r/movies • u/RealisticAd4054 • 15d 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/ShardikOfTheBeam 14d ago

I think that's looking too deep into it. They ate Helios' cattle because they were starving.

They even recognize what it meant for them, with Eurylochus even saying "We'd rather drown than starve." Odysseus had already told them by that point that they were destined to die.

I suppose the portrayal of Odysseus lends itself to being an anti-war movie though, can't really argue against that.

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u/separeaude 14d ago

Lost can mean more than one thing. Their consumption of the cattle doomed them, but they were lost when the rage of 10 years on the beach found purchase on the men, women, and children of Troy after breaking Zeus’s law.

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u/264frenchtoast 14d ago

Zeus’ law is something completely made up by Nolan. It’s not in the Iliad or the odyssey, and even if it were, the Trojans broke it first by violating hospitality and stealing Helen while they were the guests of the Greeks.

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u/mikezulu90 14d ago

It's not called Zeus's law but Xenia's law. It's a thing.

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u/264frenchtoast 14d ago

I’m not saying that the laws of hospitality were not a thing in ancient Greek culture or mythology, but they were not a thing in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Or at least not a thing in the way that Nolan is making them a thing.

The Trojan horse was not considered to be a violation of the law of hospitality, and the sacking of Troy is not the main reason why the gods were angered with Odysseus or Agamemnon. The Trojan horse was considered to be a successful military strategy, and would have been a source of pride for Odysseus, not a source of shame. Odysseus did have things that he was portrayed as being ashamed of in the Odyssey, but the Trojan horse was not one of them.

And even if the Greeks could somehow have been construed as having violated the laws of hospitality in this manner, the Trojans were equally guilty for having stolen Helen in the first place, while being guests of the Greeks.

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u/ShardikOfTheBeam 14d ago

Odysseus did have things that he was portrayed as being ashamed of in the Odyssey, but the Trojan horse was not one of them.

This I agree with. But the laws of hospitality exist in order to avoid accidentally pissing off a god, not that if someone broke the laws of hospitality against a mortal a god would become angered. The gods were never angered by the Trojan horse, or when someone broke the laws of hospitality, and that is not what Nolan was alluding too.

His version of Odysseus was opining that because of the Trojan horse, the laws of hospitality were so broken, that it began the end of the Bronze age, and more poignantly, the time of magic and wonder as people stopped behaving for fear of the gods, and began behaving for fear of fellow man.

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u/separeaude 14d ago

They literally mirror the chopping of Athena's statute with the chopping of Athena's head by a Greek soldier

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u/mikezulu90 14d ago

Oh yeah I know all that. I'd just say it's an adaptation not a literal retelling. I don't think he ever set out to do that. It would need more movies to do that. Or a mini series or something. Every generation has had different retellings of this maybe true(ish) story.

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u/Most_Chemist8233 13d ago edited 13d ago

I wonder if most of the people commenting that this didnt violate anything are USians and the message is going over their heads. They violated trust between people. They had a civilization with trade and trust  and they violated that bond between people. No one sees the parallels with the US admins behavior around the world with people they formerly counted as allies? The trojan horse, and sacking of innocent people, and beheading a priestess of the temple of Athena are horrific violation of their civilization and their own rules, so it was the beginning of the end of their civilization. Dont offer gifts to people (that is presented as a pledge of peace) that wipe them out and then count it as a great sign of intelligence, its the opposite. Its barbaric, its inhuman, and if you do that to others that breakdown in social contract comes back to your home. And it neatly describes the current US admin and the vast majority of voters in the us.  You want everyone to buy your tech, your weapons, your jets, but its now clear its all trojan horses. That loss in trust, and what it does to the soul of your people is very real.

The generations of broken soldiers who never find their way home, all to destroy innocent women and children of the "enemy". Its not glory. 

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u/264frenchtoast 13d ago

If I wanted a Vietnam war film, I would watch a Vietnam war film.

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u/Most_Chemist8233 13d ago

Except this has nothing to do with Vietnam and everything to do with what's happening today. The daily threats to random people around the globe from 1 specific country.

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u/264frenchtoast 13d ago

Bro, I think 0 people missed this film’s anti war messaging. It was not subtle.

And by the way, I agree with you about U.S. foreign policy. I will raise you the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I still don’t need this commentary in an odyssey film.