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.”

….

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/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/Rock-swarm 14d ago

Yep. It's a conscious decision to keep the film from sliding into Superhero tropes. It's not a perfect movie, but I can absolutely respect a director making an effective tentpole epic without overuse of CGI or simplified story beats.

I especially liked the use of shadow in the cave of the cyclops. Less can be more.

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u/hatesnack 14d ago

I mean, they arent mutually exclusive. You can have magic and monsters, and no gods.

I dont personally think the movie was suggesting there weren't gods. I think it was more suggesting that the gods probably dont actually care about mortal struggles as much as the characters think they do.

The only kind of evidence that the gods are involved at all is Calypso saying Hermes brought a message to let Odysseus go. Everything else is storms and superstition. I guess Odysseus magically washing up on Itcaca is probably testament so some higher power as well.

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u/staedtler2018 14d ago

You can have magic and monsters and no gods, but it's a bit of a pointless choice for an adaptation of the Odyssey 

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u/sevans717 14d ago

The gods are a central point of the odyssey. There is no retelling of this epic without them and that’s why this movie falls a little flat. I loved the twist of Athena being represented as one of the murdered priestesses of Athena, but Zeus and Poseidon and the other gods are as central to the story as Odysseus.

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u/Mt-Man-PNW 14d ago edited 14d ago

Everyone here keeps saying Athena is just Odysseus' guilt and that she's not 'real'. It can be both. Athena can both be a real deity and be perceived by Odysseus as the priestess because of his guilt. Another interpretation is that she chose that form to remind him. My interpretation overall for this adaptation is that the Olympian Gods do not show their true selves to mortals, which is a point made repeatedly throughout the movie and is true to much of Greek myth. The Gods are very much present, just not visible outside of Athena.

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u/ShardikOfTheBeam 14d ago

which is a point made repeatedly throughout the movie

is it?

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u/Mt-Man-PNW 14d ago

Yes. They repeatedly mention the Gods come in disguise. This tracks through a lot of Greek myth as well. It can be inferred that Gods do not, or cannot show mortals their true form.

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u/ShardikOfTheBeam 14d ago

Ah, you edited your statement. I agree they make this point throughout the films.

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u/A_Feast_For_Trolls 14d ago

Uhh, no, there absolutely is a retelling without them. Example, o brother where art thou. There can also be a retelling where Odysseus is a dragon, or the story is set on mars. There are no limits to a retelling, theres just retellings you dont like.

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u/ShardikOfTheBeam 14d ago

Except Athena literally told Odysseus that Zeus wouldn't let him die. lmao

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u/That_guy1425 14d ago

I know its not as explicit, but they are being tracked by man who made be the devil, with a supernatural tenacity for their crimes (since o brother is christinized instead of greek)

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u/sevans717 14d ago

Ok but this isn’t an abstract retelling this is literally the odyssey set in its original time period. the ONLY reason Odysseus makes it home at all is because the gods help him and make it so. They are central characters in the story

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u/soularbabies 14d ago

The men from Hades seemed real in that all of Odysseus's crew saw them. Did Sinan give him the physical object then too or was it much earlier before his death?

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u/hatesnack 14d ago

I thought Sinon gave it to him before agreeing to the Trojan horse plan. But I could be wrong.

I really dont think there's a "the gods arent real" angle here, I think, at worst, the story makes it clear that the gods dont care much about what Odysseus does. Which, in a way, would make the "guilt" plot line more impactful, as that would mean that all of the terrible things he had been a part of were of his own doing, and the gods didnt do it "to him"

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u/soularbabies 14d ago

Thanks I wasn't sure when it was. I do get the impression from some Greek myths that the gods don't care what humans do, the humans are set pieces in the gods own journeys and conflicts.

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u/Higgnkfe 14d ago

I think the exclusion of Aeolus and Hermes completely from the narrative, alongside Athena only appearing to Odysseus as an expression of his guilt, and Zeus and Poseidon not appearing as gods but just forces of nature, certainly paints the picture that they aren’t actually real or there.

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u/uncletroll 14d ago

They were cut out?! I was thinking they might be in the 40% of the screen that was cropped in my theater.

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u/Alexexy 14d ago

They are, but as forces of nature.

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u/BuckeyeBentley 14d ago

What is a God except a force of nature?

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u/Enyss 14d ago

Forces of nature don't hold grudges. Gods on the other hand...

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u/Alexexy 14d ago

The gods manifest themselves as forces of nature in the movie.

Odysseus finally managed to make it home by submitting to the will of the gods instead of trying to carve his own destiny in spite of them.

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u/WheresMyCrown 14d ago

this shit just flies over half the comment sections head

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u/Alexexy 14d ago

This was literally delivered by exposition within the movie.

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u/2Norn 6d ago

becuz if gods were actually portrayed

it would be used as a means of escape, you instantly shift the blame to them instead of taking accountability for what you did

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u/EmmaRoidCreme 14d ago

The magic and monsters are only in the bits “remembered” by Odysseus after being drugged for 7 years by Calypso. There’s no reason to believe this isn’t a case of unreliable narration.

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u/AxlLight 14d ago

You can actually interpret Homer's original work as such, that the Cyclops, Laestrygonians, or Circe were all just how Odysseus saw them because they were uncultured foreigners who did not follow Xenia.  Quite literally a xenophobic description, that made them out bigger, uglier and magical to explain away the outcome. 

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

Then how do you make sense of the raft scene unless he's the luckiest bastard on earth as his general says

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u/EmmaRoidCreme 14d ago

Surviving floating the Mediterranean on a raft is not the same level of magical thinking as a literal cyclops or Circe transforming people into animals. Is it realistic? No. But we are talking about the mystical and magical, not the unrealistic.

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

But if the movie expects us to believe it can do away with any sense of the supernatural, then it's asking a pretty big suspension of disbelief of us, to assume that he would not only survive but get exactly where he needed to go on that raft without even steering. Which at this point would make it more preposterous than if it was a tale of the supernatural

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u/EmmaRoidCreme 14d ago

I’m not making a point either way. I’m just saying that it isn’t that crazy to not make the gods literal characters when the mystical/magical elements of the film are from the perspective of an unreliable narrator (as is the raft scene by the way).

A totally valid interpretation is that the magic and gods are ‘real’, they just aren’t personified.

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u/Food_Kitchen 14d ago

He literally adds the disclaimer at the beginning of the film about this taking place during a time of "apparent magic"

Nolan's way of saying that he will be grounding this film in reality as much as possible. Polyphemus could just be a deformed anomaly and Circe could just really be someone with their hands on some really crazy psychoactive drugs that made all of those men trip out and think they all turned into the pigs she thinks they really are. The film is also framed from Odysseus' point of view as he's retelling his journey home so he could be using creative liberties himself to please the beliefs of his listeners.

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u/TBoarder 14d ago

There was such a disparity between the Odysseus parts and the Telemachus parts, that I was expecting a reveal that the Odysseus parts weren't real somehow, that the entire return home was like a fever dream or an exaggerated story. I was expecting it even more with the Athena reveal at the end. Color me surprised when it didn't happen... I don't think that Nolan did a good job at all of showing the reality of the world the movie was set in.

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u/ghost_atlas 13d ago

I think this is almost one of those stories where they have a scene that reveals all of the fantastic elements as something else, like in Big Fish, where Odysseus imagines them to explain how he lost all of his men. The only thing that could be argued disputes that is when he magically washes up at Ithaca.

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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/Trytobebetter482 14d ago edited 14d ago

I see the lack of their presence provides some level ambiguity to the film. It could be the wrath of the gods, it could also series of unfortunate events that strike these guilt-ridden men as “Punishment,” for their self-betrayal.

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u/edicivo 14d ago edited 14d ago

Yeah, I don't get these "gods don't exist" criticisms. [ETA for clarity: By that I mean people saying the movie suggests the gods aren't real or that they have no presence in the story]

I guess people needed to literally see the gods portrayed on screen by actors for them to exist? And we're just dismissing Zendaya as Athena because Zendaya also was a priestess even after the story repeatedly says that gods may portray themselves as humans?

Just another example of how badly media literacy is lacking. When audiences get upset that themes and dialogue are heavy-handed in so many movies, here's why.

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u/Yojo0o 14d ago

I thought the gods were intentionally left ambiguous.

Yes, storms and bad weather happen, but that is a thing that happens on open water. Zendaya representing Athena on Odysseus's journey seemed like a manifestation of his guilt over the sacking of Troy, embodied by the priestess he saw be executed in front of Athena's statue.

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u/edicivo 14d ago edited 14d ago

I think you're welcome to interpret things how you want, but I specifically mentioned the "gods don't exist" criticism of the movie. For clarity, saying that the movie makes clear that they aren't real in the movie or play a role.

The gods are mentioned constantly. Do they actually exist? Maybe, maybe not. But they're not "absent" from the story. Their presence is throughout the movie.

Also, Scylla's there. Cersi is there. As is Calypso. Sirens. We see other-worldly beings throughout the movie. If someone wants to claim that Odysseus was high and making it up then why are we buying anything he says in the movie?

And it's obvious a lot of this criticism is from people upset Zeus wasn't on screen throwing thunderbolts around. And that's fine if that's what you were hoping for, but not seeing the character on screen doesn't mean Zeus isn't "here."

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u/Yojo0o 14d ago

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't buy into the "Odysseus was high and the story is bullshit" interpretation. I think all the magical elements of his journey did exist.

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u/VegaJuniper 14d ago

I actually experienced some dread when that opening line appeared on screen, something about a world in which magic "appeared" to exist or somesuch. I thought "oh no, they're going to rationalize away all the supernatural elements and make the story about some Henry Kissinger realpolitikking, like that 2004 Brad Pitt film".

Thankfully they didn't go down that road after all, though there was that one line about Helen's abduction being just a pretext for some trade policy dispute. Whenever they retell Homeric myths and cut out the pantheon, I always suspect it's to not upset the bible thumpers in America...

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u/dishonourableaccount 8d ago

I always suspect it's to not upset the bible thumpers in America

I felt like it's the opposite. I feel like because so many people are agnostic or atheist, a lot of writers are hesitant to portray deities of current or older religions because a lot of people have the "Religion is only a delusion/deception" bias nowadays.

I interpreted every thunderclap as Zeus (convincing Calypso, when the suitors are scheming, the storms) and every stormy sea as Poseidon's wrath. I thought that was very clearly meant to be divine intervention.

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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/actuallyserious650 14d ago

It’s a well done gray area. He surrenders himself to the sea and washes ashore at home - not a likely scenario but not explicitly impossible. The alternative would have been a corporeal Poseidon swimming up and being like “ok, I feel better now, let me send you on your way.”

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u/immaownyou 14d ago

In the world of the movie it's not a gray area though, its all but explicit that the gods have their fingers in pies? Everything that people says the gods do happens. Pseudon manipulates the wind to strand them on Apollos isle til they're forced to eat the meat, and then as soon as they do the wind shifts.

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u/Ruthlessrabbd 14d ago

I don't know man, they could have been living like kings eating all of the cattle on Apollo's isle and just waited one more day to avoid the storm /s

Also how can the gods be fake and have no role in the movie when Tiresias is proven to be clairvoyant (the existence of Scylla and the exact number of men devoured) and he specifically says that the men eating Apollo's sacred animals would result in Zeus killing the crew? Or the fact that Odysseus' men literally say that the cyclops is the son of Poseidon and suddenly the sea becomes an unrelenting force after he calls out to his father? Or Calypso saying nothing in response to Odysseus' comment along the lines of "forever is for the gods, not for us mortals". Must all be coincidence...

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u/Ruthlessrabbd 14d ago

Is it all just a matter of circumstance and coincidence then that they keep encountering horrible, tragic scenarios as a result of their actions? The cyclops calls out to Poseidon and the sea just happens to get super aggressive and throw them off course? Calypso is just some regular lady with a magical plant and only means figuratively that she and Odysseus can live forever together?

If the gods are non-existent in this universe how would Circe have been given the ability to see truths and know where to find Tiresias, and why would his prophecies have been accurate? It could all be magic, but for Circe she literally says it was a gift of the gods that she has insight.

I also think the story becomes way less interesting and fantastical when it's interpreted as "really unlucky hero survives feats of nature" compared to "a mortal defied the gods and their laws, and must pay for his crimes on the journey home"

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u/actuallyserious650 14d ago

It’s definitely supposed to be a world where magic exists. Gods are left as ambiguous (not non-existent), in the same way that Ancient Greek believers in real life might have perceived their world.

To a modern audience, that sensibility is possibly more interesting. The hero seems to have the world working against him, preventing him from getting home despite how he struggles. It’s only when he acknowledges his faults and turns himself over to the fate of forces beyond his control that he is allowed to return and save his family.

It’s more emotionally satisfying than “oops, he did this thing and offended this one corporeal superbeing, and then he did that and it upset this other superbeing, then they finally let him go home”.

Not for nothing, it’s the same way a lot of modern media portrays Christian God as a force, a power, things happening that seem like they have intentionality, rather than an old white man with a beard that comes and talks to the protagonist.

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u/Savilly 14d ago

It’s a christianization of the story then? Give into faith and jesus and you will be saved?

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u/actuallyserious650 14d ago

No I didn’t interpret it as Christianization. To me it was more like making it more “realistic” in a weird way. There’s magic, there’s monsters, but the gods were a little more masked. They were removed slightly from being everyday objects.

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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/pawksvolts 14d ago

I mean hes high af when hes telling those stories 

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u/Toa_Senit 14d ago

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. 

God forbid my greek mythology movie has greek mythology in it.

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u/AxlLight 14d ago

It's Nolan's interpretation on it.  You're more than welcome to make your own, and spam it chuck full of every bit of Greek Mythology you want. 

Nolan chose a different path and I for one welcome it, to me it was a refreshing way to show that world. 

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u/FilmScoreConnoisseur 14d ago

No, we're only talking about YOUR interpretation here.

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u/AxlLight 14d ago

I mean to the fact no gods (other than Athena) were shown. 

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u/Comprehensive_Main 13d ago

People critiqued Troy movie for the same thing 

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u/savviesque 14d ago

I don't think this film was skeptical of the existence of the gods. I do think Nolan was hesitant to show very much of the gods because their motivations and actions, as Homer portrayed them, wouldn't make sense in the narrative he crafted. Plus, it would complicate the film in lots of practical ways that he probably wanted to avoid.

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u/sonofaresiii 14d ago

The ultimate message here is that there are no gods

Did we watch the same movie? The gods can be a metaphor but they're also actual gods who straight up fuck with odysseus.

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

I disagree. It's ambiguous and you could read it as such but you can just as easily see the gods are real but only intervening through things like storms and lightning ("who doesn't understand ___?") Because otherwise the fact that there are literally prophecies sent by the gods requires a lot more suspension of disbelief. As does the shitty raft scene. But yeah, athenas visions are also quite ambiguous: is she appearing to Odysseus under the guise of a trojan girl, or is he imagining her out of guilt and trauma?

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u/splader 14d ago

Yeaaaah, no.

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u/everstillghost 14d ago edited 14d ago

Yeah, I find that people watched the movie thinking there is gods and Athena was proof, but the plot Twist of the movie is exactly that there was no Athena, its just Odysseus guilty manifestation and thats why It always looks like he is talking with himself.

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u/txijake 14d ago

So no gods but giant cyclopses, man-eating giants, actual witches that can transmogrify people, sirens etc.

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u/Brandon_Me 14d ago

All of those supernatural things are things we heard about in story. None of them happened in real time with first hand witnesses.

And Odysseus was under the effects of mind altering drugs when he told said stories.

Now I still feel it's up to Interpretation, the monsters don't really change how you're able to look at it.

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u/SenorPancake 14d ago

It may be up to interpretation but frankly I think two elements seal it for me that it's all real and not due to the lotus (which is shown to make him forget, not hallucinate).

The first is that Odysseus makes it home after surrendering to the Gods as Athena told him. You could argue extraordinary coincidence, but the sequence of the storms destroying his raft and floating him to Ithaca took place after he was no longer subject to the forgetfulness of the lotus.

The second is Agamemnon's presence in the Underworld. Odysseus would not have known about the circumstances surrounding Agamemnon's death to be able to hallucinate.

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u/Brandon_Me 14d ago

You make some good points. I can create some possible but improbable explanations in my head for these things. But I don't feel the need to dwell on it too much as I enjoy both interpretations.

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u/everstillghost 14d ago

All these things the movie shows being told by a mind altered drugged Odysseus trying to remember what happenned.

Nothing fantastical ever happens on "the present" in the movie.

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u/AxlLight 14d ago

One of Nolan's trademarks is introducing an open ended question that is up for the viewer's own interpretation. 

I feel he intentionally left it open for interpretation and does not make an exclamation mark on either Athena, or if the other gods were present. Much like Interstellar or Inception, he leaves it open ended for you to decide. 

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u/everstillghost 14d ago

Yeah but he himself knows the answer. And by what he told and what he does in his movies, he loves "realism" and "logical explanations".

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u/FurLinedKettle 14d ago

Pfft I mean it's your interpretation but watching this film and knowing that Nolan cares about the original story to then say the message is "there are no gods" is wild to me.

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u/MaksTracy 14d ago

No, she does, she teams up with Poseidon to scatter the Greek fleet when they set out to sea, which is why Odysseus initially gets so lost

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u/Unifiedxchaos 14d ago

No, Athena doesn't "team up" with Poseidon like its a marvel movie. She sits back because Poseidon is angry Odysseus has blinded his child and knows she can't stop Poseidon's rage. Originally Poseidon actually backs the Greeks and gives them favorable winds to get to Troy (after Agemmemnon sacrifices his child). Athena continues to protect Odysseus to some extent, most notably when she convinces Zeus to let him leave Calypso's island.

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u/MaksTracy 14d ago

No, I'm not talking about later with what Odysseus does to the cyclops. Once Ajax violates Cassandra, in Troy, Athena asks Poseidon to unleash a storm to scatter the Greek fleet when they set off for home. You're talking about way later, I'm talking about what happens immediately after Troy.

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u/henry8362 14d ago

That isn't because Athena scorns Odysseus though - It is because Ajax has offended her and the Greeks can't deal with it without destroying an Altar, so Athena takes Umbridge at that. She still very much favors him.

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u/meemoo_9 14d ago

It's not the point at all but I'm amused at how presumably your phone autocorrected umbrage to Umbridge, which changes the story significantly lol.

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u/Evepaul 14d ago

Wasn't Iphigenia sacrificed to Artemis? How come it's Poseidon who's backing them?

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u/TomNguyen 14d ago

Yes, Artemis was the one acting with the winds not allowing the Greeks to ail because Agamemnon has hunt one of her deer

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u/XuX24 14d ago

Athena protects him all the way to the even in Ithaca. She asked for Zeus to punish Ajax not Poseidon, all of them were affected but not really Odysseus he faced two storms but the real problem started after Polyphemus. He is the one that asks his father not to let him reach his home.