Monday, August 31, 2026

“The Odyssey”: A Film by Christopher Nolan

Music by Ludwig Göransson

A response of Professor Emily Wilson’s review, “An Uncomplicated Man.”

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man

“Now is the time for the resurrection of all myths in light,” said Abel Gance, whose La Roue and Napoleon’s remain canonical monumentin any ephebe’s  cinematic education.  In the century since Gance made that proclamation, cinema has made itself into a myth in which the singularity of a resurrection has mutated into a question of viability: is there a potential remake lurking in the latest release? Or sequel or prequel?

 I have my doubts that any studio, including Netflix, is going to give the green light to a production of The Iliad, even though the box office success of Christopher Nolan’s  The Odyssey has indicated that twenty-first century audiences retain a strong appetite for epic endeavors. If it does happen, I would hesitate to bet that the executives who sign off on the project had first read Homer’s poem and spent serious time comparing it with the working script on the verge of being sent to a casting agency.

It’s possible, however, that one of them might have heard of Professor Emily Wilson’s complaints about Nolan’s film and decided to hire her as a consultant.  If so, they should be cautious about taking advice from her. Professor Wilson’s skills as a translator, unfortunately, don’t carry over into film commentary or even into basic constructions of rhetorical argumen As any undergraduate in one of my courses learns, the use of a word of a word such as “every” is to be avoided unless there is some overwhelming advantage. Professor Wilson, however, had so much confidence in her creitical powers that she didn’t bother to have herself tied to the mast, let alone put wax in her ears,” when she heard the alluring song of the Sirens of Totality. The dismaying result is all too visible in one of her more scathing comments about Nolan’s The Odyssey: “ every second is jam-packed with incident, lights and noise, and nothing is ever at a human scale.

 “Every second is jam-packed …. with noise.”  When someone makes such a sweeping claim, I am instantly on guard. “Every second?” I’ll grant that there were a half-dozen occasions when the volume of the martial conflicts were too intense and I had to put my hands over my ears. aFor the most part, though, I found myself increasingly enjoying the musical score to the film, and it is the absence of any comment whatsoever on the music in the film that I find Wilson’s comment on the permeating noise to be extraordinarily disturbing Did she not once take note of the absence of the usual orchestral ambiance that would accompany a film project on this scale? Her review of The Odyssey constantly upbraids Nolan and his collaborators for their lack of subtlety, and yet the score is one of the least lush compositions to undergird a film of this length and scope. Compare the soundtrack of Jean Luc Godard’s Le Morris with Nolan’s Odyssey.  Repeated listenings to the former have only increased my admiration for its capacity to convey the somber approach of an ineluctable fatal crescendo. The impetus of the music in The Odyssey is far more restrained. I would cite in particular a moment in the film where only the plangent warbling of the reed instrument are heard as the score steps forward in the mode of a haunting, delicate filigree of wistful foreknowledge, all the while holding at bay the modulated thump of the staff hitting the ground sound that opens the film. Wilson’s failure to comment on the music amounts to an act of pompous disrespect.While it is not a great film score (though it will be a serious contender to win at least an Academy Award nomination, if not the award itself), it is an above-average effort that is hard to overlook, unless one is engaged in a self-righteous piece of attack and burn.

Furthermore, even when Dr. Wilson points out discrepancies between Homer’s poem and Nolan’s rendition that on the surface would seem to justify her criticism, she ends up missing the mark. When Odysseus floats on an improvised raft that doesn’t look capable of ferrying anyone across the Mississippi River, let alone back home to Ithaca, is one supposed to perceive the image as literal? Has Dr. Wilson never heard of metaphor? That image is intended to convey the human, all too human fragility of our hero, and one should note how quiet that image is. But of course, that’s impossible. Dr. Wilson has assured us that “every second is jam-packed …. with noise.”

Unforced errors are quite often the most painful to witness. How is it possible that a scholar of Professor Wilson’s distinction could make an inaccurate statement about a basic part of the narrative: “Homer’s Odysseus tells the tall tale of his adventures….” Sigh. Actually, Professor Wilson, Odyseeus LISTENS to the tall tale of his adventures at the banquet provided by Nausica’s family. Big difference, eh? Odysseus, as anyone who has read the poem even casually will recollect, weeps upon hearing the account of the ravishing of Tro; his host calls attention to his distress, since what thoughtful host would want the evening’s entertainment to upset a dinner guest? Among others, Francois Hartog has written about this scene in a manner worth perusing. (See “From Odysseus’s Tears to Augustine’s Meditations” in Regimes of Historicity : Presentism and Experiences of Time, 2015).

Finally, as regards Wilson’s commentary, I have to thoroughly disagree with her assessment that “(T)he massacre of the suitors is probably the most enjoyable sequence in the film.” Halfway through watching it, I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud. The massacre scene was nothing more than a cinematic rehash of all the saloon fights of Hollywood Westerns, except on a more operatic scale. In terms of cinema, it was the least imaginative variant in the entire two and a half hours. Even that lapse does not do more than subtract two tenths of a point from my final scoring. On a scale of 10, I’d give The Odyssey a 9.2.

What are some things I would have done differently? One tiny thing is to have had the opening lines of Homer’s Odyssey in Green on the screen in the moment when the credits begin and the screen reads: “Based on Homer’s poem, The Odyssey.”

What additional scene might I have shot, if I had been directing the film? Remembering that they are using the stars to navigate. how about a scene with the boat out on the water at night? That’s when the quiet music would have been exquisite, and then to have a subtle tapping of a staff as rosy-fingered dawn allows themselves to open the sails once again.

Finally, as the long credits roll, I would have brought in a little contemporary music as a tip of the cap to a classic piece of pop music, Cream’s “Tales of Brave Ulysses.”

A little noise, at the very end, just to show the professor what “noise” might hint at.