Terry Papillon
Contributing Writer
Christopher Nolan’s latest movie “The Odyssey” presents a visual experience that is lush and at times overwhelming. I am telling everyone to go see it, and I encourage them to see it at an IMAX theater; I have seen it now three times, once in a regular theater and twice in the Chattanooga Aquarium’s wonderful IMAX theater. There is a huge difference. Nolan’s “Odyssey” provides a compelling story, marvelous scenery, frequent action, and Nolan’s penchant for operatic drama, so it fits an IMAX. But the movie’s relationship to Homer’s Odyssey is complicated, and it is that relationship I will explore here, through three questions.
Let me begin, however, with some words on the nature of myth. Though many classicists have found a lot of faults in “The Odyssey” – and this is not without reason – I want to take a different approach to open our consideration of this movie. Every re-presentation of a myth is a new myth. Since myth is “a traditional tale that gives a community meaning,” the contents of the myth changes, and those changes are based much more on the person (or culture) creating it than on the source material. This is how myth works. As a result, we do not criticize a movie for not following the Homeric poem carefully when we see a film like Black Orpheus (1959), which puts Orpheus in the context of Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; nor do we fault the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” (2000), nor “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” (2004). There have been many other movies through the years that retell Homer’s story: Kirk Douglas in “Ulysses” (1954), “Ulysses’ Gaze” (1995) with Harvey Keitel, and most recently “The Return” (2024) with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes. I note here that none of these movies use the title “The Odyssey.” That is, they are using the myth of Odysseus’ return, and Homer’s version of it, but they are not claiming to “retell The Odyssey of Homer.” But when a movie uses the name “The Odyssey” (and the 1997 TV mini-series with Armand Assante also did this), we can perhaps expect a bit more connection with the story that Homer has left us. Let’s keep both ideas in mind as we continue forward: that each telling is a new telling, and that using the same name raises expectations.
As I said, when I was preparing to see the movie, I had three questions in my mind: 1) will the movie be a fun movie and will I want to recommend it to others to see (even if only in the sense of “good-bad movie,” as Maya Salam of the New York Times calls them); 2) will the movie follow “the plot” of Homer’s story (will we recognize the story as “Odyssean” in important ways); and 3) will the movie present the ideas or themes important to my understanding of The Odyssey since it is taking that name.
And a quick side note. You will see me refer to “The Odyssey” (Nolan’s film) and The Odyssey (Homer’s epic poem), using quotation marks and italics for clarity (and also for conventions in AP journalistic style rules). Quotation marks will always indicate the film; italics will always indicate the Greek epic poem.
So with that background, let me return to my three questions:
1) Will it be fun?
2) Will it follow the plot of The Odyssey?
3) Will it present the ideas/themes important to my understanding of The Odyssey?
Here are some responses.
Nolan’s “Odyssey” accomplishes the first, certainly. It is a fun, and cinematically stunning movie. IMAX makes this a treat. There are villains and monsters to entertain us. There is tension and anticipation. One wonders, however, if there are heroes. More on this later.
Nolan’s “Odyssey” accomplishes the second question (plot) for the most part. There are four parts to The Odyssey: Telemachus and Penelope’s reality (books 1-4); Odysseus’ reality (5-8); Odysseus’ wanderings (9-12); and Odysseus’ reintegration to his household (13-24). The poem and the film both start with Telemachus and Penelope; we are forced to wait before we see Odysseus. Nolan shows us what is happening to the home and people in Odysseus’ life even before we see Odysseus himself. Only after that introduction does the story shift to the second part, Odysseus, and we meet him at perhaps his lowest moment, sadly on the beach pondering … what? Nolan does not tell us, but Homer does. Homer says he “was sobbing in grief and pain; his heart was breaking” and shortly after Homer specifies “in longing to go back home” (5.83, 153-4 Wilson). This may be the last time Homer tells us something that Nolan does not; it will be the other way around the rest of the way. Third, we hear of the years of wandering. The movie follows Homer, though leaving out several episodes and providing way more narrative of the night of the fall of Troy than Homer provides (Homer gives only three quick narratives of the Trojan horse in Books 4 and 8, only about 70 lines in a 12,109 line poem). In the movie this narrative turns out to be less Odysseus’ reality than his therapeutic recollection. And fourth and finally Odysseus is back on Ithaka, where he carefully plans his return (without Athena’s help, oddly enough). But Homer is very thorough about Odysseus’ return because in Homer’s culture, Odysseus must be revealed or recognized by several important characters in order to reclaim his kingship, and some of them in the right order. We get some of this, but not all of it, and not for the same reasons Homer needs to narrate it, so that a person can be reintegrated into their oikos, their household.
This brings up the question of time and coverage. Nolan’s film is two hours, fifty-two minutes long, a long movie, to be sure. But even at almost three hours, there is no way we can fairly expect Nolan to cover everything in the twenty-four books of The Odyssey. Nolan has to choose. We can discuss whether he chose the right parts, but some things will have to go. I give him some grace because of this, but take some back because he cut out Nausikaa, the crucial discussion between Odysseus and Polyphemus, the cyclops, and eliminated seeing his mother in the realm of the dead.
Nolan’s “Odyssey” approaches the third question – ideas and themes – in ways that intrigued me, frustrated me, engaged me, and angered me. This movie presents the themes in some important ways, but it also fails to do so in many more important ways. And this is where things get sticky.
As a first, and primary theme, The Odyssey is about Odysseus trying to figure out who he is in the world after ten years of war and ten years of “not getting home.” The movie certainly presents this fundamental question of Odysseus’ identity, though Nolan’s answers are not very satisfying, given the hollow script, and some hollow acting. It is an odd narrative. Odysseus seems to realize the truth about himself on the night of the fall of Troy, but then during the ten years of wandering he does not remember that truth. It is only through telling bits and pieces to Calypso that he begins to recreate himself and realize who he now is. And don’t get me started on the odd usage of Calypso; I desperately wanted to like Charlize Theron as Calypso, but it did not work for me (though more because of Nolan’s script than Theron’s performance). [I might add a footnote here, not a digression, on the poem’s relation to The Iliad. In this sense The Odyssey is a good sequel to The Iliad, where Homer presents Achilles trying to figure out who he is in the world now that he finds himself in this monstrous war that was not of his choosing. Odysseus is experiencing this same post-war trauma.]
A second theme is the growth of Telemachus to be the son he needs to be when Odysseus returns, a classic Bildungsroman, as the Germans call it (“a coming of age story”) and that is well presented. It is also the easiest arc of the poem to present in a modern context and Nolan accomplishes it with the deft use of Mentor and Menelaos. Tom Holland both literally and figuratively grows into the role of son. He is better in the second half than the first half, perhaps because Nolan told him to act that way to show Telemachus’ youth early on.
A third theme is the character of Penelope and how she is an equal partner with Odysseus in tenacity and cleverness. This is presented, but she never really gets to her greatness. She has some great scenes toward the end, but much of her cleverness is replaced by weeping. And I miss the scene about the bed in book 23 that confirms Odysseus’ identity for good. Anne Hathaway will no doubt get an Oscar nomination for best actress, and this will come for the last half hour of the movie, when she argues with Telemachus about remarrying, interrogates the beggar, and is reunited with Odysseus.But for most of the film she lacks any core, and that is a pity. Part of this is because she is supposed to be set against Calypso, Circe, and Nausikaa, but that isn’t allowed to happen. And part of this is because the man she is supposed to be equally clever to is not very clever. She is clever enough, but that is almost an afterthought for the first two hours of the movie.
This leads to a bit of a digression on gender in the movie. Most of the female characters in this movie are empty. I was stunned at how little a part Athena played. She is Odysseus’ companion throughout The Odyssey, but in “The Odyssey” her only role was to ask Odysseus why he didn’t understand the gods’ communications. There is no Nausikaa at all. Calypso is a therapist, not a lover (though it sounds like she had been). Penelope is not a force until late in the show. Then there is Circe; oh my. This is not the Circe of The Odyssey, or not only, but a Circe informed by many other additional approaches to her. It is the most dramatically stunning and terrifying scene as she argues for the true character of Odysseus’ men. Samantha Morton was a marvel in this single scene and it will be a travesty if she does not get an Oscar nomination for supporting actress. It is only too bad that Odysseus’ presentation is so weak, and again, because of the script, not because of, or not only because of, Matt Damon. This whole script seems designed to eliminate women as equal characters with a man in his story of his search for himself who is not much of a man himself.
This brings us to the fourth theme, the character of the wanderer and the returner, the movie’s namesake, Odysseus. These two facets of Odysseus, as wanderer and as returner, are just not very compelling. His wandering seems to be composed mostly of Odysseus getting his men into trouble and then yelling to get back to the ships. “Run away” as Brave Sir Robin would say. And the returner is just a violent man. Odysseus in The Odyssey is certainly a violent man when he has to be, but the last half hour feels more like Quentin Tarantino than Homer. In contrast, Odysseus is most famous in The Odyssey for being polymetis, a man with many ways to be clever. And Homer makes him constantly clever. Nolan gives us almost none of this. This is, perhaps, the greatest loss of the movie.
The fifth theme, which Nolan presents in spades, is that of xenia, guest friendship, which Nolan calls “Zeus’s Law.” This is an important theme, and Odysseus violates it as often as he is aided by it (he never offers it himself, in Homer or Nolan). But why couldn’t Nolan give us the Greek word xenia? Would it have been so hard to present a little Greek in a movie about a Greek text? And he loses a huge opportunity to underline one of HIS major themes, that we humans are the problem, the threat, the “sea peoples” in the world. The Greek word xenia is connected to the modern word xenophobia and to play this up could have given Nolan an even better hammer by which he could hammer this theme.
A sixth theme (mine, not really Homer this time) is the language. Homer’s Greek is magical and it is hard to explain how it enchants as it challenges. Modern translations present it with varying success. Richmond Lattimore (1965) gave us a version that made you feel like you were reading Greek, long lines that English, and English readers, are not used to. Robert Fitzgerald gave us an Odyssey (1961) that was much more like English. And in 2018 came Emily Wilson’s new version, the first translation into English by a woman (the one I am using when I quote The Odyssey). I am a big fan of Emily Wilson’s translation. There is the quickness of Homer that pulled me along; and I will forever be grateful to her for beginning the poem by calling Odysseus “a complicated man.” The weak script was not the prose or poetry of any of these translations. And the potential mistake by the public if they should assume the script to be from Emily Wilsons’ fine translation may explain Wilson’s ire at the movie in her review from the London Review of Books, an attempt to separate herself, and her translation, from the movie. Even though her critiques were spot on, her venom seemed too much. She is certainly correct that the movie’s Odysseus was “an uncomplicated man.”
Seventh, the whole household of Odysseus is involved in his return. So I was glad to see such emphasis on the palace, on the servants (Eumaeous was the best character of the movie, save one), on the animals, and especially on Argos, Odysseus’ old hunting dog. Argos is my favorite character in The Odyssey, though really in both the film and the epic poem. He shows us loyalty; he shows us endurance; he shows us successfully getting what he endured abuse to get; he shows us peace at the end; all without a word. That’s acting. And I compliment Nolan on taking the opportunity to use that recognition scene – Argos recognizing disguised Odysseus – to also serve as the recognition moment for Telemachus. Already inclined to be moved by the death of Argos, I was moved by the recognition scene it allowed next. And the theme in which the household is most involved is the recognition of Odysseus. Odysseus must be recognized/received by a variety of people before he can reclaim his household. Athena, Eumaeus, Argos, Telemachus, Penelope (when?), the suitors, and his father. To leave Odysseus’ father out, and Athena’s dea ex machina enthronement of Odysseus, both from the last book of The Odyssey, is awkward and incomplete, but I also understand that it does not fit with the way Nolan wanted to end the film.
The Odyssey of Homer is known for being a complex narrative with complex questions that look for complex answers. What does it mean to love someone? What does it mean to be civilized or uncivilized? What does it mean to be loyal? Are we responsible for our actions? Why do we assume so much about our abilities and those of the ones around us? What is a household? What does it mean to mature or be mature? And fundamentally, how do we find our place in a world that becomes increasingly complicated, confusing, and daunting? Homer’s story asks us so many questions and gives a lot of breadth to how we answer them. This brings me to my final point. It is often said that “you can always tell a Scorsese movie” and I think this is true, as it is with Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers, or James Cameron. I am not as fluent in Nolan movies, but I am coming to think the same way about him. This was a Nolan movie, and you come to expect spectacle just as you expect to be reminded of the director. Perhaps the most concerning point in this is that Nolan wants to make sure we get the (correct?) answers to the questions in the prior paragraph that he values (rather than us figuring them out). But more than that, I can’t help but think that he wants to show us that HE knows the answers, HE is the polymetis one.
Nolan’s film “The Odyssey” has two primary stars, and sadly, they are not Odysseus and Penelope. The two stars are Nolan and technology. But maybe that is Nolan’s intention. This movie is not so much about the story of Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus as it is about Christopher Nolan, technology (old school in a real way, without CGI or AI), and what Nolan thinks we need to be in the modern world. Nolan gets to make those decisions, certainly, but I don’t need to approve of them all. As a professor, I have spent years taking The Odyssey on its own terms and making it relevant to the modern world for a modern audience; that is what classicists have been doing for centuries. I don’t need to make it into a modern philosophical metaphor. It already is on its own. Still, Nolan is asking us if we are our own worst enemy, and if so, how do we realize that without totally collapsing? How do we face it and find a way forward? In an era of environmental degradation, the potential for AI “killing all humans by the end of the decade” (thank you, Jacob Coxon, for that terrifying image), and the inability for the US political system to function in any meaningful way, Nolan has every right to create art, to create a new myth, to make us think about these questions.
And if we do not attend to the terrifying questions in the movie, “The Odyssey” has still gotten people talking about Homer’s Odyssey and that is a good thing in a time when classics is a field (just one among many, sadly) that are increasingly undervalued. One thing The Odyssey shows us is that we need to encounter long narratives (good ones) to figure out who we are. We can surely use “The Odyssey” and other long movies to help with this. And we need to talk about the questions these long narratives raise, such as how do we find our place in this world.
If you are not sure how to make this work, travel to Greece next summer with me and Professor O’Rourke for our summer study abroad course where you’ll encounter Greece, ancient and modern, and you will get to spend four weeks thinking about who you are in relation to those around you. A four week odyssey of your own. What could be better than that?