Emily Wilson, the author whose 2017 translation of “The Odyssey” was an influence for Christopher Nolan during his own adaptation process, is doubling down in her critiques of the director’s blockbuster epic. In an op-ed written for The Atlantic, Wilson called out Nolan’s “Odyssey” for being “emotionally empty.” She previously torched the movie in a review published by the London Review of Books in which she called Nolan’s screenplay “abysmal” and added: “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
In her op-ed for the Atlantic, Wilson explains how one of her big issues with Nolan’s movie is its approach to “Zeus’ law.” The phrase is repeated numerous times by characters in the movie and is a variation of the Golden Rule: “We must host beggars and strangers kindly, to ‘do as we would be done by,’ and because they could be gods in disguise.” Nolan’s movie reckons with how Odysseus (Matt Damon) breaks Zeus’ law by coming up with the plan for the Trojan Horse and executing it in an attempt to sack the city of Troy through a deception. Although Wilson is not sold on Nolan’s interpretation here.
As Wilson explains: “The horse is presented as the ultimate violation of the law of Zeus, because it entails wielding a weapon of mass destruction disguised as a gift… The horse is presented as breaking ‘civilization’ because it represents the moment when the good guy, Odysseus, echoes the behavior of the bad guy by being a deceitful, ungrateful guest. But the film does not explain what ‘hospitality’ has to do with a narrative situation in which the Greeks have been besieging Troy for 10 years already [which Nolan’s movie does not depict]; the Trojans are not their hosts but their enemies in war. If the war is bad, it is nonsensical to suggest that the most important turning point is the use of the horse rather than Agamemnon’s choice to invade Troy in the first place and Odysseus’s choice to yield to the empire’s demands. The visually impressive spectacle of the horse on a stunning stretch of pristine beach contributes to the narrative muddle: The Greeks have supposedly been encamped there for the past decade, yet it shows no sign of human habitation.”
According to Wilson, Nolan’s “Odyssey” is “not interested in the social or psychological questions of how people deceive and are deceived.” She takes issue with the dissonance between the director’s script and his direction. The screenplay “grandly insists on the importance of human kindness, while the camera shows us an entirely different set of values,” she argues, explaining that Nolan’s direction is mostly concerned with the “mechanical challenge of moving objects through space,” be it the Trojan Horse or ships or more.
“What matters cinematically are the logistics: the rolling of the horse uphill and the claustrophobic, waterlogged interior. Once the ambush of the Trojans begins, the camera lingers repeatedly not on the human actors but on the enflamed, toppling buildings and the great gates of the city, whose slow-moving mechanism is observed at great length,” Wilson writes. “The script tells us loudly that people matter, but the camera shows us that what matters is the mechanical challenge of moving objects through space.”
“Nolan’s Odyssey is itself a kind of Trojan horse,” she continued. “The script grandly insists on the importance of human kindness, while the camera shows us an entirely different set of values. In these times of hatred and misinformation, we need more than the ‘apparent magic’ of deceptive images. We need art that is truthful about the costs and the necessity of compassion, and that recognizes that a sense of spiritual superiority may not protect us from lies. These lessons are legible in Homer and Virgil, but are elided by Nolan’s visually stunning, emotionally empty film.”
Wilson, who is also a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, originally criticized Nolan’s adaptation for lacking “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.” The author said them movie has “nothing convincing to say.”
“Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ lacks many of the elements that make the poem great,” Wilson wrote originally. “It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
Audiences have not shared Wilson’s dissatisfaction, as the movie received an “A” CinemaScore during its opening weekend and has turned into one of the year’s biggest blockbusters at the box office. The film has earned a staggering $405 million domestically and $922 million worldwide through three weeks of release.
Wilson’s criticisms were also derided by author Joyce Carol Oates, who slammed her on X for attacking Nolan’s movie.
“Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers,” Carol wrote. “One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is.”
Read Wilson’s full op-ed written for The Atlantic here.
