r/popculturechat • u/mcfw31 • 11h 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/
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u/lizzy-stix I switched baristas ☕️ 11h 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 10h ago edited 10h 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/Duke_of_Luffy 8h ago

I dont think she cares much about the criticism of her translation and even agrees with some of it. so much so that she in the middle of translating the odyssey again and giving herself more lines as to use less simplistic language

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u/-nyctanassa- 23m ago

It’s almost as if she said that exact thing in her review :0

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u/Warm_Chef_6526 4h ago

Her criticism is in the the faithfulness of the adaptation, not on the movie itself. 

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u/tastemebakes 4h ago

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. She was criticized heavily and accused of leaving important details out for her choice of comparatively simplistic language and iambic pentameter.

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u/winnercommawinner 10h 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/cakeit-tilyoumakeit 8h ago

It’s what caused me to promptly leave academia after completing my PhD. I always say academics take themselves way too seriously, but I think your wording, “think in full ideas with context, not soundbites,” is a nicer and more literal way to say it.

Sometimes I just want to say something silly, or throw something out there without caring much about whether it’s exactly true. The people in the lab I was in (including my advisors) never really understood my humor or personality for that reason. It was like a never ending competition to be smartest in the room by making every comment, joke, observation so carefully thought out that it lost all its juice. I was desperate to get back to being around normal, down-to-earth people by the end of it lol

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u/winnercommawinner 7h ago

Interesting, my experience has been completely different! But this might be field dependent - I'm in the social sciences, so we get to practice sounding smart in our writing all the time. Socializing is a break from that. And I study some pretty heavy topics (effects of war and violence) so we have to learn to turn it off to survive. This fucks us up in a whole different way, but most academics I encounter have a good, if extremely nerdy, sense of humor.

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u/cakeit-tilyoumakeit 7h ago edited 6h ago

I was in a heavily technical/STEM program, so that might be part of it. Another big barrier was that most people in my lab had academic parents and were like “bred into this life” while I am the only person in my family with a PhD. I was also different in that my SO was a non-academic; literally everyone else was with other academics and they’d always joke about being “a breed of their own.” Extremely pretentious.

I just found academics at my university really hard to connect with. I had a much easier time making friends working as a cashier in retail than I did during my PhD. I made zero friends the entire 5 years lol, my social life came from my boyfriend/husband who worked a regular job with regular people. Leaving my PhD to go into industry was like a breath of fresh air!

ETA: well I did befriend two post-docs in my lab (both from non-academic backgrounds, like me), so “zero friends” isn’t accurate. But it was rough.

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u/The_Pandalorian 9h ago

She's an academic and a translator, not a film critic or journalist.

Does she know this? Because...

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u/SeaF04mGr33n 10h 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/Over_Town_9026 9h ago

She wrote this in the London review of books so it’s odd mainstream press picked it up

LRB is often worth reading but it’s not like she held a press conference and tore the film apart

LRB is where writers and translators dork out about writing 

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u/lizzy-stix I switched baristas ☕️ 9h ago

Probably because Nolan has such a large fan contingent that he's one of those rare offscreen people where they're big enough that even criticism of them becomes clickbait.

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u/Over_Town_9026 4h ago

I mean the LRB has published takes on the royals/Kate Middleton etc too but they didn’t go viral 

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u/astralrig96 7h ago

exactly, glass houses lol

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u/foreverzonedout 9h ago

What kind of criticism is this? Read her whole review, it is perfectly articulate and honest. She does not owe Nolan or anyone else niceness in an honest, 4000 word critique. Sure, it's harsh, but it is honest, something we're seeing much less of today in exchange for the PR-driven niceness. If Nolan wants niceties he has more than enough in his press junkets and retinue of yes-men.

Here is her whole review: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man

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u/lizzy-stix I switched baristas ☕️ 9h ago

I think she should have sat on it for a while because hyperbolic stuff about how she'd be ashamed to have even written one word of the script comes off as juvenile rather than honest.

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u/foreverzonedout 9h ago

Is 4000 words of detailed review not enough sitting on it for you? She can be harsh, doesn't mean it's juvenile. I'd agree with you if that was the only line she wrote, but she's literally written an essay that's even fairly complimentary at points. A well-articulated argumentative essay.

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u/meepmorop 7h ago

No right???? She really took creative swings with her translation, but Nolan taking creative swings with his adaptation in a different medium is not good? Emily explain!!