Homer’s Odyssey is an extended epic poem with persistent rhythmic structure, written thousands of years ago in the ancient Homeric Greek language. It is a fascinating glimpse into antiquity and considered a cornerstone of western literature. As Emily Wilson’s translation (2017) notes, the Odyssey itself is anachronistic because its stories were an oral tradition circulated for hundreds of years before being written down, and the events of the story take place something like five hundred years before writing. Over the centuries, it has had dozens of English translations. Such translations from archaic writings necessarily involve endless reasonable stylistic choices about specific words by translators based on their experience and research.
Homer’s Odyssey has also been made into dozens of film adaptations since the advent of the medium. These film adaptions, like director Christopher Nolan’s, are themselves interpretations of the Odyssey placed through the lens of the era they are made. The technology, cultural norms, and idiosyncrasies of these creators all serve as filters with stylistic choices and modifications of Homer’s work.
In this multi-millennium game of storytelling telephone, there is no “correct” way to tell the Odyssey in film. Rather, like all art, it is the subjective compelling quality that takes precedence. For instance, the character Circe in Homer’s Odyssey has been translated variously as being either a witch, goddess, nymph, or some combination thereof. Nolan in his film leaned hard into the witch interpretation and wrote her as more malicious. This arguably works for Nolan because his is a story focusing on Odysseus overcoming perilous obstacles. But Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018) leans into a benevolent goddess interpretation that breaths more complexity into the character, which left me disappointed by Nolan’s version. Emily Wilson, whose translation of the Odyssey I enjoyed, excoriated Nolan’s film in her review. Though I found her thoughts to be a bit pedantic, like all film, it is okay to not like any part of it!
Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is a refined modern meditation on the Odyssey‘s core themes of war, honor, moral consequences, and home that hit all the right emotional beats. This modernity is most glaring in Nolan’s decision to make Odysseus a more palatable character with a noble hero arc of redemption and unambiguous happy ending. The Trojan war serves as the center of gravity for this direction. Matt Damon’s Odysseus wrestles constantly with the guilt of his role in the sacking of Troy and the ultimate doom of his own men. But he prevails and is the better for his triumphs. It is a notably unburdened and more optimistic presentation compared with Nolan’s “Oppenheimer“.
Homer’s Odysseus is a more ambiguous figure; as Emily Wilson writes, “a complicated man”. For all of his endless cunning, Odysseus is not an admirable figure as we would understand the phrase. Not only does he not feel bad about sacking Troy, he boasts about it and sacks a few cities on the way home! Homer’s Odyssey even ends with Odysseus triumphantly declaring he is going to go sack his Greek neighbors to make up for loot taken from his home by others. In this way, because of the anachronism of Homer’s Odyssey, many of its elements are alien to the modern world and likely ill suited for literal modern interpretation, just as modern renditions would probably be unrecognizable to ancient Greeks.
Though we can gather that Odysseus and his men are cursed in some sense by the gods in Nolan’s film, Nolan also makes the interesting choice of focusing more on the perceived realism of legendary encounters rather than the persistent magic of Greek mythology in Homer’s Odyssey‘s. When we encounter divine figures like Calypso and Circe, their nature is shown sparingly, but they are no less mystifying. Even Athena, an all powerful god guiding Odysseus’s path in Homer’s Odyssey, is more of a ghostly presence on Odysseus’s conscience in Nolan’s film. But this focus on practical grounded effects makes for ambitious, action-packed filmmaking with seafaring adventure and gory spectacle. Scenes with Troy, the Cyclops, the Laestrygonians, and the suitors are the kind of tense, gripping drama that Nolan excels at.
One gets the sense watching “The Odyssey” that the classic work was destined to become one of Christopher Nolan’s sprawling cinematic experiences. The non-linear structure of the Odyssey is already tailor made for Nolan’s distinct storytelling style. From its plain American English dialogue to its constant kinetic movement, Nolan’s accessible adaptation of the Odyssey is designed to fill theaters. With a strong cast and a grinding atmospheric soundtrack to accompany its stunning visuals and settings, it is a glorious, captivating epic full of artistic vision worthy of its source material. It ranks easily as one of Nolan’s best films and a likely contender for his magnum opus. To paraphrase another of Nolan’s masterpieces, “The Odyssey” is not the summer blockbuster we deserved, but the summer blockbuster we needed.
95% A
As AJ Thinks 