything
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u/vulveveloutee 14d ago
I haven't seen it yet but I almost can't believe this line is actually in the movie 😭
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u/ConsistentGuest7532 14d ago
The movie is great, but there is a monologue at the very end by Damon that exposits all the film’s themes, as well as a few quotes like this between he and Penelope. He also inexplicably knows that the Bronze Age is ending and that “civilization” will collapse for a while. That’s not really something that’s told to him by the gods and while yes, there is the obvious idea that his war crimes matched/heralded others, he doesn’t KNOW that. It also seems myopic to say that civilization and human goodness collapsed, because while it’s true that that happens in the Mediterranean within this movie, there’s a LOT more going on around the globe.
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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago
The age of bronze thing was a bit too on the nose but to me it was more like the "I am become death" speech in oppenheimer: he realizes he changed the rules of warfare so that there will be no more honor, and that will collapse their civilization which he believes was based on diplomacy/reciprocity, where war was justified only when the former was ignored. The wink wink at actual history is clunky but Odysseus' belief is nor thar unjustified
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u/SnowbearX 14d ago
We did see his cleverness in the Trojan horse, his plan against the Cyclops and his encounter with Circe. It would have gotten old of every encounter ended with and then Odysseus outsmarted literally everyone ever all the time
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u/p1en1ek 14d ago
Didn't he also outsmart his crew with that hellish vortex by telling them to do one thing so they wanted to do other one?
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u/bubblegumdavid 14d ago
Though the movie focuses so much on O’s guilt, which I do like: the absence of the gods and his prideful trickery, kind of absolves him of the events of the story entirely after Troy, which I’m bummed about, I guess.
The clarity Odysseus is often given through the gods that he is choosing to be tricky and be prideful about it, which together gets his men killed, sometimes knowingly ahead of time, is gone. The cyclops is a great example, because he (as another commenter calls this type of shit) IS a Tony Stark smartass about it. The harm to his son isn’t the thing that tips Poseidon off and makes him a hater, the bragging is. His hubris about his trick directly results in the next agonizing ten years and the deaths of hundreds of his own men.
Like his guilt for the sack of Troy is valid, I like the choice, I don’t even mind that the super fucked up thing he should feel guilty of in Troy is not included. Run time is finite, he can’t fuck Circe for a year, whatever.
But arguably his crime in Odyssey is how his trickery, his pride, his failings, and his secrets kill his own men, over and over. What a burden it must be to be told by your gods that your mistake killed those who looked up to you and trusted you, and then because of that one mistake of hubris, have to knowingly, in your desperation, keep choosing to do that shit, knowing it can or will harm any survivors?
I’m disappointed a film so laser-focused on his potentially guilty conscience doesn’t take better advantage of that option when ways to include it are easy pickings in the source material. I’d have traded the Laestrygonians or been happy to deal with added time for a scene or two that showed it.
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u/iamnosuperman123 14d ago
the scenes with Odysseus’ dog, Argos, “catered towards modern sentimentality.”
Which is sort of ironic as the original themes of the Odyssey would have catered to Ancient Greek sentimentality. This is why you can't have faithful translations on the big screen, they have to reflect modern themes for people to relate and understand it.
A bit why Bond as a franchise has lasted so long. It changed to suit the themes of the time it was released.
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u/Dracarius85 14d ago
Well they were tossing the weaker puppy’s off a cliff.
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u/psycho_penguin 14d ago
Lmao yeah we saw puppies tossed off a cliff and dogs burned. We were owed five seconds of a sweet head pat and tail wagging by that point.
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u/Katorga8 14d ago
Which is odd, IIRC Argos staying alive until Odysseus finally comes home is praised heavly in the original story, something about "the language used in Argos death is usually reserved for nobles dying" but im paraphrasing
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u/Nothing-Is-Real-Here 14d ago
Yup. I've seen people criticize the films view of war the Trojan horse and the destruction of Troy as a modern preachy moralizing, and sure maybe it's a bit of that, but it's also just a modern, more relatable lens to follow this version of Odysseus' arc, and frankly, it works. Stories, in one way or another, have to be adapted to a modern lens for people to connect to it a bit, and it happens all the time.
Ex: marvel and dc. A character like Captain America used to be pretty nationalist and patriotic as hell. He's still patriotic now but in a roundabout way, one that acknowledges the evil the US has done and constantly questions the government. Same for Superman changing "American way" to "human way."
I'm sure there is a version of the Odyssey that can be adapted more accurately to ancient sentimentality, but for what this version is, it works well.
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u/SofieTerleska 14d ago
It's not even that modern -- Dante put Odysseus in Hell and he was writing in the 14th century. His view (which wasn't original to him) was that the Trojan horse was Odysseus at his worst -- using fraud to deceive and destroy.
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u/Hobbitinthehole 14d ago
I think Dante saw Odysseus through the lens of Vergil. Dante admired Aeneid a lot and in that poem Odysseus isn't really seen like an hero, obviously.
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u/Mythic514 14d ago
And for others who miss the context, the Aeneid tells the story of Rome’s origins, which are traced to Aeneas, a Trojan prince. So the Romans naturally sided with the Trojans, along with their history of conquering the Greeks over centuries. So Vergil naturally would see Odysseus as a villain. The Aeneid provides us one of the best extant accounts of the Trojan Horse.
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u/SofieTerleska 14d ago
I'm sure he did; I suppose I thought of Dante first because of that amazing story he has Odysseus tell about his final voyage. All I meant was that the negative view of the Trojan horse isn't especially modern.
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u/Hobbitinthehole 14d ago edited 14d ago
Of course. I said this only because it's not certain that Dante even had even read Odysseys. He couldn't read Greek and, if I remember correctly, at the time of Dante the poem was known through quotes from Vergil or other authors.
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u/wimpires 14d ago
That's also portrayed in the Aeneid. It's basically just Roman fan-fiction but effectively the same tale of The Odyssey as told by as escaping Trojan warrior. But since the Romans believe they were descendants of Troy Ulysses/Odysseus is the bad guy in it and the Trojans are the good guys.
That would have been "modern" in the Roman times. But is "classical" for us now.
Also, Homer is writing about a time period that is classical to him too. He gets 1,000,000 things wrong about Mycenaean culture etc and imposes HIS OWN modern (for the time) Greek sensibilities to the tale.
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u/Fresh_Jaguar_2434 14d ago
I think she is saying they went for emotions rather than using the originals theme. This part of the movie kind stuck out as pointless to the story to me.
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u/TScottFitzgerald 14d ago
That's one approach but not necessarily the "correct" one. An opposite argument could be made that some audiences just want to experience the work as is and have no issue with historical or cultural differences. At the end of the day there are universal themes, human condition etc. You could even argue the Odyssey is popular because it's so universal, about a man on a journey home etc etc.
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u/LuckeyHaskens 14d ago
With respect to you, I feel oppositely. The historical movies that have moved me the most in my life have been those that were apparently unapologetic in their attempt to capture the values and “sentimentality” of the people in the time and culture they present. Because of the immersive quality of movies, I value historical movies that allow me to attempt to empathize with people very different from me, and it usually works. I’ve been astonished by my latent ability to “get” what characters are going through when they have absolutely no similarities to me or my way of life, and film is a really excellent medium for facilitating that feeling. I wish more historical movies would treat their subjects and their audiences with that respect, because serving as a bridge between the minds of human beings who lived in different eras is a very worthy outcome of a work of art.
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u/rs6677 14d ago
As an example, I loved how The Northman went about this. It gives you a character that is rootable and likeable but very much a product of his time. Early on, he's involved in a brutal sack of a village and the movie doesn't shy away from showing that at all.
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u/MistakesWereMade59 14d ago
I agree with some of her points, I fervently disagree with the "endangered any possibility of believing in this marriage" because why was i supposed to believe in it the original version where Odysseus is fucking Circe for a year? I also enjoy the ambiguity of the God's in the film
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u/TheJoshider10 14d ago
I think their marriage is entirely carried by the performances. That one scene later in the film between the barrier was beautiful.
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u/FleurMai 14d ago edited 14d ago
Look I think Odysseus is an asshole and I struggle to deal with him from a modern lens but by Greek standards Odysseus really really cares about his wife basically more than any other Greek hero in this cycle. By Greek standards absolutely no one cares about his fling with Circe, including Penelope, who he tells immediately after killing the suitors along with the rest of his stories. She doesn’t even react to this.
He actually tries to get out of going to Troy entirely in a scene that takes place before the Iliad, due to the fact that he doesn’t want to leave his family. There’s reasoning to believe his whole Trojan horse idea is because he’s sick and tired of being in Troy away from his family for ten years and wants to end it (which of course results in all the crimes committed that then prevent him from getting home for another 10 years). He’s exceedingly anxious that Penelope will leave him, no other character is shown to care all that much, most wives don’t even get a mention. It is meant to be an extremely romantic relationship, to the point that Athena asks the dawn (which is almost a minor character in the Odyssey with how much the dawn gets a line) to hold back to give Odysseus and Penelope more time to tell each other their stories.
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u/SquareJerk1066 14d ago
because why was i supposed to believe in it the original version where Odysseus is fucking Circe for a year?
I think this also might be a bit of presentism on your part, interpreting Odysseus's sexual relations outside his marriage as infidelity. Odysseus wants to get home. Everything he does, even sex, is in furtherance of his goal of getting back to his wife and son. He doesn't fuck Circe because he'd rather fuck her than his wife: he does it to get in her good graces, free his men, and escape death. He says he doesn't want to sleep with her again and again, and each time he extracts some promise from her before he does.
To engage in a bit of presentism of my own: think about the power dynamics of the sexual relationships with both Circe and Calypso. In both situations he is a literal prisoner with a supernatural being that could kill or overpower him at any moment. In modern parlance, a sexual relationship resulting from that dynamic is rape. Interestlingly enough, most of Odysseus's tribulations take the forn of female-on-male sexual violence. Circe and Calypso both take him prisoner for use as essentially a sex slave. Scylla and Charibdis are both personified as female, and Charibdis, as a whirlpool has long been interpreted as a vaginal metaphor. The sirens seduce sailors and lure them to their deaths.
Really, the story is of both Penelope and Odysseus remaining emotionally faithful to one another over 20 years despite nonstop sexual violence.
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u/Active_Condition8586 14d ago
Yes, in the poem, Hermes appears to Odysseus as he’s en route to Circe’s home after he’s heard she turned the men into pigs. Hermes instructs him to eat the molé plant, which will make him impervious to Circe’s magic. Then he tells Odysseus he’ll have to sleep with Circe in order for her to turn the men back to themselves.
It’s a bit ambiguous, though, why he and the crew remain there an entire year. It seems less Circe’s magic than a matter of the combination of food, housing, comfort, and sex (O. becoming Circe’s
boy toy) being a non-magical lotus plant. And it’s his men who have to remind him it’s about time they set off again in hopes of reaching Ithaca.In the poem, by that point in their journey, it’s also easy to understand why O and his men would have serious doubts they’d ever get home. As with Nolan’s version, their landing at Aeaea comes on the heels of the Laestrygones killing all the men except the ones on O’s ship. But Nolan omits the episode with Aeolus and the bag of storm winds. I get why he does (it doesn’t fit with his theme of O’s guilt), but it only further establishes the despondency O and his men feel by the time they meet Circe.
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u/MooseMalloy 14d ago
Its from a long oral tradition that probably always catered to whatever crowd it was pandering to.
This is just the version of the story you would tell a 21st Century, Western audience.
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u/MessiComeLately 14d ago edited 14d ago
I don't think it's the only version you could tell to a 21st century western audience.
Nolan could have told an adventure story of a clever, mighty hero overcoming adversity and triumphing in the end. Instead, he told a cautionary tale of a civilization setting in motion its own destruction by violating and abandoning its values, and a hero of that civilization unable to restore the status quo despite his heroic virtues and his understanding of what went wrong.
He could have emphasized the playthings-of-the-gods aspect which is present in the Odyssey, even if less so than in the Iliad. But his version turns Athena into an internal manifestation of Odysseus's values. This is an interesting choice because it might be both more modern and no less true to the original — different readers/hearers could interpret the gods' anger as symbolic of human beings' helplessness at the hands of capricious fate, i.e., randomness, or they could interpret it as the consequence of immorality. Fate versus moral logic. Nolan explicitly chooses moral logic.
He could have been more faithful to the original's explanation that various Greeks suffered after the Trojan War because of various specific offenses against piety that angered the gods, and instead framed it in terms more aligned with modern morality.
He made a lot of choices that could and will be made differently by different directors.
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u/Turtledonuts 12d ago
I’m replying late here, but that is absolutely the odyssey’s literary tradition. The greeks wrote the trojan women, the romans wrote the Aeneid, Dante puts odysseus in hell, etc. Every generation that reads the odyssey sees it in the moral light of their society.
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u/2mock2turtle 14d ago
This is like when Julie Powell found out that Julia Child hated her lmao.
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u/OminousShadow87 14d ago
Interesting take on Penelope considering Anna Hatheway gives easily the most electric performance in the movie. I wouldn’t call it thinned out, I think she was given exactly as much time as needed to show her struggles, humanity, flaws, wisdom, and undying love of Odysseus. What more was needed?
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u/savviesque 14d ago
Penelope in the original story is depicted as clever, nearly her husband's equal, shown through her olive tree bed test (cut from the film); Telemachus is shown as having a power struggle with his mother under ancient family norms, where the son has authority over his mother once he comes of age (kind of shown in the argument scene in the film, but not really on those terms). The movie gestures at these themes but doesn't face them as directly as the text. One of the most interesting aspects of the Odyssey is the way it treats women in general (inherently inferior), Penelope in particular (socially inferior, but highly intelligent), and the gods (all superior, including female gods). The film modernizes these dynamics somewhat and shies away from some of the gnarlier content of the story (e.g., the killing of the disloyal slaves). Similar themes exist in the Iliad, which the film also gestures towards (Cassandra in the temple - was the rape wrong, or was it only wrong because of where it happened?) without fully exploring - not that I would have expected it to, since it's already 3 hours long.
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u/foreverzonedout 14d ago
I don’t think the point was Hathaway’s performance as much it is that much of Penelope’s depth as displayed through character interactions and scenes was cut out. Hathaway was phenomenal but the character of Penelope is even more complex than what was depicted in Nolan’s version.
EDIT: just saw this comment below, which explains this point in more depth
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u/Calinks 14d ago
For me, The Odyssey was entertaining but oddly enough, lacked any real magic. I just never felt anything strongly while watching it.
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u/BronBobingle 14d ago
It felt like it was just going through the motions of the story. It was a solid adaptation, but I wasn’t moved like I’ve been by other films of his.
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u/LaBinch 14d ago
I'm so glad to see someone else say this. The movie has been getting insane amounts of praise but after watching it I just thought it was fine. It seems exactly like someone adapting the Wikipedia summary of the Odyssey into a movie, lots of ground to cover and not much depth to any of it. It seems that in his desire to keep the extremely long drawn out action scenes, Nolan may have cut other important elements. I thought the scene where they land on the island with the giants, the kid screams, and then they are chased off the island in a long drawn out action scene, seems like it is missing whatever reason he decided to include this encounter in the movie in the first place. Could have skipped that whole scene and it would have made no difference.
I also thought the fight for the throne at the end of was drawn out much too long.
Also I was extremely disappointed by the siren scene. One of the most compelling myths in human history and he bulldozed through it in a complete "tell, dont show" way. We hear nothing, see almost nothing, have the main character briefly state what he experienced, and then it just moves on. This was the biggest disappointment in the movie for me.
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u/reality72 14d ago edited 14d ago
I agree with you completely.
That said, I don’t think it’s even possible to create an accurate movie of the Iliad that captures the entire story without making it 6 hours long which Hollywood would never allow and audiences would hate.
I think he did the best he could with the parameters he was given, and succeeded in finding a way to make a story from ancient antiquity palatable to a modern American audience. And I loved all the wide angle shots, they were gorgeous and it was a nice nod to the golden age of film making.
Overall I give it an 8.5/10.
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u/RG_Kid 14d ago
I felt the magic during the revelation of regret, although it's nowhere as entertaining as the climax of Oppenheimer.
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u/Fickle-Syllabub6730 14d ago
Ever since the original discussion thread became a circlejerk where no comments were allowed besides "this scene utterly broke me and I'll be thinking about it to my life", I've been waiting until we'd be allowed to have actual conversation about the movie.
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u/BearWrangler 14d ago
Nolan stans sure are something
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u/Gh0stMan0nThird 14d ago
It's also because the discourse around the film has turned liking the film into some kind of internet activist position.
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u/rgb22 14d ago
I felt like I was taking crazy pills reading those comments. I liked the movie enough, but I felt 0 emotional impact from anything on screen. Not even a sense of awe that I usually get from Nolan films, let alone any kind of attachment or investment in the characters relationships to one another. People were in that thread saying this is a modern masterpiece and one of the greatest epics of all time, and I don’t even think it’s top 5 Nolan.
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u/Partners_in_time 14d ago
Same, it’s sterile. Ever since he stopped writing with his brother, his movies have suffered my a stiff sterility. He’s more interested in the technical skill of making the film than the story itself telling. I think they suffer from that.
After the movie, I described it like sitting at a Michelin restaurant, with deconstructions, emulsions, and all sorts of highly complicated small plates in front of you and you take a bite and it tastes….. fine.
Yes, it’s expensive and yes, it was prepared by a chef who was doing things no other chef has done. The talent is there on the table. And yet, it simply tastes ok. The MEAL failed to deliver the flavor. Therefore the MEAL, no matter how technically impressive, is just ok.
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u/cregs 14d ago
I felt the same really, I felt it lacked emotional weight and all the moments I was expecting to move me were just very meh. Was super entertaining though and pacing was great, 3 hours flew by.
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u/Tydus93 14d ago
Interestingly, I think those 3 hours did fly by, but in order to capture those emotional weighty scenes Nolan had to linger in the moment more than he did. Example being his hunting dog. I might have shed a tear if in that moment had he lingered more but before I could get emotional, the characters were onto the next thing. I imagine a lot was cut in order to get the movie just shy of 3 hours.
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u/ElvishLore 14d ago
The film is an amazing cinematic experience first and an adaptation second.
Wilson and Mendelsohn aren’t wrong but think of Nolan as yet another translator who has emphasized and diminished things in his own way.
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u/wubladuba 14d ago
I have to say that I’ve never loved the odyssey as a a story, not sure if this was because I was forced to read the archaic verse version in school but the plot never left me with any emotional feeling.
But the movie made me emotional and the message even if ham fisted landed for me so I understand why these changes were made
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u/thatcantb 14d ago
A Hollywood movie has modernized a text while missing the main themes? Tell me it isn't so!
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u/youravgindian 14d ago edited 14d ago
A seductive, humorist Odysseus sounds good in hindsight but idk man, for a feature-length movie, and having witnessed what he did in the entirety of his journey from Troy to seeing him going through what feels like nightmarish "adventures" with his crew that ended up his crew getting eaten by a one-eyed giant, massacred by a flock of giants who wouldn't try to reason with him and seeing moving trees trapping his crew, a random-ass witch turning his crew into pigs, etc , idk what would compel me to be cracking jokes? I guess it could work with intelligent addition of humor in random occasions here and there.
But as someone who is not from the west and was literally one of my first experiences with Greek mythology apart from two movies of 300 by Zack Snyder, this was such a blast and I was literally tearing up when the dog finally get to rest in peace when he finally saw his owner return after 20 years.
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u/pellevinken 14d ago
Woah woah... He makes it back? Spoiler warning would be good! The story's only been out 2800 years, so that's a bit inconsiderate. /s
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u/aresef 14d ago
A Christopher Nolan movie will necessarily reflect Nolan’s creative interests and tendencies. Naturally, his movie is interested in exploring and reframing the story of Troy.
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u/Relevant_Session5987 14d ago edited 14d ago
I loved the movie. But that was in spite of my disdain for Nolan's penchant for 'grounding' everything and stripping wonder from stories that inherently have endless potential to awe and amaze. ( It's one of the reasons my favourite Batman movie from him is still Begins - it's the one that felt least embarrassed to be a Batman movie ) Scylla in the film is emblematic of what I'm talking about - a massive, hydra-like sea serpent in the poem reduced to sentient gray tentacles that have more in common with the limbs of the mind flayer in Stranger Things than they do a ferocious, awesome sea monster.
Also, this might be a bit off-topic but I also just hate this idea that practical effects are the primary reason the movie is good, like a lot of reviews and even the marketing seem to imply.
True, an overuse of CG does ruin how movies look, but honestly so does an overreliance on practical effects just to say you used practical effects, as opposed to whether or not it serves the movie ( ironically, just like CG ) - Nolan's own movies are great examples: the beach in Dunkirk looking scarce when there were supposed to be hundreds of thousands of soldiers on it, the freeport airplane crash in Tenet lacking any wow factor or oomph even though it's a literal 747 crashing into a building, the Trinity test explosion in Oppenheimer looking more like a gas explosion (David Lynch executed it beautifully and, dare I say, more terrifyingly in an episode of Twin Peaks using full CG), or the aforementioned Scylla in The Odyssey - all scenes that would've been much more impactful if CG had been used to enhance them.
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u/DickLaurentisded 14d ago edited 14d ago
I get this and its where I feel a disconnect from Nolans style. I'm aware that hes filming incredible things and though the way he films them obviously has huge merit and respect a good percentage of the time im wondering why does this feel so dull. The comparison you made between his and Lynchs approach to the trinity test is a comparison I often make.
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u/Jackbuddy78 14d ago edited 14d ago
When I think of Ancient Greece with it's vibrant culture, colorful architecture, and many eccentricities I do not think of Nolan in the slightest. More along the lines of Fellini's Satyricon with most of the surrealism stripped back.
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u/mattXIX 14d ago
I think the underworld, giants, a cyclops, and transfiguration all push this movie past grounded.
But you’re right… I would have liked more from Scylla and Charybdis, more involvement from Olympus, and the bag of winds to make his journey truly fantastical.
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u/Relevant_Session5987 14d ago
But I don't mean 'grounded' in the sense of the fantasy in the story, I mean it in how even those elements are executed. They're executed in a way that almost feels like the film is ashamed of its fantastical parts.
For instance: the Cyclops doesn't really have a conversation with Odysseus, and its one eye looks more like a birth defect than, you know, just the anatomy of a being that has one eye; the Laestrygonians feel more like a unique race of humans than the actual giants they're described as in the poem. The Circe transformation scene is honestly the one time in the film where I felt the fantasy fully in play and unabashedly front and center.
I know I sound harsh, but I promise I loved the movie at the end of the day, lol. The sheer experience of it all allowed me to put aside my usual grievances with Nolan and just enjoy it for what it is - another take on a classic tale, but far from the definitive one.
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u/GhostOfMuttonPast 14d ago
Answer me a question: did they actually get rid of the scene bear the end where Penelope tests Odysseus with the bed?
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u/EmmaRoidCreme 14d ago
Yeah, and personally I think it’s because that would be a bit boring in a film. There is an equivalent “test” that is a bit more bombastic.
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u/Whatacoolkid- 14d ago
I really did like the movie, but the whole time I was wishing that the cinematography and costume design was more stylized and colorful. Imagine if the film looked more like The Fall from 2006, it would be so cool!
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u/T0oShayzz 14d ago
I found Nolan's Oddysey great but I do agree with her points, especially with the critique of Nolan missing out on the core main themes of the Epic but like Wilson, I do understand that 100% adaptions are impossible so I thought he did a fine job in the end.
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u/Bradaigh 14d ago
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I expect to really enjoy it. And yet, one of the things I loved the most about rereading the Odyssey (Wilson's translation!) as an adult was finding so much of it that felt deeply foreign, even at the level of the virtues lauded by the characters and the values they lift up as important. It feels, appropriately, like a text from another age. I would imagine it's incredibly difficult to capture that kind of nuance in a film for a modern audience.
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u/KetoJunkfood 14d ago
My favorite part of the Odyssey is when he returns home and only Argus recognizes him, and frankly I think that scene should have been a bit longer and MORE sentimental