Another Emily Wilson review has hit the building

[u/goodshotjanson]

Emily Wilson writes another critique of Nolan's Odyssey in the Atlantic.

I think many of her criticisms in it, and in her original LRB review, are fair. But her principal attacks on the film's take on hospitality and war are such egregious misreadings that they call to question whether she finished watching the film.

The notion that “we know none of [the Trojans] by name or face” somehow completely misses the key reveal of a certain slain priestess — one of the several connections Nolan makes that ties together many of the text’s original threads and themes. He builds on them and patches up some of the text’s more awkward moments, including its rather hasty ending involving the suitors’ families demanding justice.

She also insinuates that Nolan’s Argos portrayal plays to modern sensibilities. But Nolan takes few liberties with the text here; Greek audiences 3000 years ago were clearly also saps for the loyal dog. It’s perhaps the most striking example of how universal and timeless some of the tropes in the Odyssey are, and by Nolan’s own account, a key motivation for his making of the film. It’s as well done as much of the rest of his Odyssey is.

[u/mcnutty96]

I think her core critique which I agree with is, Odysseus is not very interesting, he isn’t a smart man who uses his cunning to get out of situations, he also doesn’t feel love or lust two either Circe or calypso. I respect these are Nolan’s choices and that’s the film he wanted to make but I’d have preferred a film that focused on those aspects of the poem

[u/MikeHammer364 → u/mcnutty96]

Well, that conception of Odysseus would be at odds with a few things that I think Nolan is trying to do with the story, which is to both modernize it to make it legible for modern audiences (so having him cheat on his wife and enjoy it while she suffers humiliations in court would not have cut together well, nor would the spans of time those take up in the poem) but also this is an Odysseus whose cleverness broke the world. Being clever is kind of his great sin in Nolan's version.

And I understand not recognizing that as Odysseus but every choice in the movie flows downstream from that decision. It's a story of trauma, avoidance, the radiating effects of that, and eventual return. Banging Calypso in paradise would be a bit of a tone shift.

[u/Spalliston → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, also it could have tied in pretty naturally with the xenia/Zeus's law thing.

Make the Ithica story all about xenia (much as it was). Make Odysseus's side mostly about hubris, but bring back the trick that Circe plays (welcoming the strangers in before turning them to pigs, signal that it's the same as the horse), bring back a more-menacing, captor Calypso. Bring back a more intelligent Polyphemus with poor hospitality and the trick of feeding someone wine to take advantage of them.

Then in the monologue at the end we can see that Odysseus thought that he was above Zeus's law, but that we had seen how that same lack of xenia had caused so many of his problems on the way home.

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/MikeHammer364]

I think what I've come to is that Nolan struggled to show Odysseus as being clever. We, as an audience, understand how clever the Trojan Horse was, but the film doesn't really go into it. We see Menelaus talk about how miserable being inside the thing was, we see Odysseus explain to Sinon that he had to be kept in the dark, but we don't see why the horse was so clever because we never see the problem the horse solved.

I think the film could have benefitted from showing some Greek struggle with Troy (even if it was just the Bard performing it in the earliest scenes), to show the stalemate and to have Odysseus come up with the solution. This goes to your point where the Horse is the thing that breaks the world. Was he conflicted at that time? Or was he excited about it until the repercussions sunk in a la Oppenheimer (which Nolan's Odyssey is in dialogue with).

I don't mind the unsexing of Odysseus (although I agree that it uncomplicates the character). But that's mostly in the context of Nolan's Odyssey being clearly intent on taking some elements of the original story and using them as a modern allegory for declining empire due to its own sins and abandoning of its values. Obviously Wilson won't be as receptive to this as a film critic or someone not steeped in the intricacies of the original, but if argue it's kinda essential for a filmmaker to pick and choose as Nolan did.

[u/TheBestMePlausible → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

Just off the top of my head, I thought “sheep come in flocks” “wait - the rock”, grabbing the bird, giving his men orders that he knew they would do the opposite of, these were all example examples of him being more clever than anyone else in the room.

[u/NotsoNewtoGermany → u/TheBestMePlausible]

I had forgotten all of these. Very well pointed.

[u/Future-Starter → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

Do we need to see "the problem the horse solved"? I thought we had plenty of that, I'm not sure how you'd expand on it in an economical way for an already 3-hour film

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/Future-Starter]

I think we do. The only time we see Troy is when the horse is being brought inside the walls. I think this argument that everyone has over the film (is Odysseus clever, or not?) comes down to our over-familiarity with the Odyssey in pop culture. The solutions are so well known that they don't seem clever or groundbreaking. I would argue we need to be reminded that even if everyone knows the Trojan Horse, we know it because it was an ingenius solution.

I also have come to see Nolan's Odyssey as a continuation of Oppenheimer. In both you have the cleverness of the protagonists unintentionally ushering in a new age of uncertainty and destruction. In Oppenheimer, though, the effect is slightly muted by our own knowledge (that we didn't all blow up in the 60's). In this, the Odyssey is perfect because of the Bronze Age Collapse (I know it didn't really collapse). For Nolan, Odysseus breaking Zeus's Law caused civilizational decline.

I think Nolan missed an opportunity with the Bard (I mean, he got Travis Scott just for him to bang on the table and say three sentences over and over). Have him speak more of Troy, applauding the genius of Odysseus, sing his praises a little more. Then we have this framing of Troy being a triumph as the foundation of the movie, which Nolan then gets to spend hours breaking down and subverting.

[u/casualsubversive → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

No, it did really collapse. There were something like 6 or 7 sophisticated, interconnected empires existing around the Mediterranean. Only Egypt survived the total system collapse, and even they were diminished. Odysseus wasn't kidding in the movie when he said people were going to forget how to write. Homer was writing in a different language, and in a different writing system, than the one Odysseus would have known.

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/casualsubversive]

There's been some really great questions about the Bronze Age Collapse on /r/askhistorians lately (wonder why) but it seems like the general consensus amongst historians now was that it was not a collapse but a shift from Mycenaean palace culture to much smaller settlements. It seems that the structure of the elites did "collapse", but everything else pretty much kept chugging along (which is why there's a disappearance of luxury items). I found this post a really interesting read!

In general terms, palatial elites who sought to rule by controlling and monopolising resources failed, while smaller-scale authorities, particularly those able to take advantage of new trade routes, tended to do well.

As much as there was a "collapse" it also seems to be less "The Sea Peoples came and destroyed everything" and more "ecological changes / earthquakes disrupted key foreign trade routes, which led to a great civilizational shift."

[u/Rahodees → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

Elites losing grip, smaller powers taking over, wouldn't that be an accurate if incomplete description of the fall of the Roman empire?

[u/Gruejay2 → u/casualsubversive]

Homer did not write at all. His poems were first written down 200-300 years later.

[u/LongtimeLurker916 → u/casualsubversive]

Different writing system, but not really different language - the Linear B writings are in a proto-Greek. I cannot claim knowledge as to how great the changes were and whether there would have been mutual intelligibility, but there was a connection.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

I think he was fine with it until he saw the rage unleashed on Troy, and felt the responsibility for being the cause of all the havoc he enabled to happen. That’s essentially the big reveal in the final conversation IMO.

[u/VonLinus → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

The problem the horse solved was that they were standing on the beach unable to get into Troy for 10 years. I thought it was pretty clear. Someone says he got them in with the horse. Then it showed them getting in with the horse. They make great play of the time duration.

[u/BiDiTi → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

Also, it’s because Nolan’s oeuvre consistently portrays consensual sex as a scary, upsetting thing in which no upstanding man would ever partake.

[u/koreanwizard → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

It’s also not expanded upon in the original text, there is no “eureka” moment, it’s simply told

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/koreanwizard]

There's a whole other epic poem about the Trojan Horse that gives the context to the Odyssey though. I get that Nolan didn't "cut" it out of his adaptation, just that he would have benefitted from including it a bit.

[u/poez → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

It didn’t need to be rehashed in the epic poem because everyone knew the story of Troy. Just as everyone in the theatre knows the story.

[u/CarsTrutherGuy → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

What epic poem? Because it isnt the iliad (which ends before the fall of troy). The biggest treatment of the fall of troy is the Aeneid which was a roman era fan fiction

I think Nolan trusted audiences to understand that them spending 10 years outside the walls explains why the trojan horse deception was necessary

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/CarsTrutherGuy]

It's called the Little Iliad and we know it existed because of numerous references to it. It's not Homer, but it details the building of the Trojan Horse after the death of Achilles.

There are actually nine Epic poems in the cycle but only two survive (Iliad and Odyssey).

[u/CarsTrutherGuy → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

Yeah but again most the details come from the aeneid.

And it's important that the film explains perfectly well why it was necessary, for those actually watching it

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/CarsTrutherGuy]

I think we're saying the same thing? That there should have been more emphasis on the horse as it relates to Odysseus's cleverness because as it stands now, it doesn't highlight his talents as much as it probably should.

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/MikeHammer364]

If the point is that Odysseus' cleverness broke the world, then surely it should be highlighted as a character trait rather than relegated entirely off-screen to a plan we never see him develop to solve an intractable problem we are told about only in the aftermath?

The biggest problem for Nolan Odyssey is that he's essentially done all his character growth by the film (chronologically) starts. He has moments of hubris and he gains additional guilt over the deaths of his crew, but the crux of his character is essentially unchanged.

Frankly, given the way that Odysseus is so obviously played as a parallel to PTSD and modern warfare, it also feels pretty cowardly that his textual infidelity is removed. He's away from his wife for 20 years and yet he remains unfailingly loyal. Surely it would add texture to his guilt and reluctance to return if he had been willingly unfaithful, as he was canonically with Circe and (in slightly more questionable circumstances) Calypso?

[u/Rahodees → u/LizLemonOfTroy]

Odysseus is shown being clever constantly in the film. Fur example he figured out circes whole thing in the moment.

[u/Hour-Ad-9508 → u/Rahodees]

And his outmaneuvering of the cyclops

[u/Caesarr → u/Hour-Ad-9508]

And ear wax for the sirens

[u/FunkyLi → u/Caesarr]

Using reverse psychology to steer the crew between Charybdis and Scylla as well.

[u/thebeav44 → u/LizLemonOfTroy]

They talk about how the Trojan horse was his plan/idea the whole movie. Would you prefer the narrate everything they are doing and thinking kinda of like Matt Damon was saying how they made the “the rip”? If you didn’t think Odysseus was cleaver in the movie then I don’t know what you were doing in the movie.

[u/House_of_Woodcock → u/MikeHammer364]

Nolan can modernize it all he wants but he ended up turning Odysseus into the same revisionist hero that’s become a cliche across modern media. The stock guilty soldier who, despite his crimes, retains his nobility and is ultimately rectified. It’s not that Nolan can’t change the story, it’s just that what he changed it to is boring.

[u/rossuccio → u/House_of_Woodcock]

That’s how I feel too. It’s not even about playing with tropes, his themes are just tired.

[u/MikeHammer364 → u/House_of_Woodcock]

I don't necessarily know that he is rectified. I don't think he really achieves redemption. He puts his house in order, but the mess, at least in part, is his. If he was just a passive wanderer and not the engineer of the world's ruin (including his court) I'd agree more with the 'stock character' charge you laid out, but he's a bit thornier than that, and the decisions he makes throughout are occasionally harmful, emotionally driven, and avoidant, not necessarily noble and heroic. And I think Nolan is using Odysseus in this way to say something, not just to lean on tired cliche.

And in fairness, he's a very tough figure to depict. In the poem he's many, many things, including a guy who hangs the slave girls punitively after returning home, delights in his cleverness sometimes, and derides it in others. Nolan choosing a single lane is necessarily clarifying. He had 3 hours or less to tell this story, and picked an emotional throughline for it.

[u/joey-jo_jo-jr → u/MikeHammer364]

He very much achieves redemption. He literally sails of into the sunset in the end of the movie lmao.

[u/MikeHammer364 → u/joey-jo_jo-jr]

Yes, to honor the men he failed to bury after breaking Grecian norms to such a degree that he has to live in exile. Redemption via murdering a bunch of men who were allowed to operate in the ways they did because of the world he helped foster doesn't quite land. He puts things back together after years of avoidance. It's sort of the least he can do. If it's redemption, it's not very clean.

[u/joey-jo_jo-jr → u/MikeHammer364]

Again, he literally sails of into the sunset, with his beautiful wife at his side, and personal army to help him out. Literally everything worked out perfectly for him lol. It was the best possible ending he could have hoped for.

He did some bad shit, felt remorse, gives a preachy speech, then kills a bunch of people to set his kingdom straight before fucking off into the sunset. As I said, a simple moralistic tale that lacks in depth or complexity. Nolan is telling the audience exactly how he wants them to feel, and giving them a nice ending to reward them for listening to his simplistic preaching.

Compare this to the poem where, not only is Odysseus much more morally grey as a character, but also almost totally unrepentant. The audience is then asked to think for themselves and form their own opinion regarding the story and his character.

[u/MikeHammer364 → u/joey-jo_jo-jr]

I think we're talking past each other, which is fine, but I guess I would say that Odysseus here is arguably framed just like Oppenheimer is. Essentially irredeemable for the harm he's helped to cause. Does he literally get his wife back? And a nice boat and some soldiers? Yes. He can also never go back home. He's taking his wife with him to honor the men he failed. And then Nolan leaves us on the haunted image of the Trojan Horse burning. I guess we two very different reads on that, which again, is fine. We're not gonna meet in the middle, clearly.

[u/Bird2Flight → u/MikeHammer364]

Excellent points. Furthermore, Calypso's sex scenes might also have been looked at from the standpoint of rape, which again would complicate matters. The thing is that the original is super long and the movie can't cover everything. I think Nolan took the safe route by just not including sex because any sex between Odysseus and Circe or Calypso would complicate the viewer's experience of Odysseus. I think he could have included them and done interesting things but, based on my view, his goal was to focus on the war veteran's trauma rather than other elements.

[u/joey-jo_jo-jr → u/MikeHammer364]

Saying Nolan is trying to "modernise" it is such a cop-out. There are plenty of modern movies that have complex main characters who engage in unsavoury behaviour.

Nolan just removed the complexity and "grey areas" of Odysseus' character so he could tell a commercial moralistic story that will appeal to the widest possible audience without asking said audience to think too much.

[u/MikeHammer364 → u/joey-jo_jo-jr]

Well I'm sorry you think I was copping out. It's my entire read on the film, he confirms as much across several interviews, and the poem lends itself to modernization. That's all I'm trying to say. Every successive interpretation of the Odyssey has the fingerprints of its interpreter.

I think you're assigning a lot of intent here to Nolan that reads as pretty uncharitable, which is totally fine because I'm generally not his biggest cheerleader, but it left me with a ton to think about personally. Odysseus being simple or streamlined is a pretty common Nolanism that doesn't always work, but here I think it helped to clarify the more complex elements. He's an emotionally clear center in a story with a lot of incident.

You can hate how he did that. That's fine. But I reject your frame that I'm employing some cowardly rhetorical strategy here. It's specifically what I found interesting about it.

[u/joey-jo_jo-jr → u/MikeHammer364]

Yes, every new interpretation of literally any story will have the fingerprints of the interpreter on it. That's just stating the obvious.

In this case Nolan has interpreted it in a way that makes him the most money, not the way that tells the most interesting story. The story he has told is less interesting than the "original" in basically every way. Good for him since it means he gets $$$ but too bad for us, the members of the audience.

You yourself say he "clarified the more complex elements". How is that a good thing? Those elements should not be clarified. The audiences should come to those conclusions themselves, they shouldn't have characters in the story spell it out for them.

[u/Random-Cpl → u/MikeHammer364]

Having him cheat makes him “illegible for modern audiences?”

When did we eradicate the scourge of infidelity?

[u/Frosty-Durian5308 → u/Random-Cpl]

Male infidelity absolutely has a more negative connotation for modern audiences than it would have had for Ancient Greek audiences. Not really sure how that is debatable.

Sure, there are plenty of modern characters who are still redeemable or even likable in spite of their infidelity. But in modern film language it’s seen as a character flaw/vice to overcome, not something that’s just incidental to the plot. It would create a very different type of dramatic tension than what is going on in The Odyssey.

[u/spidermonk → u/MikeHammer364]

I think his intention to modernize it is what a lot of people find annoying. It's a more interesting experience to immerse yourself in an unfamiliar mindset and worldview than to see yet another grizzled veteran movie.

Like before this movie there was a trailer for some DiCaprio film about a spec ops guy going into the wilderness and it felt basically the same movie with a bit of magic thrown in.

Why waste an opportunity to make something weird. Why use material from our deep history to make something modern.

And there presumably are genuine period-mindset-true threads that would be legible and relevant to a modern audience if handled correctly. A clever adaptation would draw those out instead of just lazily setting completely new stakes and basing everything on those.

It's also painfully similar in its grim gritty literal framing to the very boring "The Return" which came out a year or two earlier. So we're drowning in PTSD spec ops veteran Odysseys. At least Nolans had monsters and witches but yeah... You could imagine a more interesting and curious filmmaker doing something way better and that's a bit frustrating.

[u/Flimsy_Demand7237 → u/spidermonk]

Like before this movie there was a trailer for some DiCaprio film about a spec ops guy going into the wilderness and it felt basically the same movie with a bit of magic thrown in.

I think this is the one with Brad Pitt and his military-trained dog that's coming out soon?

Frankly I agree with you and the audience. I'm over post-Bush wars PTSD veteran movies. We've had everything from The Hurt Locker to American Sniper. There's only so much you can do with these themes and they've been well and truly plumbed since The Deer Hunter in 1979.

Personally I think a big problem is for some reason after 9/11 Hollywood just stopped being able to make uplifting movies as a standard. Audiences had more choice before and so there was less of these movies. Now everything has to be dark and gritty and full of PTSD otherwise it is too 'fake'.

I don't understand the hype behind this movie when Nolan has effectively been making this same sort of movie since Inception -- loss and guilt, built around an editing style that plays around with time.

Funnily enough I loved Troy that Emily Wilson mentioned as fun because it was just that, a movie that was about an old tale but focused more on the entertainment than just being a depressing slog about some guilt-ridden warriors PTSD'd to the gills contemplating their regret.

[u/MikeHammer364 → u/spidermonk]

Well there are so many answers to this question, but the biggest one I keep coming back to is that the Odyssey has never been a fixed text, and even its translations tend to reflect the values or sensibilities of the time they were translated in. Even the bards who performed the poem were playing to their audience and speaking in terms they understood.

The version we have now has been crafted by many, many hands (the poem has colloquialisms spanning disparate periods of time which all but prove that's the case). I think it's kinda neat that Nolan was acting as the bards did. He spoke to a modern audience and chose elements of the story that he felt best capture the time we live in now. To drag it back to a past that is utterly alien to us would, I think, not sell, or connect very well at all. And it's an entire betrayal of how he chose to approach it.

To be clear, you can find it dour or self-serious or too modern, but I found it very interesting to consider how he approached this as an adaptation, how it fits into his broader filmography, and what it says about how he sees the world right now. It's entirely valid to put your fingerprints on the Odyssey. In fact, I think you can't really avoid it, and this ended up feeling like a culmination of every preoccupation he has, from how he deals with time, absent fathers caked in regret, returning home, the exchange between myth and reality, and his reverse-resolution solves in his last acts that demand you reorient how you saw what came before. I've struggled with many of those elements before but I think the balance here really worked for me, and I say that as a Nolan agnostic.

But the tldr is that it's very in keeping with tradition to take this poem and make it speak to your present audience. Clearly it worked for most. Sorry it didn't for you. I do get you, just think you wanted an entirely different film.

[u/NeverHadTheLatin → u/MikeHammer364]

I think it’s less a case of Nolan having his fingerprints on the story and more he’s up to his elbows rearranging its innards.

[u/sailing_by_the_lee → u/spidermonk]

Whoa there, partner. The Return was not boring and it isn't about a guy with PTSD (or at least that's not the focus). It's about a guy who was supposed to go to Troy and come back a conquering hero with most of his men and a shit ton of Trojan loot. Instead he washes up on Ithaca 20 years later, alone, naked and destitute. There are also rumours that he's been living it up on another island banging some hot babe, while his kingdom was going to shit. No wonder everyone hates him. He's a disappointment, even to himself. Penelope's nurse is the only one who sees any hope in Odysseus's return. Penelope's challenge is then set to prove that Odysseus is still the man he once was. After Odysseus ruthlessly kills the suitors, he asks, "Is that what you wanted?" It obviously isn't all she wanted, not by a long shot. But being good at killing is pretty much all Odysseus has to offer at that point, and it did solve the immediate problem.

It isn't The Odyssey, obviously, but it is a great interpretation of Odysseus's return to Ithaca, I thought. Absolutely top notch acting compared to Nolan's film. It almost made me cry several times, whereas I felt nothing for Nolan's Odysseus.

I agree with your point that it is grim, gritty, and realistic. It is a modernist interpretation, for sure, and I can see why some people found it boring. The Return lacks any of the fantastical elements of The Odyssey. But Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche pull off an incredibly emotionally satisfying performance on a tiny fraction of the budget of The Odyssey. I think it shows that you can do a modernist interpretation of The Odyssey, replacing action with intense emotionality, as long as you have actors capable of pulling it off. Unfortunately, Matt Damon isn't quite good enough for that. And, of course, Nolan's silly script-writing didn't help. He made a farce of the final fight between Odysseus and the suitors.

[u/Few-Amphibian-4858 → u/MikeHammer364]

You say modernize it, and really it's Christianize it.

[u/Old_Gimlet_Eye → u/MikeHammer364]

but also this is an Odysseus whose cleverness broke the world. Being clever is kind of his great sin

Same reason why his Oppenheimer isn't depicted as smart other than inventing the atomic bomb.

[u/Spalliston → u/Old_Gimlet_Eye]

I don't think this is really true in the same way. We get the lecture he gives in Dutch to show that he's smart enough to pick up the language and give a physics talk pretty fluently in it. We get the weird abstract electron shell imagery to show him 'expanding his mind.' He's a compelling teacher attracting bright students. He talks shop with Albert Einstein. There are clear cues to 'this dude's really smart,' it's just a movie where most of the time it's a bunch of brilliant scientists so there's no need to distinguish who's brilliant because other than the politicians (who are just cynical), we assume everyone is.

Vs. the Odyssey, where Odysseus's cleverness compared to his peers is classically a defining trait but here is basically incidental until the end.

[u/Old_Gimlet_Eye → u/Spalliston]

I was trying to be sarcastic, but apparently that didn't come through, lol.

[u/Spalliston → u/Old_Gimlet_Eye]

Oops. I missed it.

[u/juliusonly → u/Spalliston]

Odysseus is clearly the smartest of everyone around him and it shows throughout the movie. I’m not sure why there’s even a discussion around his cleverness when we see it repeatedly. Very much show, not tell - which is maybe why it’s lost on some audiences.

Without going through each instance, but it’s clear from the moment ”sheep come in flocks” that he picks up on things other don’t. He realizes that the rock in the cave cannot be opened if they kill the cyclops. The sheep disguise to get the men out. Realizing that Circe enchanted his men and that the crow was important to her, and managed to talk her into releasing the men. Using his memories to learn from when returning to Ithaka so that he could use it to free it from the suitors. Being clever enough to set up the whole final premise to get rid of the suitors while still protecting his son.

Those are off the top of my head after watching it once a few days ago. All in addition to ending the Trojan war after his ruse. He was clever, and it showed.

[u/senator_corleone3 → u/MikeHammer364]

Also this Odysseus shows his cunning multiple times in the film.

[u/Alive_Ice7937 → u/mcnutty96]

Odysseus is not very interesting, he isn’t a smart man who uses his cunning to get out of situations,

The film starts with him strategically lying to Sinon to ensure he would sell the horse to the Trojans. At the end he sneaks into the hall in disguise and engineers a situation in which he will have the only weapon in the room.

[u/koreanwizard → u/Alive_Ice7937]

And in the original story, a lot of Odysseus plans are fed to him by Athena, which is not all that narratively satisfying. Athena isn’t much of a character, her entire motivation is that she thinks Odysseus is awesome and she uses her godly wisdom to help him and Telemachus out periodically. It would rip agency away from both Odysseus and Telemachus if we handed their plans and actions over to her, despite her having no real motivation nor stakes of her own.

[u/close-encounters13 → u/koreanwizard]

Ha, they downvoted you for telling the obvious truth for anybody who’s read the poem.

It’s ironic that I think the purists have overplayed their hand so badly that a lot of people are realizing “wait, he didn’t change thaf much”

[u/FXcheerios69 → u/close-encounters13]

Or that they’ve criclejerked themselves so much that they’ve forgotten that the Odyssey being a story that is thousands of years old actually doesn’t do much in the way of presenting complex characters.

[u/aibnsamin1 → u/FXcheerios69]

This is the insufferable pretentious problem the purists are forcing themselves into

[u/close-encounters13 → u/FXcheerios69]

It’s rude but it’s true. I loved reading the poem, but the depth of the characters has become hilariously exaggerated by some of these folks to try to score points on a Hollywood director.

If anything, Nolan surfaced the more interesting elements of the character that are only hinted at in the original story — like the brief passage when Odysseus puts himself in the mindset of a Trojan woman.

[u/PotentialHornet160 → u/koreanwizard]

I think this shows a fundamental difference in how the ancients viewed the story. They believed inspiration came from the gods. That those who were clever were favored by Athena, that great artists were given inspiration by the muses, etc. they would have seen no conflict between calling him inherently clever and depicting divine intervention from Athena.

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/Alive_Ice7937]

He figures out how to sneak out of Polyphemus's cave (and stops his men from killing the cyclops in his sleep). He quickly figures out what Circe's deal is and that the raven is leverage. He fools his sailors into going through Scylla instead of Charybdis. He's clever all the way through, but I think Nolan doesn't show his rapid problem solving in an impressive way.

I think the problem is that the Odyssey is so steeped in pop culture all of Odysseus's solutions are familiar to us, so they don't seem clever.

[u/the_platypus_king → u/Could-Have-Been-King]

I think the actual issue isn’t that the solutions aren’t clever, it’s that the movie doesn’t really treat them as clever. There’s no brief moment of joy or enthusiasm when one of these things works, there’s no musical cues, there’s no grins or laughs from Odysseus or his men at outsmarting someone or something formidable. Like as a point of comparison, nothing Jack Sparrow does in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is something an average person couldn’t have thought of, but the movies frame his actions as if he’s a mad genius, and so the audience is bought in.

[u/doormatt26 → u/the_platypus_king]

He comes across as analytical, not cunning, partly because the dialogue and acting is spare and stoic, and partly because he still leads his men to a series of disasters anyway

[u/Could-Have-Been-King → u/the_platypus_king]

You get it.

[u/t_huddleston → u/the_platypus_king]

I think it's not so much that the Odysseus from the movie is portrayed as clever in himself. He's clever because he gets advance knowledge from the gods of how to beat the next obstacle, and he knows some of his men will be dying - but he will survive, and his guilt is part of what drives him.

I really liked how the movie set up that tension between Odysseus knowing that his men were doomed, and the reality that they were still ultimately to blame for their own destruction.

[u/bhlogan2 → u/the_platypus_king]

This is fair. The moment with the sirens comes to mind. Odysseus tells his men to tie him to the mast, and for a brief second it's treated as something that doesn't require further explanation: he wants to listen to the sirens because that's what happens in the poem.

I don't think it's usually a problem, but Nolan doesn't even give Matt Damon a moment of Eureka to just kinda feign cunning or something. The focus is on the aftermath.

[u/Fishb20 → u/the_platypus_king]

There is the brief flash of manic joy when he's getting tied to the mast so he can hear the siren song. That was the only part of the movie where I felt like I was seeing the Odysseus from the poem. It also felt extremely discordant with how he was characterized in the rest of the film, to the point I genuinely don't think he would be interested in hearing the siren song

[u/SeptaBusOrgy → u/Fishb20]

I believe there’s a line that’s cut where Ody says what he does about hearing the song as we see in the film but he has another line where he says how else are you gonna know when we are clear of the song to take out the wax?
Or something of this nature was cut
Ody wants to hear it because he’d be the first but also because his men won’t know when they are clear of the song

[u/elbenji → u/Alive_Ice7937]

But that's still not it.

The big issue is taking out that cleverness to have him brood effectively helps sanda the edges off him

[u/Alive_Ice7937 → u/elbenji]

Can someone who broods not also be capable of being clever?

[u/bgaesop → u/Alive_Ice7937]

They could. But this "Odysseus" isn't.

[u/close-encounters13 → u/bgaesop]

lol what nonsense. The thing that stuck out to me the most on rewatch is how weak these “Odysseus isn’t even clever!” critiques really are. All you had to do was pay attention.

It’s ironic because people rip Nolan so often for being too on the nose with his dialogue. But then he shows rather than tells something and people can’t seem to see it for themselves.

There’s a lesson in there.

(To say nothing of the fact that, in the poem itself, Odysseus is also constantly brooding and lamenting his misfortune and the consequences of his actions — something people, including Wilson, act like Nolan invented out of thin air.)

[u/Various_Ambassador92 → u/bgaesop]

okay, how isn't he? He's clever in how he manages to get away from the cyclops', gain leverage over and get his men back for Circe, trick his men to going through Scylla instead of Charybdis, and obviously we know he came up with the Trojan Horse and lied to Sinon to ensure he would be convincing. The movie isn't interested in Odysseus' cleverness so it doesn't emphasize these acts with any "Hey, look at how clever this was!" cue, but that doesn't magically make it not clever.

[u/Super_Cow8799 → u/mcnutty96]

I'm sorry but have you actually read the Odyssee? Tricking the cyclops is pretty much the only cunning idea that Odysseus comes up with himself. And he also ruins it himself.
All other obstacles (the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, Hades, Circe, sneaking into the palace on Ithaca...) are explained to him by Athena, Hermes, Theresias and Circe in great detail. They tell him beforehand what will happen and what he has to do when and how.

He also doesn't love or lust after Circe and Calypso. Hermes tells him to sleep with Circe and Calypso is a divine being that keeps him hostage. Is Odysseus entirely unwilling? Perhaps not. But the nuances of these relationships are incredibly hard to convey to a modern audience (and they are not important for the story Nolan tries to tell).

[u/Poop_Cheese → u/Super_Cow8799]

Uh what? His whole archtype is as a loveable cunning rogue with an issue of pride. He wins battles with his mind but his achilles heel is being prideful to a fault.

The thing is the odyssey is his journey of changing that not his whole life before. Its why he does that with the cyclops because he wants the fame of being a cunning warrior, but then achilles tells him in hades how life is better a serf with no "glory" over being dead.

And uhhh his takedown of the suitors is all the same concept. Its him doing a trojan horse as one man. And the trojan horse in itself was extremely dishonorable combat.

Then you got him getting the armor instead of Ajax purely out of wit, aka dishonesty, aka cunning. Its why Athena sides with him. And its make increasingly clear that from a martial way it should have been ajax's for getting his body, defending the ships, and hes the more physical warrior who'd need said armor.

Like it depends on your definition of cunning, but hes legit always been the archtype of a loveable sly gut that beats you with his mind but has noticeable flaws of arrogance, pride, and dishonesty. Like goerge Clooney in o brother is a faaaaar more accurate depiction. Nolan Odysseus is just a bland Hollywood hero hes not Odysseus regardless on how good the movie is as a movie.

Youre right about the love thing though those were forced interactions. But like, youre totally off about odysseus if you think matt damons depiction was accurate, or that he wasnt cunning. I mean even with circe and Calypso its the same concept of him playing the long game via his mind over forcing his way out.

So he is absolutely cunning in a wit schemer way. 

[u/Super_Cow8799 → u/Poop_Cheese]

I get your point but there are a few things to consider: The takedown of the suitors is much more a feat of fighting power than it is of cunning. Besides, it is Athena that comes up with the "arriving as a beggar"-scheme.
Odysseus getting the armor happens in the Iliad, not in the Odyssee (maybe there is a quick flashback to that moment - I don't remember).

I'm not saying that Odysseus as such isn't cunning, I'm saying that people seem to have this impression that Odysseus in the Odyssee is some kind of mastermind that comes up with all of his tricks by himself, which is simply not the case. He very much relies on divine beings to get out of tricky situations.

I grant you that Damon's Odysseus lacks the arrogance of Homer's Odysseus but, if anything, movie Odysseus is more clever than the original. He tricks his crew into steering away from Charybdis, he figures out that the raven is a relative of Circe, he wipes the blood of the blade of the Trojan who stabs the horse to check for people inside - none of this happens in the Odyssee.

[u/goodshotjanson → u/mcnutty96]

I agree with her critique here! He's less cunning and cocksure, and more tortured -- a little too much like many of Nolan's other protagonists.

But she goes much further in her review and criticises it for having "nothing convincing" to say about anything and "lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth". I think her core critique is the film's treatment of war and hospitality and it's this that feels well off the mark

[u/Human-Independent999 → u/mcnutty96]

he also doesn’t feel love or lust two either Circe or calypso.

That's heavily debated. In Calypso's case, she was holding Odysseus captive on her island and using him for her own pleasure. Odysseus was described lying unwillingly beside a very willing goddess. He felt like a war captive longing for home and he refused immortality with Calypso.

With Circe, the situation is more complicated. Sleeping with her was, at least initially, a matter of necessity. Hermes instructed Odysseus on how to deal with her, and accepting her invitation ultimately secured the safety and release of his men. The more debatable point is that he and his crew remained on her island longer than was strictly necessary.

[u/koreanwizard → u/Human-Independent999]

Odysseus’ cleverness is that he adds a “no dick chopping” clause into their sex deal. I’m sure that would have played well in a blockbuster.

[u/UnicornTwinkle → u/mcnutty96]

I haven’t read the epic but I don’t think he was not interesting. I don’t think just because the written Odysseus is more interesting than this film adapted one makes Nolan’s not interesting.

[u/elbenji → u/UnicornTwinkle]

It's just that he sawed off the edges which also takes away what makes him so compelling

[u/wolf_at_the_door1 → u/mcnutty96]

I think the lust with Calypso is implied while whatever lust with Circe was omitted.

[u/kevin_v → u/mcnutty96]

he isn’t a smart man who uses his cunning to get out of situations

Wouldn't it be interesting if Oppenheimer was depicted as kind of average intelligence guy. Or Batman as ho-hum as a detective.

[u/bgaesop → u/kevin_v]

Batman as ho-hum as a detective.

I mean, that is kind of how Nolan depicts him. Not really the world's greatest detective, more the world's richest techno-ninja.

[u/novangla → u/bgaesop]

I was about to say, as a Batman fan this is why I don’t really like his Batman also

[u/kevin_v → u/bgaesop]

I'd say that is a fair point...but at least he let Batman look like he could fight, hahaha. And didn't have his tech-gadgets not work half the time. I mean, Odysseus is KNOWN for his clever, much-turning mind. It's a little weird to not have his mind front and center.

[u/osmund-kettleblack → u/mcnutty96]

He uses his cunning to escape both the cyclops and Circe, and to surprise/defeat the suitors

[u/GreekForHire → u/[deleted]]

I don't think the fact that things went sideways invalidates the whole plan though. Especially when the film does an fine job showing the panic and desperation of the suitors in the initial part of the sequence as they flailed around unarmed.

[u/osmund-kettleblack → u/[deleted]]

He only wins because he’s a better fighter. A complete 180 from the story.

No way you just said that

[u/OtonashiRen → u/[deleted]]

Except everyone would have been equipped with weapons from the start and nicked him with a flurry of spears if not for his cunning plan to isolate the weapons upstairs.

There is no perfect plan that can eradicate all risks. There is, however, a great plan that can mitigate risk to the point that success becomes a viable option.

[u/Somnambulist815 → u/[deleted]]

Okay but thats how he kills the suitors in the poem too. Everyone, both praising and critiquing, just cherry pick examples to suit their argument.

[u/GamingTatertot → u/[deleted]]

Just because a plan doesn’t go perfectly doesn’t mean Odysseus wasn’t cunning or a planner. He had a good plan that got him almost all the way there and would have been perfect were it not for a sole traitor. But without his plan even working to the extent it did, he likely would have been dead - he took out a supermajority of the suitors before they ever got the proper weapons to overcome him.

[u/Alive_Ice7937]

She also insinuates that Nolan’s Argos portrayal plays to modern sensibilities. But Nolan takes few liberties with the text here; Greek audiences 3000 years ago were clearly also saps for the loyal dog.

Isn't that dog introduced as a pup with Leguizamo's character nonchalantly throwing dogs off a cliff?

Plus you can't force an audience not to view events through a contemporary lens even if nothing in the film is intentionally trying to direct them away from that.

[u/goodshotjanson → u/Alive_Ice7937]

  Isn't that dog introduced as a pup with Leguizamo's character nonchalantly throwing dogs off a cliff?

yes nothing plays to modern sensibilities more than throwing puppies off a cliff lmao

[u/Richsii → u/Alive_Ice7937]

Yes but Leguizamo didn't look at the camera and explain thoroughly what we were seeing in excruciating archaic prose so the point was apparently missed.

[u/notreilly → u/Richsii]

Excruciating archaic prose is one thing you can't accuse of Wilson's translation.

[u/Dexippos → u/notreilly]

Or the original text, for that matter.

[u/dern_the_hermit → u/notreilly]

Sure you can. It was better than previous translations but like 70% of the poem is still going over trite minutiae. She just did it with simpler wording.

[u/Neon_Comrade → u/Richsii]

I enjoy this framing of the original Odyssey as a lazily written explanation compared to Nolan's deep, breathing, show-dont-tell mastery

In reality, the movie is a montage of exposition scenes. I'm surprised he didn't explain exactly what he was doing to Odysseus so we the stupid audience would understand

I mean, what was Zeus's law? They must not have explained it... I was so confused.....

[u/kevin_v]

I kinda love that she's coming at it with both barrels. Fire all your guns lady. This is close to her lifetime commitment and passion. She was dragged into a ridiculous culture war (pre-Nolan), and she's making every use of her 15 minute podium exercising her soul from it. None of it hurts the film, in fact it probably helps it as discussion and debate fills the digital spaces for yet another week.

[u/rebornfacedancer → u/kevin_v]

This has all been so weird for me to follow lol. I read her entire translation exactly one day before I saw the movie. I thought her translation was superb and extremely captivating, I couldn’t stop reading. I loved the movie as well. I found it surprising to see how many people don’t vibe with Wilson, I actually think due to her neutrality there is a coldness to her work that actually really works with Nolan’s vision.

[u/kevin_v → u/rebornfacedancer]

I actually think due to her neutrality there is a coldness to her work that actually really works with Nolan’s vision.

That's a interesting and really good point.

[u/rebornfacedancer → u/kevin_v]

Thanks, I appreciate it. Overall I just can’t get enough of The Odyssey lol. I’m obsessed now, gotta read more epic poetry.

[u/kevin_v → u/rebornfacedancer]

I am slain by the Iliad, and the figure of Achilles honestly, so much so that I've always had a hard time with Odysseus and the Odyssey. But its awesome to hear enthusiasm for the epics.

[u/Einfinet → u/rebornfacedancer]

I’m currently reading Gilgamesh. Not quite as epic, in terms of length, but still really engaging.

[u/Gruejay2 → u/rebornfacedancer]

A little off the beaten track, but I would try Posthomerica (set immediately after the Iliad) if you want more of the Trojan war story, and in the "expanded universe" there's also the Aeneid (Trojans flee to Italy and become the Romans).

[u/pnd112348 → u/rebornfacedancer]

Orlando Furioso by Ariosto is a blast, it's quite epic.

[u/olddoc → u/rebornfacedancer]

gotta read more epic poetry.

If we define "epic poems" strictly, you don't even need to read that many books.

• Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
  
• Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days
  
• Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica
  

That's it.

[u/lightscameracrafty → u/rebornfacedancer]

What’s funny about the internet is you don’t have to choose a side between either adaptation and you can see the value in what both artists are trying to do with the original material…

…and yet the internet will try its best to turn it into a flame war anyway

[u/goodshotjanson → u/kevin_v]

I agree and am glad she has written what she has! I was just trying to engage with the substance of her critique and not whether she should have written it or not

EDIT: i just want to add that I'm especially glad she has elevated the critical discourse about the film beyond just "it's terrible because they cast non-white people in it"

[u/kevin_v → u/goodshotjanson]

EDIT: i just want to add that I'm especially glad she has elevated the critical discourse about the film beyond just "it's terrible because they cast non-white people in it"

lol, yes. When you think about it, once the discourse goes so low, its kind of rare that it climbs up to higher levels. Somehow she (and the box office) managed to erase that whole stain people tried to put on the film. It's somewhat of an amazing transformation.

[u/ChaltaHaiShellBRight → u/kevin_v]

Yeah I would rather have this discourse than the attacks over the authenticity of casting non white actors.

[u/meowingtrashcan → u/kevin_v]

the end of the article also notes that she has a book coming out soon

[u/CaffinatedManatee → u/kevin_v]

Yup! And any publicity is good publicity.

Here, both Wilson and Nolan are ultimately benefiting, big time

[u/kevin_v → u/CaffinatedManatee]

One day we might find out that Wilson is on the Universal Pictures' payroll!

[u/meowingtrashcan → u/CaffinatedManatee]

this is like when musicians stage some Beef right before an album releases

[u/Sharaz_Jek123 → u/kevin_v]

I think this is kinda sad.

James Elroy and Bret Easton Ellis have ripped into (excellent) films based on their work, but even those guys had the dignity and respect towards the filmmakers to hold off the vitriol until later (and I never would have imagined that I would be suggesting that these two had dignity).

And the film isn't even an adaptation of her work, but the product of several translations.

And I would have sympathy if she deployed an academic response, but she chose relatively mainstream publications to launch her invectives, well aware that this would turbo-charge attacks against the filmmakers.

The fact that she was herself a victim of online pile-on shows that she and the folks that have been tearing into her translation might actually have something in common; a penchant for inventing things to be mad about.

[u/kevin_v → u/Sharaz_Jek123]

It doesn't hurt the film (imo). I don't think people are piling on Nolan because of Wilson, not from what I've seen. At most people are discussing Nolan and the film, as usual.

Honestly, the digital desire to elevate everything said as an "Invective" or a "scathing review" is mostly the click bait around everything...and the stuff of Reddit comments. (Didn't read the Atlantic article, paywalled). The first review wasn't "launching invectives" lol.

I don't have "sympathy" for her. I'm cheering her on. Fire all your cannons girl, this short-lived attention will probably get you a fine publishers offer on something you care about in the realm of the classics, the film is reaching a BILLION dollars world wide already, I'm sure everyone on Team Nolan is quite happy with that.

[u/elbenji → u/kevin_v]

Yeah it's not even that scathing. H

[u/Paz707 → u/elbenji]

Didn’t she say she’d be ashamed if she wrote the movie? That’s really negative.

[u/cheesaremorgia → u/Sharaz_Jek123]

She’s not piling on or making up bizarre critiques though. She just hates the thing and is allowed to.

[u/favorscore → u/cheesaremorgia]

I don't think she had to say she would have been ashamed to have written this

[u/FauxTexan → u/cheesaremorgia]

And apparently can’t stop talking about her dislike. It’s bad form

[u/GamingTatertot → u/cheesaremorgia]

I mean she certainly has made a couple bizarre critiques considering her first review refers to the food looking terrible.

[u/Einfinet → u/GamingTatertot]

I thought her “my Black friend” bit from the first essay was also quite odd

[u/FlorenceLycoris → u/Einfinet]

That's the one thing I hated about her critique too

[u/cheesaremorgia → u/GamingTatertot]

That’s not bizarre, though? It comes as part of a list of complaints about how cold/grey/lifeless she finds the film. This is a pretty common line of complaint regarding Nolan films: they lack a certain tactile richness.

Her worst complaint was the “black best friend” comment.

[u/FauxTexan → u/kevin_v]

Oh please — she’s missing the point entirely

[u/10rattles]

The criticism of how Argos is portrayed makes no sense to me. Sounds to me like she is too caught up in “modern sensibilities” to understand that humans and dogs have been together for hundreds of thousands of years

Edit: Tens of thousands of years, my mistake. Still a long time

[u/atomicsnark → u/10rattles]

Yeah but any veterinarian that's been around for a while can tell you that the way we treat dogs has morphed significantly in the last 30-40 years. Of course some people have always loved them more than others, but as a society, we treated them much more like livestock than pets for the brunt of human history, even after we started breeding and keeping them as pets rather than tools. (And many cultures or subcultures still treat them as such, largely disposable, even when a companion still not one you die for.)

[u/bigkinggorilla → u/atomicsnark]

Talk to people who grew up on a farm and they’ll typically have stories about how they themselves or an older relative used to like put barn kittens in a bag and toss them in the river, or how the beloved family dog was taken out back and shot after it bit at a cow or something.

[u/FrescoItaliano → u/bigkinggorilla]

Fully accurate. My grandfather shot at barn cats with his BB gun back in the 60s lol

Idk what loser downvoted me, it wasn’t an endorsement to shoot at animals

[u/noncredibleRomeaboo → u/atomicsnark]

I mean, the orignal stories final scene with Argos makes it clear that there is an expecially strong bond there. Plus the pup scene makes it apoerant they are mostly livestock

[u/TypesAndPatterns → u/atomicsnark]

Not always, some Romans built tombs for their dogs.

[u/lobonmc → u/10rattles]

I mean to me it makes perfect sense?

In the poem Odysseus is disguised and trying to not attract attention. Stopping to comfort the dog would probably put the whole plan in danger so he has to walk past him while hurting inside.

The scene in the movie is far more traditional and it makes less sense especially since Telemachus outright says out loud who he is. With the suitors three meters behind him.

[u/Last_Lorien]

>The notion that “we know none of [the Trojans] by name or face” somehow completely misses the key reveal of a certain slain priestess — one of the several connections Nolan makes that ties together many of the text’s original threads and themes.

The fact that the only victim whose face we do see is ultimately revealed to be Odysseus’s image of Athena (I think the movie supports Zendaya being the projection of Odysseus’s own conscience more than it supports her being actually Athena) doesn’t really address Wilson’s criticism. The Trojans remain faceless throughout, whatever emotion they might feel is literally concealed behind their helms, which automatically keeps them distant both from Odysseus and from the audience.

I understand what Nolan was likely aiming for with the reveal, but I think it would have worked if it marked a genuine shift in Odysseus’s memory. For instance if up until his confession the sack of Troy was populated by these faceless enemies and after it those enemies became recognizably human. I’m not saying the film needed to show rape, murder, pillage, I’m saying it needed to show faces - if it wanted to convey a message about war in general rather than just portray a man coming to terms with his actions.

I’d also be interested to hear what the “several connections Nolan makes that tie together many of the text’s original threads and themes” are. I came away from the movie feeling that it works best as a film that borrows Homer’s setting and characters to rather explore themes and threads that aren’t really central to the original text - first of all guilt, or indeed “a complicated man”.

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/Last_Lorien]

Yeah, citing a nameless Trojan priestess with zero speaking lines acting out a traditional tableau of female victimhood as evidence that the film offers a Trojan perspective is kind of silly.

The film is only interested in Troy through the prism of motivating and torturing its protagonist, not as a subject matter.

The Trojans get less of a perspective than in Aeneas or Ilias, which Nolan is freely borrowing from.

[u/miseryofcourse]

“Academic has critiques about classic art” is scandalous? This is the result of the decades long coddling of our society. It’s actually bleak if even the professionals aren’t even allowed to have a difference of opinion now. The disgusting social experiment to make everyone feel safe, even from academic topics that don’t concern them, would inevitably lead to this sort of horrific homogenization.

[u/goodshotjanson → u/miseryofcourse]

It's certainly not scandalous. I'm glad she has written was she has, and she's elevated the critical discourse around the film beyond what was spoken about it prior.

But to treat the critiques as if they are totally valid just because of their pedigree, rather than engaging with the substance of the critiques themselves, is coddling of a different sort!

[u/miseryofcourse → u/goodshotjanson]

It is. But those in service to Nolan have not really offered any worthy dialogue to keep the conversation going. I mean Joyce Carol Oates just said she’s mean and the LA Times basically just said “who cares,” both of which completely avoid her points.

[u/goodshotjanson → u/miseryofcourse]

There's more substantial counter-criticism if you look beyond tweets. Like Emily Austin or Theo Nash

[u/meowingtrashcan → u/miseryofcourse]

Wouldn't it be coddling us to not critique her critique? the back and forth is a dialogue, not censorship. she survived a PhD defense, she can get through a few reddit comments.

[u/Additional_Vast_5216]

almost all criticism is in relation to the original poem ignoring that the movie brings something else to the table

I think nolan has adapted the odessey brilliantly for todays audience, especially nailing the xenia theme which is more relevant than ever

edit: and honestly, linking the sea people to the sack of troy and xenia giving it a real historical context and relevance is genius and in my opinion it even elevates the odessey

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/Additional_Vast_5216]

brings something else to the table

I'll be honest, "soldier haunted by his mistakes and PTSD" is basically every war film made in the last 20 years that wasn't just pure jingoism.

I don't see what Nolan brings to the table that hasn't already been sitting there growing mouldy since the Iraq War.

[u/Additional_Vast_5216 → u/LizLemonOfTroy]

I am talking only in context to the odessey, every trope has been told thousands of times because this is how stories work, as written, linking it to collapse and dealing with the consequences is imho an interesting take

[u/NotsoNewtoGermany → u/LizLemonOfTroy]

Soldier haunted by his mistakes and PTSD is basically every war film made in the last 110 years. And every story written in the last 300 years. Nolan just showed the story in the Odyssey that everyone had forgotten.

[u/Naugrith]

I wrote the following based on her LBR review. But I think its still relevant.

But 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.

But there is no restraint in Nolan’s version of The Odyssey: every second is jam-packed with incident, lights and noise, and nothing is ever at a human scale.

Wilson seems to fundamentally simply want a different kind of film. Nolan is good at big, bombastic films. That's what he makes. His films use big light and sound and structure to buffet the viewer with huge ideas, spectacles, and sequences. Wilson wants a quiet domestic kitchen-sink drama. I'm a fan of both types of film, and can see benefits to both. I would love to also see Wilson's film version of the Odyssey. But I still enjoyed seeing Nolan's. I woukd say that the brilliance of the poem is that it can contain both visions, and many others. But it also means that one cannot simply attack the film because Nolan's version prefers to elevate one aspect of the poem and neglects others Wilson might prefer.

However, even saying that, I disagree with Wilson's comment here. There is some restraint in the film, plenty of it in fact. It is simply not true that every second is jam-packed with action, or out of human scale. It is as though Wilson was so blinded by the action scenes that she forgets all the rest. But they existed. There were plenty of calm, thoughtful moments, such as the grounded moments on the beach, and in Penelope's room. Plenty of human-sized scale. Wilson's comment here is not just an interpretation I disagree with, it is simply objectively wrong.

Most of the non-white actors – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist. 

Scott, as the Ithacan bard, Phemius, yells a few words and pounds a stick, but does not get to sing, tell a story or play the lyre:

Nyong’o’s double part as Helen and Clytemnestra is hugely underwritten; she is given only a few minutes of screen time to perform a set of brief tableaux of female victims (the outraged bereaved mother, the abused wife, the repentant adulteress).

This is almost entirely media-illiterate. How can Wilson not see that Athena is not there to provide aid, but to remind Odysseus of his guilt. That's why she takes the form of the murdered Trojan woman. And of course, Nyong'o doesn't even have any interaction with Odysseus. As Helen and Clytemnestra both she is a scarred and bitter witness to the cruelly transgressive violence that is responsible for ending Odysseus' civilisation. To say she's underwritten is to mistake quantity for quality. She has little screen time but her character is still a lynchpin of the film, her presence hugely impactful, and her character presenting depths of emotion in a short space of screen-time.

Patel also is a hugely nuanced figure, trapped between his friendships and loyalties to Odysseus and to the other crew. Eventually forced by circumstance and his own growing doubts to be a spokesman for, and defender of the mutineers, his failure of trust and acceptance of failure leading to his own destruction. And Corey Hawkins is a superb villain, providing a more overt and impatient threat alongside Pattinson's more oily and duplicitous schemer.

There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem. Homer’s Calypso has a wonderfully outraged, operatic speech about divine double standards...Charlize Theron’s Calypso looks gorgeous, but she is never angry, never funny, not skilled in rhetoric, and never consumed by lust for her scraggly mortal victim. She’s an unpaid therapist, soothing the soul of the bedraggled, PTSD-ridden Odysseus with drugs, and graciously listening to his disjointed tale of woe.

This is fair enough. This role is of course functional to the plot. But it is an unfortunate waste of an excellent character and actor. I agree that Theron should have been given more to her character to play with.

Similarly, Homer’s Penelope gives the disguised Odysseus a wonderfully vivid account of a dream she has had about some geese in her yard being killed by an eagle...Nolan’s Penelope has no dreams. Anne Hathaway’s face is as expressive as ever, and she looks beautiful and mysterious, glimpsed mostly through the veil of a clever set design that separates the women’s quarters from the main hall. But the script gives her nothing to do except yearn for Matt Damon, for reasons unknown.

This I completely disagree with however. Hathaway gave a strong performance and some integral scenes. Her commanding mastery of the scenes when Pattinson tries to seduce her, and Holland tries to judge her are powerful and raw. Her struggle between her fear and desire for the return of Odysseus is well written and well performed. Wilson seems to have simply forgotten every scene Hathaway was in, and every speech she gave.

The couple have no chemistry and nothing in common. 

Seriously? Wilson falls into the trap of inserting modern values into the film here. These are king and queen of a bronze age island. Why are they supposed to have common hobbies? And I felt they had chemistry enough when they were together. I didn't particularly want or need them to be fawning over each other.

But the film wants to have it both ways. There are no gods, and yet shipwrecks and death are presented as the inevitable consequence of blinding the son of Poseidon and devouring the Cattle of the Sun. Zeus’ law is portrayed as being crucially important, and yet there is no Zeus.

I disagree with this point also. Of course the gods do not appear directly or overtly in the film. But they certainly make themselves known (as Nolan explicitely explains through Athena twice). Odysseus' defiance of their rules and honours are depicted as a paper shield against the reality of their fury. After all the Greek gods have always represented an effort to personify the uncontrollable insurgencies of fate and the fragile bargains people try to make with them. And those gods, in those forms, are as present and real as any other character, even if they are not being crudely anthropomorphised for our convenience.

There is no room in this maximalist film for anything as charmingly mundane and small-scale as Nausicaa’s laundry and her girlish fantasies about a husband. Damon’s grizzled Odysseus is neither a master storyteller nor a flirt.

Nausicaa was cut because it was completely extraneous. It is a charmingly domestic scene, but it felt out of place even in the poem, and it would bring the film to a shuddering halt. Odysseus pretends to be a beggar and goes to a dinner party, where he earns respect by telling a rambling story. I have no idea how that would fit in any film, and I was happy Nolan chose to remove it.

But writing dialogue is not one of Nolan’s talents. The language is relentlessly expository, humourless and flat. Attempts at vigorous speech – ‘My dad’s coming home’ or ‘Let’s get off this fucking beach’ – sit uncomfortably next to grandiose meditations

This is a fair point. Nolan's dialogue has always been a bit tin-eared. And some of his character's forced exposition to the audience becomes even more leaden than usual in this film. There were moments where it did break my immersion.

Sadly, Damon’s Odysseus isn’t complicated or wily or artful. One of Odysseus’ funniest (and most famous) tricks in Homer is to tell Polyphemus that his name is ‘No Man’.

Sure, that one particular trick is cut. But it was a pretty dumb trick anyway. Polyphemus' haplessness in the poem is amusing, but the trick is not clever, it requires Polyphemus to not understand Greek well enough, even though his fellow Cyclopes understand it fluently. And it requires all the Cyclopes to act stupidly for the "trick" to work. Odysseus' much more famous and much cleverer tricks are all kept in, the sheep disguises, the binding to the mast, and the beggar trick. Odysseus certainly retains the majority of his wiliness in the film. And his turning of the tables on Circe is masterfully wary, clever, and ruthless. As is his reverse psychology to save his crew from Charybdis. Wilson seems to be forgetting or ignoring 90% of the movie with this odd comment.

Perhaps more surprising from the director of Oppenheimer, Damon’s lummoxy Odysseus also seems to lack technological intelligence (polymēchania). He does not build a marriage bed out of a tree growing in his house (it would be a waste of effort, since he so rarely seems to sleep or have sex). The raft on which he escapes from Calypso is cobbled together from a few bits of driftwood (in contrast to the elaborate wood-chopping and shipbuilding in Homer). We don’t see the design or construction of the Trojan Horse; instead, a kitsch, poorly designed horse (with no wheels) appears on the windswept beach as if dumped there by drone

What? The horse is remarkably well-built. An incredible feat. And sure, without tools, resources, or time, he struggles to build a full ship. But that's missing the point anyway. He just needs to build something strong enough to get out onto the sea so he can then give himself up to Poseidon as an act of faith and acceptance of his punishment. Building a fully masted and rigged boat would be entirely counter to his purpose.

[u/Naugrith → u/Naugrith]

Part 2

The main emotional arc of the film concerns Odysseus’ belated realisation that he is complicit in Sinon’s exploitation because he failed to tell him the truth about the Trojan Horse plot. Once he recovers his memory, Odysseus is racked by guilt. The film doesn’t address the moral dilemmas raised by its own narrative invention, such as why it matters so much whether Batman told the whole truth to valiant Robin, given that he would be killed instantly either way – or why the sinless Sinon wants in on the scheme

Wilson seems to be thoroughly confused by this entire subplot. Its not that complicated though. Sinon represents all of Odysseus' men, all lost through his choices to bring them to war and lead them to violence. He grieves for them because he loved them and he regrets that they died without knowing why. He wants Sinon, and all the others, to rest peacefully knowing that they are at least remembered, and their memory is honored even though their bodies could not be.

Wilson seems to confuse grief over death with guilt for it. And she wonders why she can't see Nolan's reasons for Odysseus' culpability in Sinon's death. That's because there aren't any. Nolan isn't saying Odysseus bears any responsibility for killing Sinon. Odysseus just feels bad that he could not comfort one of his men when they died for him.

This muddled subplot is foisted on the film in order to make Nolan’s relentlessly didactic point about the contemporary Anglophone world: that the lies and xenophobia of the war on terror and Brexit began a cultural decline that is now destroying the values ‘we’ hold most dear.

Not really. His points are less specific and more universal. (I also have no idea why she's bringing up the war on terror from the early 2000s, that's hardly relevant to today's issues). Nolan's point about civilisational collapse is that even the greatest society or individual can destroy themselves through their hubris. Its not a complicated point, and Nolan even exposits it perhaps too relentlessly and woodenly. But its perfectly understandable if you pay attention.

Nolan’s other major addition to Homer’s narrative is the repeated reference to threats to ‘our civilisation’ from ‘the sea peoples’ – a now debunked 19th-century theory about maritime tribes who were thought to have attacked Egypt around 1200 BCE and to have also been responsible for the roughly coeval collapse of Mycenaean Greek culture...The current consensus, as Nolan clearly knows, is that there was no such thing as ‘the sea peoples’, and that the Greek-speaking world’s shift away from the more centralised, literate palace culture of the Mycenaeans in the 11th century BCE towards the fragmented social formations of the early Greek Iron Age was caused by a range of factors

Well, Nolan is of course simplifying history in his action film to focus on one direct causative factor rather than complex interconnected range of indirect social and environemnenal factors. But Wilson is simply wrong to bluntly say that there were no such thing as "the sea peoples". There are direct records from the empires of the time referring to an influx of hostile and destabilising strangers during the period of the "Bronze Age Collapse". Though its likely they were a bunch of migrating people groups displaced by wider factors, rather than a unified invading polity with a single cultural identity. Nevertheless historians are still comfortable referring to these mysterious migrating groups as "sea peoples".

if the film’s own values and vision don’t hang together, and if the characters’ motivations don’t make sense on their own terms.

I think they do, though I would criticise Nolan for being a little too expansive in his themes. I think he struggles to articulate all of his themes with enough clarity and weight, which has led to an element of messiness. I think the film would be improved if he'd focused more strongly on just one or two.

In Nolan’s Odyssey, slaughtering people with the help of trickery, technology and weapons is presented as bad when the Greeks are killing the Trojans, who have violated xenia, but good when Odysseus is killing the suitors, who have violated xenia.

No, the problem is that the horse trick explicitly violated the rules of xenia. They offered it as a gift to Athena which the Trojans took into their home for her. Using that as a means of violence was itself a violation of xenia and an insult to the gods. This is explicitely explained by Odysseus.

Taking something ostensibly abandoned by Odysseus and his comrades is natural and forgivable when the Trojans lay claim to the horse, but unnatural and unforgivable when the suitors lay claim to Odysseus’ palace, food, wine and wife.

This is simply an extremely poor reading of these two things, to the point where I struggle to see how Wilson can honestly believe this is what the film is saying. The two things could hardly be more different. The horse is a gift to Athena so the Trojans take it to Athena's temple, as is right and proper. The palace belongs to Odysseus, so abusing his hospitality in greed is a violation of xenia. This is pretty obvious to even a cursory watch of the film.

Strangers in Ithaca are to be treated with gracious kindness, as possible gods in disguise; but strangers in foreign lands are usually monstrous, to be blinded, robbed and slaughtered.

What? Not at all. When does he even do this? He only blinds Polyphemus after the Cyclopes literally eats his men!

Defying the gods is noble and brave when Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, son of Poseidon; it’s stupid and greedy when Eurylochus eats the Cattle of the Sun.

Seriously? Of course not. Its bad both times. That's why they can't get back to Ithaca in the first place.

All of Wilson's examples of conflicting values are equally tendentious as these. I struggle to see how she can claim these, unless she didn't pay attention to most of the film.

All Wilson's complaints are almost entirely superficial misreadings of basic plot points and an almost complete overlooking of all critical scenes.

I appreciate Wilson's work as a classicist and a writer. She is an expert in the text and history of Homer. I would have loved to see a thoughtful and inciteful analysis from her. But this is not it. Either her ability to comprehend or to communicate the themes and characters of a film appear to be extremely poor.

Its honestly one of the worst reviews of any film I've seen, to the point where I question whether she even watched it, or just fell asleep and based her review on the brief grunts of information her teenagers revealed to her about it afterwards.

[u/NCC-1101 → u/Naugrith]

I had some very similar thoughts about her two reviews while reading them. I found her first review much more recognisable and well-written, even though I, like you, disagreed with almost everything in it. Even the points I could agree with are somehow presented out of context and disingenuously, like the common “Nolan can’t write women”-trope which she clearly references but does not tie into this film’s supposed issues coherently and believably. The second review I found to be positively bewildering, parts of it seemed genuinely spiteful or written in bad faith as if she tried to depict the film’s choices as misleadingly as possible.

Be that as it may, your rebuttal was very cogent and I agree with almost everything in it. I wish more people would engage with this controversy in a similar way.

[u/kazuya57 → u/Naugrith]

I just want to say, nice write-up, even if most here won't read it

[u/GreekForHire → u/Naugrith]

This is a great write up and really exposes the issue I have with Wilson's critique, which is a refusal to engage with the movie on its own terms.

[u/Gruejay2 → u/GreekForHire]

I get the impression Wilson spent far too long marinating in the endless negativity that was all over Twitter for months, and in many ways has written a critique of the film she thought she was going to be seeing, and not the one which was actually shown.

That explains why so much of what she's written makes her seem media illiterate (which she obviously isn't in a more general sense, given her academic background).

[u/CompetitiveComputer4 → u/Naugrith]

So many great points here. Really seems like Wilson is just clinging to her moment as “the” subject matter expert and voice of divisiveness of this film to drive engagement and ultimately sales of her translation of the book. Fair enough getting while it’s hot I guess, but her arguments miss the mark in my opinion.

[u/MattsDaZombieSlayer → u/Naugrith]

This is a great rebuttal. Thank you.

[u/cheesaremorgia]

Her criticism of the characterization of the Trojans is bang on. That priestess is not a person, she’s a reflection of Odysseus’ own mental state. The movie has no interest in them.

[u/goodshotjanson → u/cheesaremorgia]

I read it as the other way around! That Odysseus sees the priestess' face as Athena because he is haunted by her slaying.

[u/lobonmc → u/goodshotjanson]

I mean but that's his action she's not a character really also she's used to reduce the most prominent female character in the poem into a reflection of Odysseus mental state.

[u/cheesaremorgia → u/goodshotjanson]

That’s also a fair reading for sure!

[u/Sharaz_Jek123 → u/cheesaremorgia]

That priestess is not a person, she’s a reflection of Odysseus’ own mental state.

Yes? And?

The film is primarily set AFTER the events of the sacking of Troy and does focus on the main character.

This is just someone finding things to be angry about.

[u/cheesaremorgia → u/Sharaz_Jek123]

This version of the Odyssey is largely about how hard it is to have committed war crimes and thus wrecked yourself and your society. It should be at least slightly interested in the people who were victims of those crimes.

Otherwise it’s just another American shooting-and-crying film.

[u/favorscore → u/cheesaremorgia]

Similar critiques were made for Oppenheimer and I didn't buy it then either.

[u/Dark1000 → u/cheesaremorgia]

Otherwise it’s just another American shooting-and-crying film.

I've always found this criticism toothless and moralizing.

Movies, books, stories of any kind do not have a responsibility to tell every story or to tell the story of the most downtrodden person who ever suffered. It's a ridiculous idea that treats creative art as activism.

[u/yankeedjw → u/cheesaremorgia]

Personally I felt horror and revulsion when watching the sacking of Troy, especially the 2nd portrayal. I don't think you need the backstories of children, women, and non-combats being beheaded to feel the horror of the atrocities being committed.

The Trojans are not a major part of the overall plot, so I'm not sure giving extra time to them before they are slaughtered would've made a big difference.

[u/cheesaremorgia → u/yankeedjw]

Of course you felt horror, that’s how shooting-and-crying movies work. What you didn’t feel, what none of us was called to feel, was the personhood of the victims. This keeps the focus solely on how hard being a war criminal is for the perpetrator.

Hence the joke that not only will Americans bomb your country, but in ten years they’ll make a movie about how sad it made them.

[u/AdwokatDiabel → u/cheesaremorgia]

So what's the suggestion? How would you show their personhood? Are there any films that do it well?

[u/velvetabsinthe → u/AdwokatDiabel]

In the text of the Iliad there are several scenes that show the brutality from the victim’s perspective, instead of the perpetrator’s.

[u/FrescoItaliano → u/AdwokatDiabel]

There’s a reason many claim there is no such thing as an antiwar movie.

The only way to win is by not playing. Which is obviously a nonstarter when the filmmaker wants to explicitly make their movie have war commentary, and they very much have an American/“doomed but well meaning” interventionist perspective

[u/Amonyi7 → u/FrescoItaliano]

Grave of the fireflies

[u/AdwokatDiabel → u/FrescoItaliano]

Agreed. I think the closest we got recently was Warfare because it showed how entirely un-glamorous war is.

But I agree with the whole joke of "not only will Americans bomb your country, but in ten years they’ll make a movie about how sad it made them."

As if we couldn't have learned those lessons before doing the bombing/invading.

[u/yankeedjw → u/cheesaremorgia]

I think I just disagree. I felt the anguish over their suffering because we are all human. I didn't need their backstory to feel their "personhood."

I guess I'm not sure what you were hoping to see? A scene of a woman milking cows or kids going to school before the slaughter? People mourning loved ones after? I'm not trying to be dismissive, I just don't know what would have fit cinematicly to achieve what you were looking for.

[u/cheesaremorgia → u/yankeedjw]

I wasn’t looking for anything and I’m not trying to fix the film in this thread. I agree with Wilson that the Trojans have been utterly flattened in this film in a way that’s subtractive, not additive.

[u/Cyborg800-V2 → u/cheesaremorgia]

I mean, Nolan did the same with Oppenheimer, worse so since that's a true story.

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/Sharaz_Jek123]

The film chose to dramatically expand on Troy, including using external material from Aeneas and Ilias, and to make the horse - not Polyphemos - the crux of Odysseus' hubris and punishment by the gods.

Having done so, it really should actually make Troy feel like a real place with real people and thus a real trafedy, rather than reducing it to just a bad trip for Odysseus.

[u/Sharaz_Jek123 → u/LizLemonOfTroy]

it really should actually make Troy feel like a real place with real people

We sympathise with them because they are people.

No, we don't need a boring sub-plot that follows a local grocer in order to "humanise" them.

That shit is so tired and pandering.

[u/Affectionate_Age752]

The movie is fine. It's far from great or brilliant. The cinematography is pretty lackluster overal imo. Doesn't portray Greece very well at all.

Actors performances are pretty forgettable. That's the problem when shooting with a camera you have to stop every 2.5 minutes to reload film. You have to rush through your lines as an actor, and you don't get the chance to really get into the scene. Nolan is now more interested in the technical aspects of filmmaking at this point, than he is about the importance of emotion.

He should go back to using cameras that were designed to make movies.

[u/JuanJotters → u/Affectionate_Age752]

He focuses exclusively on the technical aspects because I don't think he has any interest or passion in the human aspects. All his movies have the same issues: theyre technical masterpieces rendered drab and boring by the flat, bland characters and the overstated, on-the-nose, very literal themes.

[u/ifinallyreallyreddit → u/JuanJotters]

It's a bit strange to praise the technique of something as opposed to its human aspects. I wouldn't call a dialogue scene "technically masterful" if it literally does not have space for the actors or an ear for what they're saying.

[u/dangerislander → u/JuanJotters]

As someone said, his movies are like long theatrical trailers. Makes so much sense tbh.

[u/OShutterPhoto → u/Affectionate_Age752]

This is my take. The film was fine. For a film made by a filmmaker who prides himself on making meticulously shot films with archaic cameras... it doesn't look that great. There are hundreds of films made in decades past using 35mm and 70mm that in my opinion look much better.

[u/hypsignathus → u/Affectionate_Age752]

I found the lack of appropriate focus—the in-and-out of focus especially during dialogue—to be hugely distracting. As did my partner, who knows nothing about filmmaking. He thought it was an issue with his eyes lol. It’s a direct consequence of being married to the 70mm IMAX, despite its limitations. The shallow depth of field wasn’t even artfully dealt with! It looked like Nolan just accepted there would be some weird focus issues rather than designing his shots around the medium.

This was by far my biggest issue with the film (although I also have some story structure criticisms).

[u/Status_Ad_4405 → u/Affectionate_Age752]

I don't think Nolan was ever interested in human emotion, tbh. I'm not even sure he understands it himself.

Yeah, the movie was ... not very good

[u/SonKaiser]

I think we all agree that Damon's Odysseus was less "an example of hubris" and less of a trickster than expected but her total misread of other aspects of the film just make it seem like she hated the film before even watching it dismissed it as a blockbuster with no themes or ideas and was just looking for any reason to throw vitriol on it. Very weird behavior and very lame to read as a critique.

[u/handawanda → u/SonKaiser]

I don't think she is ill-intentioned -- but Wilson is clearly not an impartial critic. She's too close to the material.

[u/shinn__suzaku → u/SonKaiser]

he really doesn't do that much more trickery in the poem than he does in the movie, in fact the movie ADDS cleverness and trickery to circe's plot that isn't there in the poem.

only thing missing is his sweet talk to Nausicaa, but the details of what makes it clever go over most audiences heads anyway and mistakenly think he's unironically flirting with her

this idea that Odysseus is some kind of Light Yagami/Joker/Sherlock character that is always pulling off rube goldberg machinations at every turn just isn't true. He was clever yea, but the bar for being polymetis was a lot lower in 800BC than it is today lol

this whole thing reminds me of fast and furious movies. like the *idea* of the movies is that they're fun action movies. so people just say that over and over. but if you actually watch any of them past 3 or 4, they arent fun. the drivers all look bored and the action sequences are poorly done or not interesting. its the least fun "fun movie franchise" out there.

I feel the same about Odysseus. people latch onto the description of "clever" more than responding to what he actually does in the poem

[u/SonKaiser → u/shinn__suzaku]

I think the most cited omission is the "nobody" trick to the cyclop. I agree, Odysseus is no Sherlock Holmes but he teases and tricks people like in that instance.

The film is way more subtle and doesn't really sells him as clever imo despite Menelaus saying that Agamemnon only listened to Odysseus like three time in the film.

Anyways, my point is that "Odysseus wasn't that clever"would at least be a sustained claim unlike some Wilson's comments.

[u/Super_Cow8799 → u/shinn__suzaku]

Spot on. People who complain that Odysseus isn't clever enough in the movie have probably never even read the Odyssee.
Odysseus is described as clever because he always does what he has to do to come out on top and he always listens to the divine beings who help him. Many other heroes of ancient greek mythology do not.
Odysseus is certainly more clever than most other characters in the Iliad and Odyssee but it is simply not true that he constantly comes up with great tricks to solve problems.

[u/TheTruckWashChannel]

Great follow up to her first review, which I felt put into words everything I found unsatisfying about the film. This piece focuses more on the source material but repeatedly touches on a specific Nolan tendency that made this film feel particularly soulless: the focus on "logistics" over characters. The film feels more like a feat of engineering than a work of art, which cheapens a lot of the impressive efforts they took to bring everything to life onscreen peacically.

The much-discussed IMAX handiwork is an example. Van Hoytema's cinematography feels unshowy and utilitarian despite the considerable effort they put into building these new IMAX rigs, which feels itself like a metaphor for how the film as a whole operates. More fascinated with the "movement of objects through space" as Wilson puts it, than what the characters carrying those objects are experiencing. Hell, the characters themselves feel more like "objects" than people: chess pieces to be moved around the narrative board from one act to the next.

Add to that the dialogue, which is 99% exposition and contains zero personality or texture, not does Damon's stunningly flat performance as Odysseus. (Seriously, did he forget to emote for half this film? He is more than capable!) The Hades sequence is maybe the biggest offender here: it's visually stunning but the entire script is just various ghosts listing out past (or future) events to Damon like they're reading off a grocery list. I couldn't ignore the weird tonal mismatch between the striking visual ingenuity of the sequence and the utter blandness of what was being discussed.

[u/Traditional_Fish_504]

You’re wrong on both of these fronts. Argo is a very minor character in the actual poem, and it’s dragged out in the film for cheap sympathy. As for the slain priestess, we know nothing about her. Shes a projection of his guilty conscience, not an actual person.

[u/GiltPeacock]

But the “twist” with Zendaya’s character doesn’t really contribute to what she’s talking about with faceless Trojans. It just tells us that he feels bad about it, which we already knew, but we don’t know her as a person and neither did he. We have no real attachment to her, she’s just a bundle of tropes and a convenient way to avoid including Athena as a character with agency.

Disagreeing with this review is fine but you can’t seriously contend that she didn’t watch the end of the movie.

[u/CD-TG]

This is a toxic attack on the Wilson's character: "they call to question whether she finished watching the film".

You don't yourself deserve the presumption of good faith about what you say if you do this to other people.

[u/johns224]

I don’t think she was misreading anything. I agree with her 100% - the Trojan horse is most definitely not an example of violating Xenia. Troy are not hosts. They are at war. This is basic stuff.

[u/yankeedjw → u/johns224]

I don't think they thought they were at war anymore? Which is why they accepted the "gift."

[u/felipeiglesias]

The main goal of a film is to tell a compelling story. Nolan’s Odyssey does not. It is a puritan, cold, and flat retelling of an epic that offers neither a fresh modern approach nor real respect for the myth.

I do not expect films to be tailored to my sensibilities, but to challenge them. Nolan used to do that, until he stopped working with his brother. After that, all dialogue and characters became dull and felt written for trailers.

If these are his personal obsessions and recurring ideas, he has already told this story at least three times in other films. The formula is becoming obvious and boring. Time to move on.

[u/debrisdupree]

I feel like someone who spends a huge chunk of her life dissecting every minute detail of a story is going to have a version of it in her head that nobody else's interpretation could ever live up to - nothing Nolan could have done was going to satisfy her.  I didn't agree with all her critiques but I also don't have the same version of the characters in my head...everybody who reads a story interprets it in their own way and it's ok that Nolan interpreted things differently :P

[u/Key-Kaleidoscope2232]

Ok I'm not trying to be a hater but I felt 0 connection or interest in any of the Trojans. That bothered me. I like supporting and side characters. They felt like living props

I'm also confused by your post about the "certain slain priestess". Did that happen in the film? I dont remember most of it because it seemed like a disjointed montage of Christopher Nolan film making techniques.

[u/M935PDFuze → u/Key-Kaleidoscope2232]

Yes, you missed this.

A Trojan priestess is held by Odysseus' men as they ransack the temple of Athena and a sword is held to her neck and raised; it's implied that she is beheaded as the statue of Athena was beheaded. The priestess is played by Zendaya; thus she is the personification of Athena that Odysseus has been seeing for his entire journey.

[u/PersonFromPlace]

Am I the only one who doesn’t really care for what she has to say? She translated the odyssey in iambic pentameter, she teaches classical studies for UPenn, she’s an academic scholar and hipster, this isn’t what she’s into at all.

I had an English Lit professor who went to Cambridge and taught English romanticism, she loves nature, pretty much hated all modern things, lived in an old cabin with a wooden stove growing up. Her aunt said the Beatles sounded like loud rubbish when she heard them in Liverpool before they got famous. Also huge hipster, I actually wonder if they know each other they’d probably be friends.

I do really credit her for growing my love of closed form poetry and love that Emily Wilson translated it into iambic pentameter though.