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The Odyssey is a critical and commercial smash hit, with an incredible $264 million opening weekend at the box office and a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. But not everyone is head over heels with some of the changes celebrated writer and director Christopher Nolan has made for his adaptation of Homer’s epic poem.
Warning! Spoilers for The Odyssey follow:
Ahead of release, The Odyssey was debated across the internet for its casting choices, some of its armor design, and the decision to have its characters speak with contemporary dialogue and in mostly modern American accents.
Greek translators, though, do not seem to take issue with any of that. Rather, their gripes revolve around some of the character and story changes Nolan has made.
Greek translator Emily Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is behind the 2017 translation of The Odyssey Nolan reportedly credited with inspiring his take on the poem. Wilson spoke to the Associated Press (via ABC News) about the film, insisting that she would recommend people see it in theaters, but also criticizing some of the changes Nolan had made compared to the poem. According to the report, Wilson questioned the absence of the Gods Zeus and Poseidon in the movie, and called the film’s anti-war and anti-cowardice message “incoherent.”
It doesn’t sound like she’s a fan of Anne Hathaway’s Penelope, either. She said the role was so reduced it endangered “any possibility of believing in this marriage.” And it sounds like she really didn’t like the scenes with Odysseus’ dog, Argos, which she said “catered towards modern sentimentality.”
Overall, Wilson said she thought Nolan “was trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem.”
Wilson has questioned Nolan’s The Odyssey in the past, telling The Telegraph that Matt Damon wouldn’t have been her first pick as Odysseus. “But his part in The Talented Mr Ripley was the best warm-up,” she said. “He showed he can be a schemer.” Her ideal lead would have been Samuel L Jackson. “He’s able to convey being very smart and wily and funny and command a room.” Wilson has confirmed that while Nolan drew from her translation, he hasn’t directly asked her for help.
Similarly, The Odyssey translator Daniel Mendelsohn praised Nolan’s The Odyssey while questioning his version of Odysseus in particular. Writing in The New York Review, he said:
In this Odyssey, there is no cleverness, no humor, no wily charm. In this Odyssey, the hero doesn’t trick the Cyclops with his brilliant “nobody” pun; he and his men just poke the giant’s eye out and make a gridiron-inspired run for it. (“Run low through the entrance and then split wide!”) This Odysseus has no sparkling repartee with his divine patroness, Athena — a delightful leitmotif of Homer’s text — because the crucial part in the epic played by that awesome goddess, with her creepy “owl-eyes,” has been whittled down to a couple of scenes in which Athena (Zendaya, swathed in what looks like Jil Sander) bucks him up during his moments of religious doubt. (“Look! Who’s moving those clouds? Who’s moving that water?!”)
It is perhaps little surprise to see classicists bothered by The Odyssey’s modern sensibilities. And they are threading the needle here, much like Odysseus himself firing an arrow perfectly through the aligned holes of 12 axe-heads. It is entirely possible to enjoy Nolan’s The Odyssey for what it is: a spectacular and emotional blockbuster movie with a message, while acknowledging it deviates from the source material in some fundamental ways. I loved The Odyssey, which I will see for the second time this weekend, but I also found many of the points made by these Greek translators valid. This is an adaptation, after all, not a documentary, and while Nolan’s The Odyssey may lack some of the heartbeats that power Homer’s epic poem, it replaces them with a new heart all its own.
Photo by Jackie Molloy for The Washington Post via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
