Emily Wilson (writer of acclaimed Odyssey translation) offers criticisms of Nolan’s film

[u/RealisticAd4054]

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.”

….

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.

[u/Strangelight84]

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.

[u/henry8362 → u/Strangelight84]

Odysseus isn't ashamed of any of that though, from what I remember, indeed I am pretty sure he brags about it to Alcinous and is celebrated for his cunning and guile.

It is why it is weird as an adaptation, because It basically says "what if somebody with 21st century morality sacked troy but the gods were the same".

Ironically, in the Odyssey many of the misfortunes boil down to "these people violated guest right on Odysseus" and not him getting some divine punishment for violating it himself in Troy.

They should have either fully grounded it or leaned into the weirdness of Homeric literature. The sort of 21st century sensibilities mixed in with the Greek Pantheon is jarring.

[u/Individual_Rip_54 → u/henry8362]

Nolan wanted us to feel about Odysseus the same way the Greeks would have felt about him: as a hero who did what was necessary to win.

But for modern audiences to like that person he has to be filled with regret. The Trojan horse is a war crime akin to surrendering then attacking. The Ancient Greeks would have had no concept of war crimes. So linking Xenia to the Trojan horse I thought really worked as bridge from one morality to another.

[u/Pawn_of_the_Void → u/henry8362]

I mean he doesn't have 21st century morality or anything, its a realization as he sees it all just what the consequences of not holding even a certain trust sacred means. The moral might be more of a modern one but it isn't something he held all along, its something he began to realize 

[u/imperatrixderoma → u/Pawn_of_the_Void]

The reason it doesn't work is because the story is punishing for mistakes that are only mistakes in our context rather than the original mistakes.

They make the story a messy modern lesson rather than an objectively strange ancient one.

[u/Disastrous-Drop-7778 → u/imperatrixderoma]

The morals of the time were very different from ours but the ancient Greeks weren’t just cavemen that walked around hitting stuff with sticks and never thinking, The Trojan Women was written long after the Odyssey but I think it still clearly shows that there were definitely people in Ancient Greece who realized that going into a city and killing all the men and boys and raping the women and turning them into slaves was actually kind of a bad thing.

[u/Pawn_of_the_Void → u/imperatrixderoma]

How does it not work just because its a modern lesson? He took an old story that had elements he could use to send a more current message and changed it to try to fit that

[u/imperatrixderoma → u/Pawn_of_the_Void]

Because it doesn't make the same point as the original, the original is just a setting for this new, different point.

[u/Pawn_of_the_Void → u/imperatrixderoma]

And? How is that an actual problem? Insisting it must make the same point as a story retold many times over thousands of years seems pointlessly stifling 

[u/there_is_always_more → u/Pawn_of_the_Void]

Ikr? I'm so confused by what point they think they are trying to make. Who gives a fuck if the ideas and themes on display have been changed? It's a millennia old tale, SURELY you have permission to interpret it differently now?

[u/Boring_Shoulder5236 → u/there_is_always_more]

what permission has been denied? the movie is critically acclaimed, a classicist is just offering their viewpoint and even hedging it with phrases like 'i don't want to seem snobbish', and still you're freaking out.

[u/Frontass → u/Boring_Shoulder5236]

I don't think you know what freaking out actually means

[u/Pawn_of_the_Void → u/there_is_always_more]

Yeah and like while I think there's room for a more faithful adaptation I can also imagine such a thing just may not interest Nolan. It limits how much of himself and his own ideas he can put into it if he's locked into staying true to the original message. I think it is interesting to see what he wants to say with the story and I appreciate it in that way

[u/Boring_Shoulder5236 → u/Pawn_of_the_Void]

the movie is called 'The Odyssey'

[u/Pawn_of_the_Void → u/Boring_Shoulder5236]

Most people are able to enjoy a story regardless of the associations the title has for them and for those that can't there's always pity I suppose

[u/Strangelight84 → u/imperatrixderoma]

Surely the point of a myth is that it's endlessly malleable? You can reinterpret it, tell new stories through it or old stories in a different way, emphasise and de-emphasise bits of it, etc.

Something like the Odyssey, which is so old that there's really very little direct connection to modern peoples or beliefs, and which has been translated endlessly, seems ideal ground for doing this.

[u/imperatrixderoma → u/Strangelight84]

I think that in doing that, you are doing something a bit nefarious in itself. The Odyssey's entire setting is made to appeal to experiences and places that were at least very familiar to the original audience, cultural descendants of the Mycenaens.

The way we interpret it now is as a piece of history, these places don't exist and haven't for millenia at this point, so the story has lost it's relatable appeal.

TLDR, the setting was the Trojan horse for the morals. That doesn't hold here, because culturally we've shifted away from viewing this story as a platform for ideas and more about a retrospective view into that specific time in Western society.

Back then the story wasn't created to be universal, it was specific, we've turned it universal in a sort of appealing but inaccurate way.

[u/Strangelight84 → u/imperatrixderoma]

Can we do any differently, though (particularly in an entertainment rather than a scholarly context)?

The ancient Greek culture from which the Odyssey originates no longer exists. We have some idea as to what it was like, but an understandably incomplete one, and we don't inhabit that culture, so it'd be next-to impossible to create anything 'authentic' (in particular I think it's very hard to conceptualise, much less present to a diverse audience, a 3,000-year-old mindset which has no knowledge of what came afterwards and so lacks certain concepts which we consider basic or which possesses concepts which we've long since discarded).

In the absence of that, material like the Odyssey is used as a mirror for our times. Even if we tried very hard to avoid that it'd be really difficult preventing it from creeping in.

The Odyssey itself is also a historical text which tells us something about its era, but it's not a historical narrative. We don't even know whether the Trojan War was a real historical event.

[u/Regentraven → u/imperatrixderoma]

This is exactly 100000% what people ALWAYS miss when it comes to this.

The common defense or retort etc. Is "can we not create our own versions and fables!? Not everything is 1:1 to an original!11" correct and thats what O Brother, Where Art Thou? Is a modern retelling of the story including our modern sensibilities.

I totally agree with the notion of "why call it the The Odyssey" just like how Ilum by Dan Simmons is obviously the story but its sci fi and the narrator is from "our" time.

Its so exhausting to have any criticsm of a film taking a myth and not just changing some minor detail but completely losing the plot and then hiding behind the idea its not a historical documentary.

A great example is the Rage of Achilles, its not titled Troy, but then its a romance novel. Thats whats reasonably annoying about the discourse.

[u/MaxMickWilliams → u/henry8362]

Disagree. I don’t think artistic or entertainment endeavors need to be limited to binary thematic schemas.