Christopher Nolan built his Odyssey script around Emily Wilson’s celebrated 2017 translation, crediting her opening line, “Tell me about a complicated man,” as direct inspiration.
Nolan took a cinematic sh*t on THE ODYSSEY, and Wilson's translation was the literary equivalent; I tend to think they go together like bacon & eggs...
I'd trust the judgment of anyone who knew as much about the Odyssey as the average person knows about Odin and the Sagas or Beowulf.
Did the film work for you as an epic adventure? If it did, fine.
AND, shame on everyone involved for the stolen valor. Call it "A Complicated Man: The Odyssey reimagined" or even just Odysseus and it would've been fair game.
The scene where Odysseus, disguised as a beggar in his own home, strings the bow and does the trick shot, while the realization slowly washes over the suitors that they're screwed was handled very well. I'll give it that. But the film does so much violence to the source material leading up to that point that that doesn't save it. The handling of the Circe episode was especially egregious. In Homer Circe is the daughter of Helios and granddaughter of Oceanus, two titans. She's assumed to be much more powerful than mortal men. She drugs and transforms the men just because she can. But Nolan portrays her as a weak victim who curses the men in self-defense. In Homer Circe is the one who violates Xenia by failing to be hospitable. Nolan inverts this by having the men barging into her home and frightening her. And as Mendelsohn correctly points out, Nolan's Odysseus is not Homer's Odysseus. Not even a little bit. The IMAX format made the film entertaining enough, but it's not Homer.
Of course Nolan botched it. How could he not. He was using a fucked up translation to make his movie.
As the saying goes, trash in, trash out.
I'd rather read an Odyssey reimagining from Wilson. Yes, Wilson the volleyball from Castaway.
Nolan took a cinematic sh*t on THE ODYSSEY, and Wilson's translation was the literary equivalent; I tend to think they go together like bacon & eggs...
Baked con & unfertilized eggs.
Eh, some people just like cool special effects.
It's hard to say.
I'd trust the judgment of anyone who knew as much about the Odyssey as the average person knows about Odin and the Sagas or Beowulf.
Did the film work for you as an epic adventure? If it did, fine.
AND, shame on everyone involved for the stolen valor. Call it "A Complicated Man: The Odyssey reimagined" or even just Odysseus and it would've been fair game.
Distancing herself from her own work?
Only she can get it right, you see, even imitators aren't as smart and insightful as she is.
This dick-riding is embarrassing.
The scene where Odysseus, disguised as a beggar in his own home, strings the bow and does the trick shot, while the realization slowly washes over the suitors that they're screwed was handled very well. I'll give it that. But the film does so much violence to the source material leading up to that point that that doesn't save it. The handling of the Circe episode was especially egregious. In Homer Circe is the daughter of Helios and granddaughter of Oceanus, two titans. She's assumed to be much more powerful than mortal men. She drugs and transforms the men just because she can. But Nolan portrays her as a weak victim who curses the men in self-defense. In Homer Circe is the one who violates Xenia by failing to be hospitable. Nolan inverts this by having the men barging into her home and frightening her. And as Mendelsohn correctly points out, Nolan's Odysseus is not Homer's Odysseus. Not even a little bit. The IMAX format made the film entertaining enough, but it's not Homer.
Why call it Odysseus at all?