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Posted on 07/27/2026 7:56:11 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Christopher Nolan cited Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of “The Odyssey” as an influence on his own interpretation of Homer’s epic poem while on the press tour for his latest blockbuster. Wilson is not returning the favor. In a negative review of Nolan’s “The Odyssey” for the London Review of Books (via The Guardian), Wilson criticized Nolan’s adaptation for lacking “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.” The author, who is also a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, added that Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has “nothing convincing to say.”
“I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But ‘The Odyssey’ features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality … the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants,” Wilson’s scathing review reads.
She adds: “Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
(Excerpt) Read more at variety.com ...
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Yes.
“The music is everything.” Im with Plato on this. Reminds me of that scene in the film Amadeus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKPDfB40t48
I love a film like ‘The Darkest Hour’ where a sex scene has no place (like *cough* Oppenheimer - which i didn’t see). But a subject matter that demands it should have it - like the Odyssey where Odysseus fathers a demigod son with Circe.
“Like most great literature, there are multiple possible “takes” on the Odyssey.”
The Greeks who use Homer’s writings to build their civilization did not have multiple possible takes on it.
Yes it is.
I had tried to listen to the audiobook of her translation. I couldn’t get through the prologue, where she berated the mistreatment of Melantho, the traitorous servant girl.
Reading both epics or seeing repeated performances can legitimately produce differing interpretations of the stories.
There is a limit, of course, beyond which the story becomes something no longer resembling the Homeric epic. Introducing a bunch of woke garbage clearly passes that boundary.
As MacIntyre points out, the ethical world of Homer is strikingly different than ours: there is a "virtue" of sheer physical strength or (for Odysseus) of cunning, which includes deceit. Seeing deceit as a moral virtue should sound very strange to us. Not having seen the movie, a peace-loving and sympathetic Odysseus may traduce the Homeric story.
I hate all the sex scenes in movies. Cringe. Nothing but indoctrination to pervert the mind.
Allowing disorder to grow to its current tsunami of criminality (both public and private) is unlikely to be remedied through the application of liberal norms of law and procedure. See El Salvador.
I'm extremely dubious of the crime statistics reported by Dem controlled cities, albeit homicides are hard to conceal. But many other serious crimes are hidden because the prosecutors lower the or even drop the charges and in many cases, the offenders do no time.
There's also the issue of lying about the race of the perp, with Hispanics classified as "white" and even sometimes blacks, to lower the apparent disproportionate amount of crime committed by POCs.
In addition, in many cities we have large areas overrun by drug addicts and the insane and have large parts of cities as essentially "no go" areas.
If you've lived in Eastern Europe, you have a glimpse of what America was like when I was a kid, with no worry about safety, self-checkout right next to the exit, no concertina wire on parking lots, etc. None of what we now accept is normal. We've just gotten used to the general scumminess of big American cities.
Sounds like it was written by Mel Gibson (inferred dig on anachronism-filled 'Braveheart').
” ... There are no sex scenes.”
—
The only redeeming feature.
In simple terms
Dactylic means the rhythm follows a pattern of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
Hexameter means each line has six metrical feet.
Because of this structure, The Odyssey sounds more like formal verse than prose.
The Illiad, like Odyssey, we’re oral poetry, sung and “performed” publicly to an audience listening to the story. Not written and studied until thousands of years later.
As “performed art” from memory, a simple but rigorously repeated oral pattern in every line, and a repeated assonance of descriptive adjectives like “wine dark seas” builds the scenery. And helps the poet remember his lines.
Even today, songs have a repeated pattern of chorus and stanza, inside a rhythm of repeated sounds.
Those are all valid concerns. I grew up in northern Wisconsin, rural america. We never locked our doors. They still do not, for the most part.
Crime was extremely low. It still is in large parts of rural America.
Those are all valid concerns. I grew up in northern Wisconsin, rural america. We never locked our doors. They still do not, for the most part.
Crime was extremely low. (60-70 years ago)
It still is in large parts of rural America.
Perhaps, but it doesn't have to be graphic. None of the movies of Hollywood's "Golden Age" featured graphic sex scenes.
This is the weirdest of many weird takes. The movie:
1. Obsesses about time, with constant references to the 10 years of Odysseus's journey and the impact that has on Penelope and Telemachus among others.
2. The whole movie is wrapped in the idea of memory, since it mostly takes place on Calypso's island where Odysseus is trying to remember who he is and his family.
3. It focuses way, way more on war than does the original. It even takes scenes from the Illiad, with the sacking of Troy and then adds the idea (which either works or doesn't depending on your view) that Odysseus is suffering from a kind of PTSD and that's why he didn't really want to return home.
4. The percentage of the movie that takes place in Odysseus's family home, showing his wife, son, servants and neighbors, is much higher than in the original.
If she had said that the movie had too much to say about these topics she might have a point.
very weird.
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