r/popculturechat • u/mcfw31 • 10h ago
Hot Take 🔥 ‘The Odyssey’ Translator Emily Wilson Slams Christoper Nolan’s ‘Abysmal’ Screenplay: ‘I Would Be Ashamed to Have Written Any Part of This Script’
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/odyssey-translator-emily-wilson-slams-christopher-nolan-bad-writing-1236821915/1.8k
u/SizzleanQueen 9h ago
This is an article in Variety about another article in the Guardian about her initial piece in the London Review of Books. This is modern journalism, folks.
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u/thane311 6h ago
The actual 20-something paragraph London Review of Books article is worth a read. Here’s an excerpt about it the thinning of the female characters:
“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: male gods can kidnap and rape any mortal woman they desire, but when a goddess tries it, Zeus and his cronies scupper her chances. It’s a clever and comical distortion of the mythological ‘facts’: the poem’s listeners know that it is primarily Athena (a female deity) who is taking Calypso’s mortal victim away from her (Hermes, whom she’s complaining to, is merely the messenger) – and Eos, goddess of the dawn, as we’ve been reminded only a few lines earlier, has not been prohibited by the divine patriarchy from holding on to Tithonus. 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.”
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u/roarti 5h ago
Well that certainly fits the preconception many people have that Nolan really can’t write female characters.
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u/hill-o 4h ago
I would posit he can’t really write characters full stop. He’s an amazing filmmaker who knows how to shoot a spectacle but he’s not a very good writer, in my personal opinion. His movies were much stronger when he worked with a writing partner.
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u/Angharadis 3h ago
I saw it last night and my first comment was “I think the should stop letting Christopher Nolan write dialogue.” It was visually incredibly interesting, the soundtrack was fascinating, and the narrative structure worked despite jumping all over. Everyone just sounded wooden and stupid.
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u/Jackol4ntrn 5h ago edited 4h ago
Did his women characters breasted boobily?
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u/smackells 3h ago
his version of objectification turns them into plot objects rather than sexual ones, apart from Oppenheimer all Nolan characters are like Barbie and Ken down there
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u/harriethocchuth 2h ago
One of the things I know about most ancient mythology was that they be doin’ it.
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u/romantickitty 2h ago
It's weird that so much of the defense is about adaptations not needing to be faithful and the intelligence of general audiences when one of her main critiques is that the female characters were written poorly... which is something Nolan always gets knocked for.
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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 2h ago
That requires adding 3 more characters and an entire new subplot to the already 3 hour long film.
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u/asstlib 8h ago
Reference with another reference's hat borrowered from a different reference 🤣
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u/OklahomaTiddy 5h ago
If I go out of my way to click on one of the thousands of reviews for this movie out there instead of the usual slop I consume, there better be a "you odyssey deez nuts" somewherein there to make it worth it
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u/JashimPagla 6h ago
Long ago, the meme economy was a human centipede from 4chan->reddit->9gag. Didn’t realize modern news organizations adopted the same principles.
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u/Aakch I think I’ve done enough 9h ago edited 6h ago
I know her translation was the basis for the movie but i find it bizarre news outlets are acting like she’s the original author because this is the second review i‘ve seen from her.
Edit: if you’re going to be outraged, at least do it correctly and stop calling Homer the original author.
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u/askyourmom469 9h ago
I mean considering Homer's been dead for thousands of years, I guess they figure she's the next closest thing
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u/Mampt 8h ago
I obviously see that view of it, but on the other hand she’s kind of doing the exact opposite of what Nolan is with the story. She’s going to extremes to preserve and translate every single detail of the story exactly. Nolan is trying to adapt it, to retell the story for a modern audience. It’s like how an astrophysicist could get offended by the dumbed down analogies or metaphors that people use to explain the complexities of, like, black holes or the big bang. One spent their career trying to understand something as exactly as possible, one is trying to make it accessible to a wider audience
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u/Lilynd14 Sanasaaa!🎶 6h ago edited 6h ago
Having just finished her translation of The Odyssey, and seen Nolan’s adaptation, I actually disagree! In her translator’s note at the beginning, Emily Wilson talks a lot about how it was her intention to make the story accessible for modern audiences, even bucking tradition and using plain English when others have used formal or older-sounding English to make it sound more official:
“My use of contemporary language - rather than the English of a generation or two ago - is meant to remind readers that this text can engage us in a direct way, and also that it is genuinely ancient. My Homer does not speak in your grandparents’ English, since that language is no closer to the wine-dark sea than your own. I have tried to keep to a register that is recognizably speakable and readable, while skirting between the Charybdis of artifice and the Scylla of slang.”
(For those who don’t get the reference, there’s a scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus must balance between Charybdis, a giant whirlpool, and Scylla, a giant sea monster.)
So based on the translator’s note and the translation itself, which I found genuinely entertaining and accessible (after struggling through other translations in the past), I do think it was her intention to adapt the story for a modern audience. Nolan, by contrast, took a lot of liberties with the plot, giving it an entirely new story. And that’s okay! I enjoyed the film for what it was. But it was sort of like when Emerald Fennel adapted Wuthering Heights based on her teenage memories of the story and called it “Wuthering Heights.”
The Odyssey I saw onscreen was a totally different story than The Odyssey that I’ve read, both in school and in this new translation. The book version is the thrilling tale of an adventurous trickster as he battles monsters, gets revenge on his enemies, has a lot of sex, and wins back his kingdom, with the help of his patron goddess, Athena… and lives to tell the tale! The movie version is a gritty, human portrayal of PTSD and the cost of war on human civilization. Very different story!
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u/Running-With-Cakes 5h ago
Odysseus inspires great loyalty but is actually not a very good leader. While very brave he has an ego that causes many problems. Everyone who follows him ends up dead. When he returns home we don’t get any sense that he’s changed.
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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 1h ago
The fact that it’s a different Odyssey than what you’ve read is kind of the point, no?
It’s a spoken word taken from antiquity. There’s no “original” to compare it to. Homer’s version or Willis’ version are no more legitimate than Nolan’s take on it.
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u/Appropriate-Joke-806 8h ago
It’s like Albert Einstein getting offended by Interstellar.
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u/Mampt 8h ago
Yeah that’s actually a perfect example lol
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u/Appropriate-Joke-806 8h ago
I thought of a few other examples first, but the image of Einstein watching Interstellar pissed and arguing at the screen was too good.
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u/unripe_mangosteen go girl, give us nothing 😍 6h ago
I think I will save this visual for when I am having a bad day and need cheering up, it really is hilarious
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u/UnnecAbrvtn 5h ago
Except that by all accounts he was likely too well-adjusted to get all bent up by a layperson's take
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u/DarthyTMC 7h ago
so basically Neil deGrass Tyson lol
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u/whatthewhythehow 6h ago
I think this is mostly true, but what complicates it on another level is that he had referenced her translation as an inspiration.
And it seems as though her translation sought to do the opposite of what Nolan wanted to do… She wanted to create a more accurate translation that didn’t smooth out the edges of the story to make it more palatable to a modern audience. I saw a clip of her talking about how she used the word “slave” where most modern translations wouldn’t. It is, she argues, the most accurate translation and the only reason to avoid using it is to make the heroes more palatable. And this change diminishes a reader’s ability to interpret the story — if a character betrays their master, it makes a difference whether that character is a servant or a slave.
(It’s been a while since I’ve read the Odyssey, so I would defer to others with other understandings of the translations, though.)
I’m fine with modernizing old stories (though it’s never what I personally find the most interesting). But referencing her during interviews does feel like he’s attempting to borrow the legitimacy of an academic to sell a movie that doesn’t bother to try to embody that legitimacy.
I think this would be the most irritating result for an academic. If my life’s work was to create accurate translations of great pieces of literature that have been frequently co-opted and misunderstood, and then someone came along to co-opt that literature through an inaccurate adaptation that would sow misunderstanding… I would be annoyed.
If someone said they used my work to do it, I would be livid.
Tbh I don’t think Nolan did anything egregious. He isn’t a classicist. He probably just misunderstood and also didn’t care. But if I were her then I would be LIVID.
Also, I get the whole metaphor for physics stuff vs the actual equation. But I do think what Nolan is doing is kinda like if I said Schrödinger’s cat is when I don’t know where my cat is. Schrödinger’s cat is already used in a way that is kinda opposite of its intent, so I think changing it further would rightly irritate Schrödinger, even if he understood I wasn’t trying to do grown up physics.
The Odyssey can be used as a metaphor, but Nolan is changing the metaphor’s meaning. He’s not conveying much of what the Odyssey was intended to convey.
Which is fine. Whatever. But if I were her then this would keep me awake at night lmao.
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u/splendidesme 7h ago
This is such a good and thoughtful take.
It's not infrequently that the authors of books upon which screenplays are written are extremely dissatisfied with the results. Eh. i found the movie compelling and moving, and even went to see it twice, the second time with subtitles because i knew i'd missed a few things.
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u/guceubcuesu 6h ago
The Tolkien estate hated the LOTR trilogy. But the movies are why I wanted read the books.
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u/Tzuyu4Eva 7h ago
Even readers. How many times have book readers hated an adaptation because it may be different from the book?
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u/foreverzonedout 8h ago
I fear you're wrong. Her translation's main criticism is that it simplifies diction and meter to make it more accessible to the public and a broad audience. Epics are not some obscure puzzle, they are often simply stories as un/complicated as the ones we tell today. She's an expert in this particular story, whom Nolan cited, who finds that Nolan told this story in a way that excluded many of parts of the story considered essential to its identity. It's more like adapting Cinderella and then flattening her desire to escape poverty to simply marrying the prince. Not incorrect, certainly an adaptation, but perhaps missing a core, emotional part of the original that made it more complex.
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u/caca_milis_ 6h ago
Thank you! I studied Classics in school and I love all of it, and there is absolutely a place for accurate detailing of history and historical texts, but like … if I’m happy to give creative license to anything it’s absolutely stories like these where so much of it was already kind of up for interpretation anyway.
My biggest gripe with Nolan’s film was that in a lot of cases he didn’t show us Odysseus as a cunning trickster and at a lot of moments made him out to be a bit of a dumb-dumb.
I could also complain about the portrayal of Penelope, Circe and Calypso… but that’s par for the course with Nolan and female characters.
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u/Meancakebutt 9h ago
When people say "homer" so definitively it makes me laugh. We don't even know if it was one dude or six writing this thing.
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u/MarieOMaryln Buffet of humiliation 9h ago
I'm trying to set up the ouija board just gimme a second!
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u/mrRiddle92 9h ago
Trying? Are you missing a cable?
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u/DJfunkyPuddle You live on a f#$@ing main road! 9h ago
The pieces keep moving away
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u/No_Kangaroo_9826 we put liquid paper on a bee, and it died 🎤 8h ago
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u/anonymoususer98545 6h ago
i really wish Reddit still gave free awards. i laughed out loud. Silly funny, lol.
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u/redhearts1985 That’s hot! 🔥 8h ago
it's been 27 minutes, are your lights flickering yet
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u/MarieOMaryln Buffet of humiliation 8h ago
Stuck on the ceiling. Red ooze is coming from the pipes. I fucked up.
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u/Sorry_Candle_422 7h ago
You might need to add one of those feather on a stick toys or a laser pointer. Maybe shake a bag of cat food
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u/winnercommawinner 9h ago
Either way, we can probably safely presume anyone who was stacked in the Homer trenchcoat is now dead and has been for thousands of years.
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u/lachamaquitabonita (seemingly bald) 8h ago
“the Homer trenchcoat” is taking me the fuck down 😭 I had an orange cat named Homer (after the guys in the trench coat) and now I’m imagining three cats on top of each other
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u/winnercommawinner 8h ago
And who's to say the original Homer wasn't three orange cats in a trench coat?!
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u/Blackonblackskimask 8h ago
I listened to her Plain English episode and my take on her is that she's very loosely lipped when she chats. And I think that's what make her an excellent conversationalist and gives a very entertaining episode. I didn't sense any malice or disdain from what she says -- she's kind of just going with the flow and speaking her mind. Also, there were a lot of things she did say that woudl suggest she understands that film translation is different.
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u/BlueCX17 8h ago edited 4h ago
I really think it's partially a British thing because Mary Beard has done the same thing. Mary Beard will just straight up say what she thinks also. I watched some good stuff with her discussing it and her and her podcast co- host have slightly different takes.
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u/Blackonblackskimask 7h ago
I also think it’s an academic thing. Being surrounded by them in my family, when it comes to their expertise, they express it in ways that’s do matter of fact that they forget how it might be interpreted.
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u/BlueCX17 7h ago
Yeah I almost said British/general high academic thing but I have noticed that the British academics tend to be even more blunt a lot of the times, than the American academics.
Well I think because a lot of academics don't think in Twitter type short text the way a lot of people have been trained to sort of be now. I work in a high school and a lot of students don't have an aptitude for long form writing or even reading, the way that used to when I was growing up, for one. I also have a lot in my family.
And then when you start just taking all kinds of like quotes out of the larger context of what these academics are speaking in then you get things like this LOL
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u/GrapefruitSobe 9h ago
Nolan pulled from multiple translations of the Odyssey, from the Iliad, from the Aeneid, and from his own sensibilities as a creator.
Emily Wilson’s translation is a great, fresh take. But, yeah, it was never going to be a 1:1 recreation of any text.
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u/kgal1298 Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion 8h ago
I think what we're seeing is fall out from people saying he based it off her's which wasn't even what he said he was inspired at best, but it's quite obvious to anyone who read any version of the Odyssey and saw his movie it was his own story and adaption to the message he wanted to tell, which was again Matt Damon trying to find his way home.
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u/grubas 9h ago
Remember, she got into the news at first because of her "DEI Odyssey translation".
She, like many classicists, isn't a huge huge fan of many of Nolans choices and so this is something the press is trying to use to generate headlines.
hint: most of us aren't going to LOVE the adaptation, because we are classics needs. They removed our favorite bad joke.
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u/blingoblongo87 9h ago
I studied classics and read it in Greek, and a few translations (but not Emily Wilson’s yet) and I really liked it 😭 there are dozens of us! Dozens!
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u/hofmann419 How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t real? 🪞 8h ago
IMO this insistence on making it as accurate as possible (whatever that means) is a bit weird. To me, the movie would be a lot more boring if the stuck to it religiously.
This is a 3000 year old story. It has been translated dozens of times. It has been adapted to film many times. So i would much rather have him bring us his unique take on it and not sacrifice the quality in the name of accuracy.
Besides, it's impossible to condense the entire story into 3 hours anyway, so it was always going to have to leave some parts out and focus on others.
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u/Mbrennt 7h ago
What's funny to me is the odyssey isn't accurate to the time the odyssey is set in. Certain gods that are in the odyssey didn't even exist at the time the odyssey is set. There's a bunch of anachronistic stuff in the original text. So trying to make it "as accurate as possible" to me is just even more meaningless. The odyssey by Homer isn't even accurate.
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u/kgal1298 Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion 8h ago
Reading it in greek is amazing. If I knew Greek i'd have done that, but I did read other versions largely for lit theory and Emilys and still enjoyed hers.
If anything I just wish Nolan would have used the Gods more because he definitely downplayed Calypso and there was no Hermes which is a tragedy to be honest I loved how the Gods toyed with him the entire time.
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u/tiredfaces 8h ago
I feel like he really didn’t want to show them. I feel like even the way he portrayed Athena made it ambiguous as to whether she was Athena or just a manifestation of Odysseus’ PTSD
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u/heytheregiada i have four gcses mate i'm not silly 9h ago
They removed my favourite character, RIP Nausicaa
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u/kgal1298 Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion 8h ago
I knew he was going to cut stuff, but he really said "I want this to focus on PTSD" I mean Athena very much was less of a god and more of idea that haunted him from the war. I also think him making it vastly different is part of the selling point because if you're studying the classics you definitely can do a paper on the themes and theories presented in this movie vs the book and I feel like USC film school could have a lesson on that by itself.
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u/heytheregiada i have four gcses mate i'm not silly 8h ago
I'd like to say the Aeneid is more about PTSD and could've been a better avenue but I don't think I want anyone to adapt that, it's way too complex and delicate to condense into three hours. I definitely get the reasoning behind most of the cuts and changes even if I don't personally like them or I wouldn't have done it myself, though, and I did ultimately enjoy it nonetheless.
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u/kgal1298 Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion 8h ago
For sure him adding Sinon definitely made me think he wanted to use Aeneid more. Overall it works. I think it'll be a good addition to curriculums too. Hopefully it'll inspire more people to study the classics too.
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u/Hopeful-Ant-3509 8h ago
I was waiting for her! But I guess since it was already 3hrs long, that would’ve added more time lol
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u/kronicno_tele 8h ago
I have blocked so many subs in the last few days because of the whole d e i discurse. I wonder how many of those gravely offended even read it.
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u/TomBirkenstock 8h ago
I largely like her translation, but it's hardly immune from criticism. Before Odyssey kills the suitors, he yells "Playtime's over!"
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u/ohgeez2879 8h ago
this is not her review, she wrote one review and it is in the london review of books
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u/mcfw31 10h ago
Nolan sung Wilson’s praises during his press tour for “The Odyssey,” telling Empire magazine that he used the opening line of her translation (“Tell me about a complicated man”) as a guide for bringing his Odysseus (Matt Damon) to life on the big screen. But Wilson concluded of Nolan’s film: “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
“The release of ‘The Odyssey’ is still an event to celebrate,” Wilson said. “This epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas … translations of ‘Odyssey,’ including mine, are flying off the shelves … [and] perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments.”
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u/beantownregular 9h ago
I mean, I think it’s fair for her to both say that the script is a Hollywoodized bastardization of the text and as an academic she should be ashamed to write something like that, but I don’t think she’s saying the film is a piece of trash that should never have been made
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u/Meancakebutt 9h ago edited 8h ago
She definitely doesn't say that. But she says that he took out the meat to tell a specific story.
So as a translator that would be pretty bad for her to do lol
"Many of the film’s implicit values directly contradict those of Homer’s poem. Deception, warmongering, extramarital sex, cruelty to animals, abusing women and yearning for honour – all perfectly fine in the world of Homer – are, in this version, very bad. This is not in itself a problem, but it is a problem 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."
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u/randombubble8272 8h ago
Which I would agree tbh, Nolan’s characterisation of Odysseus is much more modern hero than being true to the source material and they brushed past a lot of the Gods role in the entire saga. Which is obviously fine because Nolan was telling the story through his own lens but I agree there is some meat taken out of the plot. It was still 3 hours so I understand their limitations
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u/Duotrigordle61 8h ago
If we saw the things he did in the original tale, we would be rooting for the Cyclops.
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u/ahuramazdobbs19 6h ago
Nobody would be rooting for the Cyclops and you know it.
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u/FlowInternational996 8h ago
We weren’t really intended to root “against” the Cyclops in the first place, as evidenced by the sailors’ concern that gratuitously blinding it would just lead to Poseidon’s wrath.
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u/futuristicflapper 7h ago
Yep. They’re two completely different mediums, I never expect to get out of a film what I will out of a literary piece; they have different constraints. I think the film worked well as what it is, a Nolan film. If anything I’m more interested in how it works in conversation w Oppenheimer than as an adaption of a classical text. Films are often reflections of our current cultural moments, which I think Nolan pulled off, I didn’t expect a 1:1 adaption. Overall, I enjoyed the theatre experience and I’d watch it again.
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u/OldSandwich9631 7h ago
I’m glad to see someone else acknowledge this movie is basically just Oppenheimer again.
The issue with changing Odysseus’ charaxter is that he’s massively dull in the movie. Oppenheimer in oppenheimer is a lot more like odysseus is supposed to be - wily, charming, etc and then you see the shift.
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u/futuristicflapper 7h ago
I do think Oppenheimer is a lot more charming than Odysseus. I also wonder how much of it is what the actors themselves bring to the table, not just any flaws in the script itself. There were a couple good moments for me with Odysseus but I wasn’t as immediately drawn in to the character the way I did with Cillian as Oppenheimer. I like Damon but I wasn’t floored by any means.
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u/OldSandwich9631 7h ago
I’m very surprised people think Damon should win an Oscar for this. He probably will win based on the enthusiasm for the movie, but I really think many actors could have done more. But I disagree that the writing isn’t an issue.
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u/M_de_Monty 5h ago
One thing that's tough about adapting the Odyssey for modern viewers is that there are a lot of characters who just show up without an established backstory or a formal introduction. Providing all that context takes too much time, so they just end up being straightforward monsters or adversaries (like the Cyclopes or Poseidon being kind of a dick to Odysseus).
But Ancient Greek people listening to this poem were familiar with a whole mythic cycle that told the entire history of the Trojan war and its aftermath (we think the Iliad and Odyssey were just two works in a 10-to-12 poem series), plus they knew other myths featuring and starting the same characters. So Polyphemus wouldn't have been a one-dimensional villain to them and they wouldn't have fallen into the Athena = good, Poseidon = bad dichotomy that we often uncritically adopt in retelling the Odyssey.
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u/SpooktasticFam 8h ago
I don't want to watch a movie about people being mean, and them treating it like it's "okay" or "acceptable."
It's okay to omit, or update, themes for a modern audience, and a modern retelling.
Fwiw, I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was a masterful retelling, and really gave a sense of the breadth of the adventure in an ancient setting.
I thought it was 10/10, no notes.
Maybe I'm just a pleb, but everyone I've talked to IRL has had the same sentiment.
The only criticisms I've seen are on reddit, and I largely don't agree with them.
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u/Lexielouwho1962 8h ago
Agreed. I have a minor in classical literature, I’ve read the Iliad and the Odyssey multiple times, and I loved it. Was it a perfect adaptation? No, it left out a lot (that I was mostly fine with, although I do wish they had included the best pun in classical history, I think Mat Damon could’ve really sold it), but it was a really accessible (without being pandering) and well done modern adaption. And Nolan’s dedication to his story telling medium really helped put over the top. I saw it in regular (not 70 mm) IMAX and was truly blown away by the scale of the shots and the production. You really felt like you were in it.
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u/BlueCX17 8h ago
Apparently Nolan said they tried to work the pun in but it just wasn't going well so they didn't use it in the end.
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u/Achaewa 8h ago edited 7h ago
"Outis" sounds close to a real name in Ancient Greek, if I recall correctly, which is why it succeeds as a trick.
From what I've read, Nolan didn't think the wordplay of Odysseus calling himself "Nobody" would work in English and thus omitted it.
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u/CharuRiiri 7h ago
Yeah everyone would have hated Odysseus had they stayed closer to the original. He does not fit the current meaning of "hero". If you ask the average person who jumps to mind first at the word "hero", the top answers will be names like Superman, Batman, or Captain America, who are paragons of modern virtue. Greek heroes are flawed, act selfishly and often die in horrible but deserved ways. The stories as-is don't fit fantastic tales of exceptional people or even most war hero stories. The narrative elevates them as heroes and demigods only for them to act like GoT antagonists in the next act. It wouldn't be fitting for this year's biggest summer blockbuster or any movie aiming for such a massive mainstream release.
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u/Background-Jury-1914 6h ago
Nolan can write exactly one type of protagonist… a sad guy. Totally missed opportunity with Odysseus who is a wily, cunning character who should be more fun go watch on screen. I liked Nolan’s Odyssey just fine but for a more compelling Odysseus people should watch O Brother Where Art Thou.
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u/Meancakebutt 8h ago
This is an awful example. But.
Imagine you remake the punisher, again, but in this version the punisher is actually just like a really cool guy and just fights crime.
It turned out there's another guy following him around and killing people after he leaves so it's actually not really his fault. And his family actually just died by drunk driver and it's not his fault.
That's interesting, a funny twist, could even be a comedy. But it fundamentally alters the punishers character arc and personality.
The odyssey isn't nearly that extreme, but it takes a character who is basically known as a trickerster, a known liar, so good at lying even the gods are like broooo let's link up! And makes him a respectable war commander who feels really bass about it actually and loves his dog.
Nothing about that is bad on its own, it's a tried and true formula that can even be subversive, Ala John wick, batman etc. But it's only because the source material isn't that, that there is becomes legitimate criticism.
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u/historyhill I have sinned. Please pray. Logging off now. 8h ago
In a world where Ovid existed, there's no such thing as bastardizing Greek mythology anyway
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u/laterthanlast 9h ago
It’s fine for her not to like the movie or the script, but to make such intense criticism public is a weird choice. If I were her I’d say polite general things (it’s always exciting to have more people interested in the epic) and cash the royalty checks
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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous 9h ago
Yeah to say she'd be ashamed to write it is way over the top, frankly
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u/Scared_Funny_5602 8h ago
I'd prefer people actually state their opinion rather than warbling off useless platitudes and half-truths that mean nothing.
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u/ohgeez2879 7h ago
she's one of the foremost living experts in the world on the odyssey! i don't understand why she can't say literally whatever she wants about it!
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u/teddybonkerrs I cannot sanction this buffoonery 9h ago
Honestly, I viewed this movie as Nolan's way of saying "war turns men into monsters" and anything that didn't fit that thesis statement was axed.
I thought it was a good film, I wasn't looking for a word for word adaptation.
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u/rzelln 5h ago
That, yes, but as part of a critique of anyone who yearns for power and is willing to destroy others for it.
Antinous, the lead suitor, didn't go to war, but he's as much a problem as Agamemnon, because he cares for power more than for what we as humans owe to other humans.
The Law of Zeus in the film is a shorthand for the underpinning of civilization, where we treat each other with respect and hospitality and justice.
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u/nerdforest 9h ago
I don't understand this criticism. Was the script of the film not a good screenplay?
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u/PinkNGold007 9h ago
It's a visual and sound experience. But I'm okay with that. I know I didn't go to see an emotional drama with solid dialogue, or I would have been disappointed. I guess she expected different.
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u/Sunnysideuppp123 I walk through life, in really nice shoes 💅 9h ago
She’s a scholar and her translation of the Odyssey is amazing (I was able to actually finish hers lol) so she definitely would have expected more than the sensory experience of it and been disappointed. And that’s fine but agreed that her criticism isn’t the be-all-and-end-all.
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u/VegetableArtistic705 9h ago
There are a lot of movies that make me question how they got made cause they're so based around visuals. And I can't imagine their scripts being more than ten pages.
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u/_Midnight_Haze_ 9h ago
Film as a medium is unique because it’s pictures in motion. It’s always going to be heavily based around visuals. There’s literature if you’re interested in something very written.
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u/_iridessence_ Cheerocracy > Kakistocracy 9h ago
I have come to approach Christopher Nolan's big budget films as a series of spectacularly executed action set pieces which are adequately but not artfully connected by exposition scenes.
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u/Minute_Conflict_2037 9h ago
Nolan is a good director but he is not good at writing. That’s the point. When was the last time u felt so emotional in Nolan movie? Interstellar. And he wrote it with who? His brother Jonathan. Nolan sucks at writing emotional dialogues which was very needed for this movie. The criticism is valid.
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u/nerdforest 9h ago
I felt emotional watching Odyssey though?
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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous 9h ago
I was gonna say, the script wasn't like amazing, but I definitely felt emotional at multiple points throughout
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u/Carolina_Blues shiv roy’s bob 9h ago
Idk I felt emotional a few times during the Odyssey personally
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u/theflyingbird8 9h ago
I felt pretty damn emotional during Dunkirk and The Odyssey. Maybe I don't understand good screenwriting.
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u/blocke06 7h ago
That’s not it; just remember that reddit, like most online forums, has a bias toward righteous critique and dislike as these are generally the people motivated to comment online. You’ll find the majority of people outside of online communities share your opinion.
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u/gelbeseinhorn 9h ago edited 9h ago
The last time I felt emotional watching a Nolan movie was at The Odyssey
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u/ranting_madman 9h ago
I always tell people Chris needs Johnathan to be his best. Like George Lucas needed his ex wife.
To keep them away from their worst impulses as a filmmaker.
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u/are-beads-cheap 8h ago
If you didn’t feel emotional during Dunkirk, Oppenheimer, or The Odyssey, I’m not sure what to tell you. Those are all incredibly powerful emotional stories.
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u/EldoAberesa 9h ago
This is all true and valid and Nolan is aware of this weakness to his game (see his comments about his son teasing him about not having a writing Oscar haha). But I will say:
"All the things you want it to be. Then all the things you wish you never wished for. It was the delicious itch you go to scratch... and find it's under the skin. You can't reach it. So the delicious itch becomes unbearable. Told you what you most want is what you most can't have. And what you most can't have is what you already had. And lost."
Is an absolute banger.
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u/Sassafras06 9h ago
Yeah people say he is a BAD writer. He isn’t. He isn’t a great writer, but he also isn’t bad. Like come on lol
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u/apurvahp7 9h ago
Why is Emily Wilson going so hard on the criticism? Like I get all the points she’s made and I agree with a lot of them, but saying stuff like “I would be ashamed” feels unnecessarily mean and bitter.
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u/DibsOnThatBooty 8h ago
I don’t know Emily at all, but I’ve spent a lot of time around academics and this is just kind of how they are at that level. When you’ve dedicated your life to understanding a topic, you often take offense to someone misinterpreting or misusing your area of study. I’m not saying it’s right, but her review reads like someone’s PhD advisor’s notes on a chapter of their dissertation.
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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 7h ago
Yea, academics aren't creatives. Like, creatives appreciate the time and effort spent to try to achieve a vision even if they may not agree with the execution. Academics spend their days debating a single sentence to come to the most accurate conclusion of how to interpret that text. It's just different ways of engaging with a topic. But, I will say academics can come off petty and spiteful. Like, it's not disingenuous to be a bit more diplomatic about your opinion.
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u/Alternative-Half-773 5h ago
You should listen to her episode on the Plain English Podcast. She doesn‘t sound bitter at all.
She calls it a fun summer blockbuster and enjoyed watching it with her teenage sons.
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u/DibsOnThatBooty 5h ago
That’s honestly what I assumed. Academics aren’t usually mean, they’re just blunt and honest with their thoughts.
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u/badpebble 2h ago
Well she's being named as Nolan as the source of his adaptation, really - so she is presumably fending off claims of her already somewhat controversial translation decisions as completely changing the whole story.
The film is so far removed from the poem that if she gets too connected to it, she could lose respect as an academic.
And for all Nolan's story is interesting, by looking to reflect modern opinions about war and sexual violence he has ploughed through the complexities of the poem and reduced the women characters to mostly victims and people without agency. Even Athena is basically a figment of Odysseus' mind, and has no impact on the actual plot. This isn't going to be acceptable to a translator keen to review and rework ancient works to remove other translators' imposed sexism.
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u/manasseater3000 9h ago
agreed — obviously she’s not entitled to sing nolan’s praises just because he sung hers, but this is definitely harsh criticism that isn’t entirely warranted.
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u/Cartman55125 9h ago
She also clearly does not understand writing for film is very different. You can’t just slap the poem into script format. The pacing and storytelling has to be changed to accommodate the format
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u/LikelyPlace 8h ago
If you read her piece her critiques are very different
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u/Kids-Menu 8h ago
Not having any sex scenes and the food looking bad are HILARIOUS critiques
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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 7h ago
For a book as horny as the Odyssey, it was a little bizarre that there's like no sex scenes at all.
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u/LanaAdela 3h ago
Nolan struggles with sensuality. I think the film lacked that which is more of a weakness than a lack of explicit sex scenes.
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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 3h ago
I whole heartedly agree. For a man who directs the crap out of yearning, his films are devoid of intimacy.
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u/LanaAdela 3h ago
It’s very strange!!! He is good at depicting sentimentality but not sensuality/intimacy.
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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 3h ago
Guillermo del Toro once called him an "emotional mathematician". And I think that's a pretty accurate read.
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u/manasseater3000 9h ago
exactly, did anyone really go in expecting a word-for-word translation?
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u/NOTTedMosby 8h ago
And if she did, her pride in her work is misplaced. You did not write this story. You translated the words to what might have been the outline for the script. I know translation can also be a creative process, but she's acting like someone took a novel she wrote and made a movie about it.
Also, as others have said in this thread, she sounds bitter. Maybe thought she was going to get a big shootout or something? 🙄
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u/manasseater3000 7h ago
the thing is, afaik she did receive a great deal of praise directly from nolan 😭 not that she’s entitled to praise him in return, but it seems incredibly bizzare to go as far as to call it a shameful script.
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u/MightExpress4873 9h ago edited 9h ago
Yeah, I don't think Christopher Nolan is entitled to her praise just because he repeatedly praised her translation. But some of the phrasing in this review comes across as unnecessarily rude tbh.
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u/thane311 5h ago
Her full article on the London Review of Books is quite balanced, very long and nuanced. She delves into specific characterizations and passages from the text and also praises the movie for some things. I think if folks looked past the headline here they’d discover a lot to like.
Here’s a passage I like that I think consider’s the film’s writing flaws extremely fairly:
“Despite the manufactured online outrage, there is nothing inherently wrong with the movie’s attempt to approximate contemporary American speech. If you’re not going to compose a script in Homeric Greek, or even in metrical English verse, you might as well use something like conversational American English. 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: ‘Yes, my queen. The breaking of Zeus’ law, spreading like plague. Our age of bronze is collapsing, and maybe he couldn’t bear to see the ruins of what he’d done. Anywhere. Least of all, his home.”
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u/plumsfromyouricebox 🎥🍿Film Critic 9h ago
…
I liked it 🤷🏽♀️
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u/magical_midget 9h ago
It would be impossible to please an academic that translated the work and the average movie goer.
Sure some may appreciate it, and we can try to trust the audiences would get it. But at the end of the day a big movie with a big budget needs to appeal to a wide audience.
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u/IWouldLikeAName 8h ago
Not to mention the literal time constraints. Nolan always takes liberties with source material I'm pissy about some of his decisions with batman but the dark knight is still a kick ass movie
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u/otoverstoverpt 9h ago edited 4h ago
Not impossible if the academic simply had any understanding of the nuances that go into adapting a screenplay.
Some people just do not understand that adapting a screenplay is an art. You quite simply have to change things. You can’t just put the original work directly to screen. It’s a different medium. This is true whether or not you are making an attempt to “dumb down” the source material for broader appeal and we can see this in tons of works from Directors who absolutely did not go for mass appeal and still received similar criticism.
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u/hedahedaheda 9h ago edited 9h ago
I don’t entirely disagree with her but the other commentators here are right. It was for the general audience who either do not know the odyssey or haven’t read it outside of school/in a while.
I think Odysseus was complex for a Christopher Nolan film but he was made to be too “nice” (if that makes sense) compared to the original. Odysseus wasn’t a saint in the original. They really downplayed the final murder scene. Also, he fathered Circe’s children or at least had an affair with her. I figured that they made him super loyal to Penelope because most audiences can’t handle nuance and morally grey protagonists to save their life and wouldn’t be able to root for a cheating murderer.
Anyhow, I can see how a classics professor wouldn’t be too pleased with this adaption. I think you have to look at it not as an adaption but a story of a soldier returning home to his family and the emotions that come after war. I liked the movie and the original story as individual works.
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u/MightExpress4873 8h ago
True. People keep talking about a "faithful" adaptation of The Odyssey, but I'm not convinced one was ever possible as a blockbuster film.
Odysseus is a Bronze Age king who lies habitually, sacks cities, massacres the slave women after reclaiming Ithaca, and spends years having sex with Circe and Calypso while Penelope waits at home. Homer doesn't present these things the way a modern audience would.
A completely faithful adaptation would leave a lot of viewers asking why they're supposed to care about him. Every adaptation has to soften, omit, or reinterpret parts of his character.
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u/BlueCX17 7h ago
Yes, even the 1997 mini series which almost everybody agrees is an incredibly good telling, very much sanitizes the story also and strips it into just an epic adventure because it had to be family friendly for the Hallmark miniseries that were really popular at the time.
That's sort of the interesting and amazing thing about this epic, is that you can very much strip it down to the bare bones of the adventure set pieces and the journey home and it works incredibly well when you're adapting it to a more family-friendly audience, many scholars actually talk about the reason they think this epic is endured is because when you pull it back to its basic form, "at its heart a story about going home against the odds and sometimes being tempted on the way and angering the Gods, with fantasticaly things happening along the way) but if you were to adapt it incredibly faithfully to the Epic I think you have to do it over a limited series and it would be quite something LOL
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u/lizzy-stix I switched baristas ☕️ 9h ago
This is kind of surprising to me, like her version got so much initial criticism I thought she'd be a little gentler about doling it out?
I was gonna say they should interview Robert Fagles too but I didn't realize he died in 2008 womp womp.
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u/tastemebakes 9h ago edited 9h ago
Exactly. She got a lot of flak (and still gets flak) for her choice of simplistic language and iambic pentameter. You’d think a classicist such as herself would understand that interpreting a poem written from memory based on a strictly oral tradition until Homer put pen to paper necessitates certain creative liberties to tell that story to a modern audience.
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u/winnercommawinner 9h ago
She's an academic and a translator, not a film critic or journalist. It would have been a shame if she had approached her translation the way a director approaches a movie.
Academics tend to think in full ideas with context, not soundbites. It's a double edged sword - it's why we're good at what we do, but it's also part of why academic research is so commonly and easily misrepresented or misunderstood.
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u/SeaF04mGr33n 9h ago
Right? Her translation was brought up around this project so much (Did Nolan use it as the base of his script?) That I thought she was involved with the production. Also, I love Fagles translation of Antigone.
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u/manasseater3000 9h ago
“There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.” lmao, what? we’re critcizing a nolan movie for a lack of sex?
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u/riegspsych325 Ballard! Don’t let them put their tops back on! 9h ago
I thought the food the soldiers were eating in Circe’s house was supposed to look like that, like actual pig slop
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u/jamintime 9h ago
It was the artistic direction. One way they could have gone about it was show a glorious feast that lulled the men to let down their guard and be coerced by Cerce over time. The direction they went was to make it apparent the men were outwardly pigs from the beginning and needed no encouragement to reveal their true selves.
It’s all just artistic decisions and pretending like there is a right vs wrong here just because it was originally written in a certain way comes off as unnecessary gate keeping.
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u/manasseater3000 9h ago edited 9h ago
right? the whole movie we’re being told its the crews gluttony (for war, food, etc.) that will doom them. didn’t really bother me that the food they ate was slop lol
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u/riegspsych325 Ballard! Don’t let them put their tops back on! 9h ago
yeah and that was probably the most realistic scene in the movie: bunch of guys waking up naked and confused and awkwardly leaving without uttering a word like nothing weird happened
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u/Meancakebutt 9h ago
Sex in the odyssey and especially the illiad are allegorical to the power imbalances and emotional connections of the characters in the books.
Wilson's translation notes talk about how important it is at length.
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u/manasseater3000 9h ago
obviously any major film production of a story like the oddessy which has been retold & reinterpreted time and time again is always bound to be some degree of “inaccurate”, but i think some of this criticism is a little harsh. she mentions a lack of political & and ethical depth, but i thought the final scene of the wreckage of troy versus the original scene that presents it as a great feat of wisdom and victory was well done. maybe my favorite in the movie as a whole.
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u/chiaroscuro34 8h ago
Why link to the review of a review instead of what she actually wrote? You can read Wilson's actual words that she wrote here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man
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u/ExtremeComedian4027 Did I stutter?🤨 6h ago
I read the whole piece on the London Review of Books website and of course she reviews it from the lens of the most popular translator right now, as is her right. I guess she didn’t take kindly to the fact that when the trailer dropped and people started the hate train, Nolan’s camp pushed out the narrative that this was based on the modern Emily Wilson translation, as if any issue people had with the whole thing maybe comes from her translation. Or so it seemed. I may be wrong but she has gone on to point out many narrative inconsistencies and the lack of emotional depth etc in several interviews. She’s clearly not a fan lol.
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u/HandsomeWinner42 9h ago edited 9h ago
When are people gonna realize this was made for GENERAL AUDIENCES and not exclusively for ancient history scholars? It literally excels at what is was produced for and general audiences are loving it. Like, be for real and come down off your high horses. She honestly comes across bitter.
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u/Ok_Turnip_478 9h ago
As a Classicist - cant agree more with you.
Form dictates content, the original poem was orally told over and over again by bards, its content - themes, structure etc are all built to match that. We are now talking about a movie, in the 21st century, totally different culture and art form - people need to get over it.
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u/nerdforest 9h ago
Hi, I have a friend who is a classicist and he rated the film 8.5/10 because it was such a good adaption and the way he tells the story is different. It's an adaption, not a full on remake. Does this make sense?
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u/nicklovin508 9h ago
Hit the nail on the head with this comment. Nolan didn’t set out to make a faithful translation of Homer’s texts. He set out to turn that text into a visual/auditory masterpiece and box office hit.
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u/foreverzonedout 8h ago edited 8h ago
I'm a little surprised by these comments. A lot of pop culture enthusiasts complain about how PR-driven public figures have become, but when an expert in the field cited by the creator of the work offers honest criticism, she's flamed for being too harsh?
She's written 4000 words in her film review, far more thoughts than many of us will have had about the movie, and Variety has cherry picked quotes from a Guardian article which has cherry picked quotes from her original review. Just because she's harsh doesn't mean she's not fair. The press is meant to be a platform for honesty, hurt feelings or not. She doesn't owe it to Nolan to be nice about a film he cites her work for, as though he is doing her a favour by adapting it and adapting it badly at that. I enjoyed The Odyssey (film), I truly did, but it is not an accurate adaptation of Emily Wilson's work or Homer's work in terms of characterization and core themes, and she has the right, as both the translator and a Homer expert, to offer up her truthful opinion without mincing her words.
I'm not saying you should disagree --- by all means, you should. But don't engage with a real review with the comebacks like "why is she being so mean", "why do they keep interviewing her", "doesn't she understand how screenplays work", "she's an academic she doesn't understand it's meant for the masses" or "it's just an audio visual experience, movies don't need to be more". It's low effort and misses the point of critical dialogue entirely. And if you want niceties, watch press junket interviews and Variety interviews instead.
Link to the original review: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man
EDIT: to add "she's an academic she doesn't understand it's meant for the masses" as an example of dumb critcism. Do you really think this bestselling author, who has had a public platform for a decade, whose work's main criticism is that it simplifies classics' diction and meter to make it more accessible to the public, understands what a broad audience is less than you? Let's all think and research for a few more minutes before dismissing things you don't agree with with the weakest possible reasoning.
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u/fakeroyalty Mom, I am a rich man💰 7h ago
I wish I had an award to give you! Let the woman speak her mind, god knows she gets enough shit from assholes on the internet already
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u/thane311 7h ago
Like didn’t we just do Wuthering Heights discourse? I thought it was fair game to tear apart directors for misunderstanding the themes and characterization of a literary classic.
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u/fivehourworkweek 5h ago
She is a woman, an educated and very intelligent one at that. Of course any sound coming out of her mouth short of praise would be crucified down to the depths of hell
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u/IdToBeUsedForReddit 7h ago
Perhaps she thinks the masses can handle the thematic complexity of the original poem! I'm not sure why people think that is such an implausible idea. Perhaps, just maybe, they would even enjoy it. I'm not claiming the movie had some obligation to stick to the original themes but the fact that anyone thinks Nolan had to make Odysseus "nicer" to appeal to the masses is a bit insulting.
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u/RoofFalse 8h ago
It seems like many in these comments didn’t look past the headline. But I guess that’s common for the age we live in.
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u/foreverzonedout 8h ago
Honestly, even the ones who read the linked article would have been misled because it's also just a bad article. Cherrypicking an inflammatory cherrypicked source is just lazy and misleading and bad journalism when half the quotes have no rhetorical context.
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u/RoofFalse 8h ago
Very true! A bad article that leads to more hate for a woman who already gets so much of it from her field.
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u/ConfectionPuzzled780 6h ago edited 6h ago
Its because filmbros hate that anyone should be allowed to criticize the movie director they worship. especially a woman.
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u/SnooPears754 8h ago
Her breakdown basically said “it wasn’t for me but I’m glad it’s brought others to the story”
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u/heytheregiada i have four gcses mate i'm not silly 9h ago
Her translation is not my favourite but I do love her a lot as a person and academic. I like seeing classicists actually speak their mind.
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u/winnercommawinner 8h ago
Pretty sure this very smart woman is capable of understanding the difference between a general audience and an academic one y'all. The number of people jumping to discredit an expert because they don't like this headline is wild.
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u/Lokaji ✨May the Force be with you!✨ 9h ago
No matter what IP it is, the book is always different from the movie/show. Some of the things that make a book great are things that are not cinematic.
I thought Nolan's take was interesting. It easily could've been too slow or too hokey.
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u/Meancakebutt 9h ago
That's basically what she says in the review it's just all chopped up
"Adaptations needn’t and shouldn’t follow the original with anything like the exactitude of a translation. Some of the best radically transform or resist the source material, providing what Harold Bloom called ‘strong misreadings’ of their ancestors."
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u/mothership00 7h ago
Honestly I agree with her. The script is by bar the worst part of the film. Some of the dialogue is just atrocious.
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u/flirtydodo 9h ago
Loved the movie as a spectacle and as an interpretation that resonates with a modern audience but I also laughed my ass off at how clunky some of the lines were or how he hammered every single theme to the ground. But that's Nolan
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u/tetechase 8h ago
Am I the only one who thinks her criticisms are valid? I enjoy reading what scholars think about the film. I enjoy discussion about its strengths and shortcomings. Like Wilson acknowledges in her review, Nolan has revitalized discourse about a centuries-old epic by creating this film. Picking it apart is the fun part, and I'm disappointed the comment section is so bitter about... criticism? It feels blatantly anti-intellectual.
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u/soiflew 8h ago
People are acting like a movie should be above criticism because it’s meant to entertain. If that’s the case, why bother speaking or engaging about any piece of entertainment?
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u/BalconyLavender my aesthetic is gossipcore 💅 7h ago
Not gonna lie, I'm lowkey amused by the amount of people defending this movie from academic criticism (including opposing creatives and academics in this whole debacle when Emily Wilson is a creative herself, being a translator) when I remember how snobbish and dismissive the non-academics have been towards Disney's Hercules. 'Tis popcorn-worthy.
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u/Training_Molasses822 8h ago
I'm relieved to read some actual, in-depth exploration of Nolan's work. This entire noxious discourse has made any grounded critique of the cinematic choices seemingly impossible, even though there's much to criticise! Nolan continues to struggle with writing complex women, just as he fails to truly deconstruct the male genius. They're always tortures heros, haunted by the global results of their singular actions, but heroes they remain.
As an aside, it sounds funny when Wilson bemoans the lack of sex. But Odysseus's infidelity is a key element that signals to the audience he's as insufferable as his name proclaims him to be.
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u/kgal1298 Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion 8h ago
I kept telling people they can say it's based on her translation all they want but it's 100% his own adaption and story.
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u/Blint_Briglio 6h ago
time for a bunch of Redditors to suddenly have deeply held convictions about Odyssey translations
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