“I would be ashamed to have written this screenplay”: a Homer specialist destroys Nolan’s Odyssey
Christopher Nolan was largely inspired by his translation of The Odyssey. Emily Wilson, renowned academic and great specialist on Homer, did not appreciate its film adaptation at all.
While The Odyssey triumph at the global box office, Christopher Nolan’s film comes under particularly harsh criticism… from one of the greatest Homer specialists.
Professor of classical literature at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a famous English translation of The Odyssey published in 2017, Emily Wilson signed a virulent charge against the blockbuster in the columns of the London Review of Books.
Ironically, Christopher Nolan himself explained during the promotion of the film that this translation had strongly influenced his adaptation. He notably confided to the magazine Empire having relied on his first sentence: “Tell me about a complex man“, to construct his Ulysses, played by Matt Damon.
But the specialist clearly does not return the favor:
“I hoped that Nolan’s affinity for great Homeric themes would push him to new creative heights and allow him to create more believable characters. But The Odyssey reproduces its usual mixture of grandiloquence and superficiality… The vision of the film is too confused and its characters too undeveloped to keep the big promises it seems to make. On the other hand, he succeeds very well in showing big explosions and big giants.“
Above all, Emily Wilson believes that the director completely misses what makes the poem rich:
“The film has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war or even about the link between the glorious return of a warrior and the life of his family, his companions or his enemies. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.”
She continues by tackling the writing of the film head-on:
“The narrative structure relies on artifice. The storyline is abysmal. No character has a credible motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes…and all the food looks terrible. I would be ashamed to have written a single line of this scenario.”
That’s what it says… Even if she hates it, Emily Wilson admits, in an interview with Sunday Timesthat the success of the film also has beneficial effects:
“The release of The Odyssey remains an event to be delighted about. This epic brings spectators back to cinemas. Translations of The Odyssey, including mine, are selling very well. And perhaps the film will convince some university officials not to eliminate their literature, ancient languages or history departments…“
Not sure that this is enough to soften one of the fiercest criticisms faced by Christopher Nolan since the start of his career.
