Adaptation necessitates change. For as long as people have been creating art, that art has been reinterpreted to fit different agendas and cultural contexts. The same can be said for the modern day, where stories are constantly being retrofitted and revived to make sequels and spinoffs. And the world of prestige cinema is no different, with director Christopher Nolan taking on one of humanity’s longest-lasting stories: The Odyssey.
While Nolan is not the first director to take on Homer’s epic poems, he is certainly the most prolific, and the filmmaker anticipated to make the biggest splash with his interpretation. However, there is a problem facing Nolan and his adaptation: how do you create a piece palatable to the masses from a story rooted in a vastly different culture and time? How do you retell this story in a way that reflects modern views on the world?
Nolan, it seems, has an answer to these concerns. And it involves reframing the way Odysseus is presented to the viewer. Odysseus, in the original epic, is a cunning man who functions in many ways as a foil to Achilles (the hero of Homer’s other major work, The Iliad). Achilles is a man of strength who lives a short but glorious life. Odysseus, on the other hand, is a man of mind who lives a long and sometimes turbulent but ultimately peaceful life.
While Odysseus is not a flat character, he is one who functions ultimately as a hero. He is a great man who is given the gift of a peaceful death after a long life. But in his adaptation, Nolan rejects this premise of greatness. He chooses to present Odysseus as a deeply complicated man who engages in brutal action. Odysseus, to Nolan, is a man who could be great, but is instead wracked by the guilt of his actions. Athena is presented to him as the visage of a girl killed in the battle of Troy, and who braves an angry Poseidon’s sea in an effort to return home.
These are choices made possibly to reflect modern-age views on war and violence as something morally negative rather than an opportunity for glory. While there is something interesting to be said about this interpretation of Odysseus and his journey, Nolan makes several choices that undermine this approach. Namely, he decontextualizes the story and gives in to the compulsions of modern Hollywood action blockbusters. Through both of these choices, Odysseus is made into a different character entirely, one who functions more as an allegory for contemporary military practices than as the epic hero he once was.
Starting with the decontextualization of the story, The Odyssey, by virtue of its time of creation, is a work deeply rooted in the ancient world. Homer includes traditions, gods, and practices which now seem foreign to a modern audience. It is therefore understandable to alter some of the language used when presenting the story to a modern audience, likely unfamiliar with these things. However, Nolan fails in his negation of these elements rather than in their adaptation.
The Greek pantheon in Nolan’s Odyssey is absent. They are shown more as forces of nature which men are forced to contend with, rather than the flawed and petty beings Homer portrays them as. While some members of the pantheon are mentioned by name (largely limited to Athena, Zeus, and Poseidon), they are depersonalized.
Worse yet, the majority of the gods from Homer’s original text are either removed (such as Hermes) or presented to the audience without context (such as Circe, who is presented as more of an enchantress than a god).
By removing the structure of the pantheon, but not their actions and effects on the story, Nolan is left with an incomplete tale to tell. Much of Odysseus’s characterization comes from his role as a ‘man of twists and turns’ within a realm inhabited by petty gods. He escapes conflict through cunning (such as telling the Cyclops Polyphemus that his name is ‘nobody’ in order to trick Poseidon after attacking the creature) and is rewarded for it with eventual safe passage home. While it isn’t clear where this decision came from, it could be interpreted as an appeal to modern-day sensibilities.
The majority of people are not intimately familiar with the Greek pantheon or its characterization. And the majority of religions practiced today do not present their God or Gods as on par with human beings, rather presenting them as divine entities above mortal problems. This creates a fear of violating sensibilities when creating a film like the Odyssey, where the gods and their irrationality take center stage. Making the path of least resistance that of simply removing them entirely.
But without the gods and their children as a concrete character within the film, Nolan is left with no other option but to portray Odysseus as a man of strength rather than a man of wit. He does not trick Polyphemus. Rather, he and his men simply attack the Cyclops. This ties into the second compulsion in Nolan’s Odyssey: the desire to meet Hollywood action-blockbuster standards.
There seems to be an assumption in blockbuster movies that action must be at the forefront of at least the majority of scenes, and that those who partake in the violence inherent to the genre must either revel in or be haunted by their own actions. This compulsion takes center stage in Nolan’s work, where the majority of non-violent encounters are removed regardless of their narrative importance (such as the bag of wind).
Additionally, we see Odysseus presented as a haunted man of strength in a way that eerily mirrors more modern war films such as All Quiet on the Western Front. Odysseus visits his men in Hades (though the film refuses to call it as such). He brings home totems for them, and his violence and its impact on the people of Troy are kept center stage. In Nolan’s work, we see a scarred man who presents himself as a war hero to the people around him, despite the guilt he seems to feel for his actions.
Yet, despite this decision, Nolan keeps the story’s generally positive ending. Nolan chooses to end his Odyssey with a shot of Odysseus and Penelope sailing off into the sunset (despite the story’s strong emphasis on home and homecoming). Odysseus spends the film haunted and guilt-ridden, and faces no emotional or physical catharsis for this. All of this leaves Nolan’s work in a strange place.
It is a story about Gods without Gods. A story about a homecoming, where the hero leaves home immediately afterward. And a story about a witty man with no acts of wit under his belt. Nolan’s greatest flaw in this film is not making Odysseus too violent or too great, but rather writing him so that he becomes nothing at all.
Summer Haddad is a Junior anthropology major and an arts and culture writer for The Retriever.
Contact Summer at shaddad1@umbc.edu